On Thursday, Airtel gave a live demonstration of its 5G network in Hyderabad. The company claims that it is the first telecom service provider in India to successfully give a live demonstration of its 5G service. According to Airtel, the newly launched 5G network has the capability to operate over the existing network technology of both mid-bands and sub-GHz bands.
Yesterday, the company successfully operated both 5G and 4G concurrently over the existing liberalized spectrum in the 1800MHz band through the Non-Standalone (NSA) network technology. (Gadgets 360) Airtel 5G service will increase the speed of existing technology by 10 times with 10 times latency and 100 times concurrency. This will help in improving the overall user experience from attending online calls to downloading movies and TV shows.
More about Airtel 5G network
Airtel worked jointly with Ericsson, its equipment partner to bring this new experience to its users. The company has claimed that the 5G network has the capability to work over existing network technology hence can operate in mid-bands of range 1800MHz, 2100MHz, and 2300MHz. The 5G service will also operate in the sub-GHz band of frequency 800MHz and 900MHz.The existing Airtel users can use 5G services by software upgrades as said by the operator.
Airtel is now waiting for the permission from Department of Telecom (DoT) to deploy 5G services dynamically. As both the 4G and the 5G services can be operated through the same spectrum block, it will only take months for the company to make it available. Though the live service in Hyderabad was successful yesterday, Airtel didn’t mention any timeline about the commercial rollout of the 5G services. But, the CEO of Bharti Airtel mentioned that the company is waiting for government approvals. As soon as they have the permission and enough quantity of the right spectrum band, they will make the rollout of the Airtel 5G service.
Gopal Vittal, MD, and CEO of Bharti Airtel said that made a comment that India has the potential to become the global center for innovations in 5G technology. He further said that to build a strong 5G ecosystem all the devices, applications, and network innovation should come together.
Demonstration of Airtel 5G service
Airtel carried out the 5G demonstration in Oppo Reno 5 Pro and Oppo Find X2 Pro. The company claims that there are more than 20 different smartphones, 5 models, in India that are ready to use the Airtel 5G services. The existing users of Airtel don’t need to upgrade their sim cards for 5G usage unlike what we used to do earlier for changing sim cards to 3G or 4G network. Since both the 4G and 5G service can be provided from the same spectrum block, things have become a lot simpler and easier in the switching part. The live demonstration of the 5G network is only available in some selected stores in Hyderabad.
Jio’s attempt to launch 5G in India
Apart from Bharti Airtel, its leading competitor in the Indian telecom market, Reliance Jio has also started testing its 5G services. Recently, the company has announced the advanced 5G testing it is carrying out this year. The company has also mentioned that very soon it will be bringing the 5G service of Reliance Jio in India probably this year itself. Though the operator has promised to test its 5G network at a scale, the company hasn’t announced a date yet for any live demonstrations like Airtel. It is very likely that Jio might roll out the 5G services in the second half of this year. In a recent statement made by Mukesh Ambani, Chairperson of Reliance Industries, he said that the company will make the 5G services available at an affordable rate everywhere in the country.
6 months notice period for 5G rollout
Previously, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has announced that any telecom service provider should give a one-year notice before launching any new technology using the seven frequency bands that will be up for auction. But, yesterday DoT reduced the one-year notice period to 6-months. For the auction of the seven frequency bands, the government has planned to put a rate of Rs 3.92 lakh crore.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more