Jio’s 26 GHz 5G band repurposing plan runs into Airtel resistance

In August 2022, four companies, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and Adani Data, forked out ₹14,709 crore to acquire spectrum in the 26- gigahertz (GHz) band in a government auction.

The spectrum, which offered high speeds and a lot of bandwidth but with limited propagation, meaning it does not travel large distances, was considered an attractive asset for the future growth of 5G and consumer digital technology.

The spectrum band promised a lot, high speeds in 5G-enabled cellphone handsets, and enough bandwidth to work in crowded areas like stadiums, airports and ports. It also came with the promise of improving broadband connectivity. It would do so by helping replace physical fibre cables which are cumbersome and slow to lay, with fixed wireless access (FWA) broadband, which delivers high-speed connectivity to a fixed location (a home or an office) using nearby cell towers.

Yet, four years on, the promise of 26GHz spectrum has not taken off globally or in India, held back by the high cost of putting up a dense “millimetre band network” (which means having to install a lot of antennas), the limited number of mobile devices enabled on the band, and the cost of equipment needed to be installed in homes or offices for running wireless broadband on something called 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the global standard technology that underpins 3G, 4G and 5G networks.

An alternative
That is why in May last year Reliance Jio went to the government with an alternative offer. It wants to deploy indigenously designed low-cost broadband on 26GHz band (also known as millimetre band) to homes based on WiFi standards formulated by another global standards body, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), rather than keep the spectrum underutilised.

It made sense for a company that has ambitions to hit 100 million homes across the country with wireless broadband.

It already has around 13.7 million fixed wireless broadband customers on 5G 3.5GHz and the delicenced 5.8GHz bands. It also has 15.4 million fibre-to-home customers and now wants to offer a fourth option, fixed wireless broadband on 5G 26GHz band but on WiFi standard.

But there’s a problem here too: Jio’s alternative is opposed by Airtel, its chief rival in telecoms, which says deviating from the globally accepted 3GPP standards would lead to serious interference in Airtel’s 5G network. The company’s view is that any new technology deployment on 26GHz should comply with 3GPP standards. Both Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel did not want to comment on the issue.

To put things in a global perspective, 3GPP-run wireless broadband on the 26GHz band is rare, deterred by high costs, there are fewer than 100,000 subscribers across the world on it. As to the number of subscribers using the same millimetre band on their mobile devices, there is hardly any data.

But there is an interesting example worth citing, the roll-out of the millimetre band of 28GHz for mobile phones in South Korea was held back by a lack of compatible phones and the fact that consumers already had adequate speeds on mid-band 5G spectrum. Besides, outdoor-to- indoor propagation (calls, data transmission, etc) on this 28GHz frequency was very weak.

Reliance gameplan
Clearly, apart from Jio, there is hardly any other major telco in the world that has taken the gamble to deploy wireless broadband on a WiFi standard rather than 3GPP. But Reliance has a gameplan in place, it wants to deploy its indigenously patented broadband technology not only in India but globally, particularly emerging markets.

“Deploying FWA on WiFi standards is one-fourth the cost of deploying it based on 3GPP standards. That is why no one is offering FWA in India on 3GPP on a commercial scale to customers because it will be too expensive, though both Airtel and Jio have done the mandatory minimum roll-out obligation mandated in the auction,” said a senior executive who has been privy to discussions on this issue in the government.

He said the reason for the lower cost is simple: While the WiFi standard for hardware is on open source and has the most mature and low cost device eco system, 3GPP-complaint FWA on the band is based on proprietary technology controlled by a small number of global players.

Experts in the business said customer-side equipment for installing 3GPP-based FWA on the 26 GHz band costs as much as $200, thought to be too high for Indian customers.

Jio, in the meantime, has already designed the millimetre wave WiFi chipset in-house which will be manufactured by chip manufacturers abroad and investments are already being planned. It is also working with the government’s Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) to come up with a specific India standard because the 26GHz band does not mandate the adoption of IEEE standards.

Executives aware of Reliance’s counter said the auction rules do not say that non-3GPP standards cannot be used on 26GHz band, they allow any technology, provided it follows a standard recognised by an international or a national standards body (like the IEEE). The technology also needs to have been cleared by the department of telecommunications.

Jio has also demonstrated physically to TEC that there is no interference in the 26 GHz bands between the two telcos using different standards.

Airtel’s fears
But Airtel’s big concern is around fears that with the 26GHz spectrum allocated to Jio and Airtel, being adjacent to each other, it would lead to interference in their 5G network, adversely impacting their customers as the standards for using it of the two are different.

Reliance, which has 1GHz of spectrum in the 26GHz band (compared to 800 Megahertz (MHz) for Airtel), has offered to carve out 200 MHz from its own spectrum as a “guard band”, so that there is no interference in Bharti Airtel’s network.

However, Airtel is not convinced that a non-3GPP-based broadband will eliminate interference. It argues that technologically only 3GPP standards ensure that there is no interference between spectrum held adjacent to each other in the same band.

Airtel also points out that it is only a matter of time before 5G mobile devices are powered with 26 GHz spectrum as their availability increases. Their growing requirements for spectrum and possible interference have to be taken into consideration before a final call is taken.

The Jio proposal has gone through scrutiny and discussions for nearly a year, especially due to Airtel’s objection. The TEC last year got experts from IIT Madras to write the technical standards for 26 GHz after discussions with industry forums. Technical guidelines for interference are also being put in place.

The Telecom Standards Development Society (TSDSI), an autonomous body supported by the government, has been asked to build the national standard for using WiFi- based technologies on the 26 GHz band.

The final word from the government and its technical agencies is awaited. It will decide whether both routes to broadband will be permitted or just one. Either way, it will determine the future of broadband in the country. Business Standard