5G to Roll Out in These Indian Cities By 2022; Read the Full List Here

Last Updated on December 30, 2021 by Anu Joy

Commercial 5G services will come to thirteen cities in India in 2022, according to a statement by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT). Cities that will receive the services are as follows—Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Gurugram, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Jamnagar, and Gandhi Nagar.

The Government of India stated in an official release that work on its telecom department-funded Indigenous 5G testbed project, which began in 2018, is almost complete. It further added that the project is most likely to be concluded by December 31, 2021.

This is what the Department of Telecom had to say:

“Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G User Equipments (UEs) and network equipment by 5G stakeholders developing 5G products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country”.

The indigenous 5G test bed is said to “enable development, testing and proliferation of 5G technology system components, cross-sectoral use cases, besides setting up the foundation for the development of “6G Technology landscape”.

The trinity of leading telecom services that is Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea have already set up their own trial sites in the aforementioned cities. However, the DoT has not officially listed out which telecom operators will be first rolling out commercial 5G services in India.

Back in September, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had sent a reference to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for the auction of spectrum identified for 5G with respect to band plan, reserve price, block size, and the quantum of spectrum. It also shared the conditions of auctions in the 526-698 MHZ,700 MHZ, 800 MHZ, 900 MHZ, 1800 MHZ, 2100 MHZ, 2300 MHZ, 2500 MHZ, 3300-3670 MHZ, and 24.25-28.5 GHZ bands for 5G public as well as private 5G networks.

This year saw the launch of various 5G phones in India. And with the imminent 5G rollout, you can put your 5G smartphones to good use, if your city features in the aforementioned list.