5G Rollout in India: Which Indian cities will get 5G services in the first phase

5G services in India are soon going to be operational. As per recent reports, the Government of India would officially launch a number of 5G services at the inauguration of the India Mobile Congress, or IMC, on September 29, 2022.  

To recall, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech had said that the 5G will launch in India sooner than one can expect and its speed will be 10 times faster than 4G network. Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are in a race of sorts to launch the first 5G services in India. If certain reports are to be believed the telecommunication giants are going to launch their services by the end of this month. 5G services in India will be rolled out in a phased manner. In the first phase, only 13 selected cities would get speed 5G internet services from either Airtel, Jio, or both. These 13 cities are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune. Reliance Industries Group announced hosting its Annual General Meeting (AGM) 2022 later this month. As per reports, the meeting will be held virtually on August 29, during which, it is being speculated that Reliance will be announcing the rollout of 5G services, as well as Jio’s upcoming 5G smartphone. It is important to note that not everyone in these cities will be getting 5G services from the first day itself. It isvery likely that most telecom companies will provide access to 5G in selected areas of these cities, which have not been confirmed yet.     Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday asked telecom service providers to gear up for the 5G launch post the issuance of spectrum allocation letters. The DoT has received payment of around ₹17,876 crore from service providers like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Adani Data Networks and Vodafone Idea for the spectrum they won in a recent auction. The Department of Telecom had also issued spectrum assignment letters on the same day the successful bidders of radio waves made upfront payments.