India ready for 5G spectrum auction, telecoms reject timing

SK Telecom 5G RepeaterTelecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has indicated about the need for the identification of price and block size for 5G spectrum in its latest consultation paper floated on August 29.

The industry led by GSM operators association COAI feels that the government should not rush with airwaves auction this year. COAI represents telecom operators such as Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Airtel, among others.

Airtel and the state-run telecom operator BSNL have an agreement with Finland-based Nokia to explore 5G opportunities in India. Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE are yet to announce any similar 5G  agreements in India.

“The industry is undergoing an acute financial crisis which has also triggered mergers/consolidation in the sector. There is a considerable amount of uncertainty in the sector at present. Companies will need to wait a little to see how the market dynamics play out,” said Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI).

“We feel that the Government of India should not rush to auction Spectrum this year and instead, allow the market to settle down in the wake of recent mergers and acquisitions,” Rajan S Mathews said.

5G spectrum bands

TRAI indicates that 3300-3400 MHz and 3400-3600 MHz spectrum bands will be suitable for 5G. TRAI said there will be economies of scale for MBB equipment in the 3400-3600 MHz band are likely to develop. It offers large potential bandwidths while being relatively underutilized today.

The COAI told wire agency IANS that the timing of the auction of any band should be not before the latter part of 2018 or better still early part of 2019 once all the consolidation has been announced and locked down.

Rajan Mathews said the Regulatory & Technical Standards for 5G are globally in the process of deliberations and consultations. Rajan Mathews said 5G spectrum should be auctioned only after the ecosystem is developed, especially for services and apps that can work on all bands but would work much better and faster on 5G spectrum.

“2019 might be an appropriate time to auction 5G spectrum as there will be better use cases and applications for 5G,” Rajan Mathews said.

The response of Reliance Jio, the new 4G operator promoted by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, is not known. Reliance Jio earlier indicated that its all-India 4G network can support 5G without additional investment in network.

Recently, telecom minister Manoj Sinha said the next telecom policy will be about applications and not about networks.

5G grows

A number of countries are taking action to reach 200-400 MHz of contiguous bandwidth in the 3300- 4200 MHz frequency range for 5G. This will be the largest contiguous bandwidth for IMT below 6 GHz. A number of countries are considering parts of the 3300-4200 MHz range for early trials.

For instance, Europe is preparing for trials in the 3400-3800 MHz frequency band in 2018. China is doing 5G trials in 3400-3600 MHz and Japan is using 3600-4200 MHz. Australia is planning 5G trials in 3400-3600 MHz for 5G.

Indication of price

Ofcom, the telecom regulator in the U.K., has set reserve prices of £10 million per 10 MHz lot of the 2300 MHz band, and £1 million for a 5 MHz block in the 3400 MHz band, giving a total reserve price of £70 million for the 190 MHz of spectrum to be awarded. Ofcom proposes to auction the spectrum in lots of 10 MHz for the 2300 MHz band and 5 MHz for the 3400 MHz band.

Details of spectrum awarded in 3400 MHz band in some of European countries
The above chart prepared by TRAI shows details of spectrum awarded in 3400 MHz band in some of European countries.

India is one of the 11 countries in Region 3 including Australia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iran, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines and Singapore which allocated some or the entire 3400 to 3600 MHz band to IMT via footnotes to the ITU Table of Frequency Allocations for Region 3. WRC-15 did not designate any spectrum above 3600 MHz in any part of Region 3.

Cisco Visual Networking Index dated June 7, 2017 said mobile data traffic is expected to increase nearly 7-fold between 2016 and 2021. It forecasts that mobile data traffic will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent from 2016 to 2021, reaching 48.3 Exabyte’s8 per month by 2021.

Baburajan K