5G airwaves will soon be up for auctions as soon as the telcos are done with their field trials. 5G in India is expected to come anytime during the first half of 2022. But the ride for the government nor the telcos won’t be easy. The issue is the spectrum price. Time and again, the telcos and the industry officials have communicated this with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Ideally, the DoT should reduce the base price of the spectrum for the upcoming auctions. At the same time, the price should be reduced to the extent where the operators feel comfortable. If the price is high, the operators will just avoid investing a lot of their money into the spectrum, which will affect the way Indians consume 5G network services, at least in the first few months or a year.
Indian Government Needs to Take Special Care of the 5G Spectrum Pricing
The pricing of the 5G spectrum is going to be very crucial, both for the operators and the government. This is because the spectrum sale is potential revenue for the government, while the spectrum allotment means the telcos can expand their network more powerfully and provide even better services. According to a Livemint report, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said that the Indian government must reduce the base price of the 5G spectrum. This is because if the price is not reduced, it will likely result in 50% to 60% of the spectrum going unsold. Further, if the spectrum price is not reduced, the cost for the deployment of the 5G networks will go high. This will result in an increased price of the 5G plans for the end consumers as the telcos will look to recover the cost from their subscribers. There might also be a scenario where the operators might ditch the spectrum purchase in the auctions and just go live with their 5G networks with the help of the 4G spectrum.
