Govt To Hold Auctioning Of 5G Spectrum In June 2019

The government will hold 5G spectrum auctioning in June 2019 and the first commercial network on the next
generation technology will be rolled out by next year in the country, telecom secretary and chairman of telecom commission Aruna Sundararajan said.

Addressing media persons at the Indian Telephone Industries’s (ITI) manufacturing unit in Kanjikode on Saturday, she said the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has given its recommendations for the spectrum
auction’

“It will be a unique project and our plan is to develop 5G capabilities on our own without importing them like we did the previous spectrum. In fact, we have even started working on the development of 6G spectrum,” she said.

“ITI has tied up with 13 startup companies in Bengaluru for design and manufacturing of the 5G chips. We will make the ITI units the hubs for research and development. The ITI has also signed a memorandum of understanding with IITs to develop new technologies and update the existing ones,” the telecom secretary said.

She said the ITI, which was started in 1948, made a profit of Rs 102 crore after 16 years and now all its six units at Bengaluru, Rae Bareli, Mankapur, Naini, Palakkad and Srinagar are making a profit.

The Palakkad unit, which has been running well for the past 23 years, made a profit of Rs 45 crore in the past fiscal. The ITI boasts of an all-time high order book of Rs 15,000 crore and it is expected to reach Rs 25,000 crore by 2020.

The facilities for calibration and testing of smart energy meters were inaugurated by the telecom secretary. Chairman and MD of ITI K Aalagesan and director (marketing) R M Agarwal were also present in the occasion—Gadgets Now