Airtel 5G to roll out in India soon after the spectrum auction

Airtel's 5G services will be rolled out shortly after the government concludes the spectrum auction, an executive said in an interview on the sidelines of a physical event on Thursday where the telecommunications company demonstrated its next-generation network. The New Delhi-based telecom operator is moving to take on Reliance Jio, the country's largest telecom company, setting the stage for its 5G launches. He demonstrated the Airtel 5G network at its Network Experience Center in Manesar, Gurugram, showcasing an immersive video experience using the 3500 MHz band test spectrum allocated by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

CTO Randeep Sekhon suggested in an interview with 91Mobiles that Airtel will launch its 5G services in the country within 2-3 months after the spectrum auction.

"While this is not a race, we believe Airtel is very ready to launch 5G after the spectrum auction," he said, as quoted by the website.

Sekhon also underlined that 5G plans in the country are expected to be similar to 4G tariffs.

Airtel demonstrated the potential of its 5G services by recreating cricketer Kapil Dev's 175-innings stadium experience at the 1983 Cricket World Cup. He realized the experience by playing a 4K video of the match simultaneously for 50 concurrent users, available on a network that offers an average speed of 200 Mbps and a latency of around 20 milliseconds.

The operator also displayed a 5G-powered hologram of the cricketer to demonstrate its next-generation network running on an Ericsson 5G radio in non-autonomous (NSA) and autonomous (SA) modes on 3500 band test spectrum. MHz

In January last year, Airtel demonstrated its 5G network live in Hyderabad. Also, it launched its 5G test network on Gurugram to offer a speed of more than 1 Gbps in the testing phase in June.

Airtel also partnered with Qualcomm last year to bolster its 5G network rollout in the country.

Like Airtel, last year Jio also announced that it is testing its 5G network with speeds of up to 1 Gbps. Jio has a list of partners on board, including Google, Intel, and Qualcomm.

That said, the government has yet to announce the exact dates for its 5G-focused spectrum auction. However, it is expected to take place sometime in May, and it is safe to speculate that carriers should be able to start their 5G services in India from August.