Over 20 companies in India had applied to secure 5G spectrum to set private networks in the country

India’s Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has reportedly decided that it will not directly allocate 5G spectrum to enterprises for the deployment of private 5G networks, local newspaper The Economic Times reported.  

The report said that the DoT is now against direct allocation of frequencies because it believes it is not feasible under the current legal framework. In March, India’s Attorney General R Venkataramani had advised the DoT to prioritize auctions for 5G spectrum.

The DoT will soon inform the Cabinet and the country’s Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) about its final decision. This new decision goes against DoT’s initial guidelines on private networks that were released in 2022. These guidelines stipulated that firms looking to set up their own private networks could lease 5G spectrum from telecom operators or get it directly from the DoT—as opposed to such spectrum being auctioned.

Local carriers had expressed their opposition to these guidelines, following which DoT consulted the Attorney General, who said that auctions are the preferred mode of allocating resources like spectrum.

“The Attorney General has said this keeping in mind the principle that any community resource, in all circumstances, should be allocated in a manner that may fetch the best return possible and the allocation of the resource through the auction process is found desirable,” a government official was quoted as saying.

Over 20 Indian companies had applied to secure 5G spectrum to set private networks in the country. Some of the interested firms include Infosys, Capgemini, GMR, Larsen & Toubro, Tata Communications, Tata Power and Tejas Networks.

The companies’ applications were submitted in response to a request from the DoT meant to help figure out the level of market demand for spectrum to set up private networks.

The potential direct allocation of spectrum to enterprises for the deployment of private networks has been a source of tension between technology firms and telecom operators.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) had told the Indian government that local carriers will not have incentives to deploy 5G networks if authorities allow private companies to run their own private 5G networks.

The COAI, which has local operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as some of its key members, had previously sent a letter to India’s Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stating that there is “no business case for the roll out of 5G networks” if the government finally approved the possibility for local enterprises to deploy and operate their own 5G networks.