New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has issued a consultation paper on Friday, inviting feedback from the industry regarding the obstacles in policy that hinder the swift adoption of 5G-driven technologies for businesses. Written submissions will be accepted until October 30, and counter-comments are requested by November 13.
The paper aims to promote the adoption of technologies like artificial intelligence, extended reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT), which are crucial for enabling automation in various enterprises.
According to the paper, seen by Mint, the adoption of these new technologies by enterprises “will require effective collaboration within the ecosystem involving telecom service providers, original equipment manufacturers, infrastructure providers, and the government to increase consumer adoption and market readiness to fully unlock the benefits of 5G.”
The paper also recognizes the need to upgrade infrastructure to meet 5G connectivity standards, to increase “fiberization” of networks to facilitate 5G deployment in enterprises, and to densify networks to assist enterprises in embracing these new technologies.
In India, the adoption of 5G through private networks for enterprises faced challenges as telecom companies and large enterprises clashed over access to 5G spectrum. While businesses advocated for direct allocation of 5G spectrum from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), citing greater deployment flexibility and privacy, telecom operators opposed the move, arguing that such allocations and deployments would be costly, inefficient, and result in operational burdens.
On May 26, the DoT made a decision in favor of telecom operators, choosing not to allocate 5G spectrum directly to enterprises.
However, telecom companies have not succeeded in persuading for preferential pricing for the allocation of spectrum for over-the-top (OTT) streaming and communication services. While companies like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone-Idea wrote to Trai, highlighting the “disproportionate” infrastructure costs incurred by telecom operators due to heavy data usage from services like Netflix and WhatsApp, government officials have maintained that there is currently no consideration for preferential pricing of 5G networks to ensure net neutrality.
The deployment of 5G infrastructure in Indian enterprises also experienced a gradual slowdown among large-cap IT service providers due to an overall decline in global tech spending by enterprises.
