If you are someone who is closely following the Indian telecom industry, you know that the biggest thing going on right now is the spectrum auction. The telcos have spent close to Rs 1.5 lakh crore until now on the spectrum in several frequency bands from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The thing that you must note here is that spectrum helps the telcos in offering mobile connectivity services. So it is an obvious question to ask whether the 4G mobile speeds will improve post the spectrum auction.
Well, the answer depends on several factors. How the telcos plan to utilise the spectrum they purchased during the auction will determine how better the 4G speeds will be. It is worth noting that the telcos have spent money on the 700 MHz band in this spectrum auction. This is a spectrum band that is primarily used for offering better coverage. So in the coming months, users might also see enhanced coverage from their respective telcos.
Additional Spectrum Can Help With Boosting Capacity
Of course, additional airwaves would help the telcos in adding capacity, which in turn could also mean fewer network congestion scenarios. India is a big market with millions of consumers trying to latch on to the mobile networks every second in heavily populated areas. Because of this, network congestion is pretty common in India. The telcos have also been accused of not throttling the connection speed for many users during peak hours because of capacity issues.
There's no clarity on how each of the telcos will utilise the additional spectrum they get from the current auctions. But it should definitely bring a change in a quantifiable manner for the consumers to experience. Just how fast it will happen is also something that is in the unknown area right now. Further, it is important to remember that the telcos are not just investing on 4G airwaves, but the main target is to get spectrum for 5G services.
