Commercial 5G services are expected to be launched in India in an initial 13 cities, India Today has reported. The list of launch locations includes: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. While 5G services could go potentially live before the end of the month, the report notes that the government is keen to see 5G networks up and running to coincide with the start of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) event on 1 October.
As previously reported by CommsUpdate, India completed its 5G spectrum auction earlier this month. The auction saw four bidders – Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Adani Data Networks – spend a total of INR1.5 trillion (USD18.97 billion) on frequencies in the 700MHz, 800MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 3.5GHz and 26GHz bands.