Airtel 5G trial network goes live in Mumbai

The 5G trial is now live in Mumbai, exceeds previous trial download speed of 1Gbps

Airtel 5G network test trials on Monday went live in Mumbai’s Lower Parel area.

The 5G network trial, according to Indiatoday.in’s report was conducted by the telecom giant using Nokia’s 5G gear in Phoenix Mall in the city.

A video of the speed test of Airtel’s trial network shared shows that the company was able to achieve a speed of 1.2Gbps with ultra-low latency during the 5G test trials.

It also managed to achieve an upload speed of close to 850Mbps.

Airtel surpassed its previous speed of 1Gbps when a 5G trial network was carried out in Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub area.

ET Telecom which first reported the development quoted sources who said that a similar trial will begin in Kolkata soon.

Earlier this year in January, Airtel became the first telco to successfully demonstrate live 5G service over a commercial network in Hyderabad city in the 1800 MHz band through the NSA (Non-Stand Alone) network technology.

DoT has allocated spectrum to Airtel in four Indian telecom circles including Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Delhi.

The report notes that Airtel has been allotted the 5G trial spectrum in 3500 MHz, 28 GHz and 700 MHz. Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have been allotted spectrums in the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands.

The applicant TSPs include Airtel, Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea and MTNL, according to the Indiatoday report.

Nigeria

Recall, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) three weeks ago, took a major proactive regulatory step by inaugurating a committee to develop the Information Memorandum (IM) for the auction of 3.5 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum band which will be used for early deployment of 5G services in the country.

This is following the Senate investigative hearing which gave the Fifth Generation (5G) technology a clean bill of health.

The Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, inaugurated the 18-member Committee in Abuja recently with NCC’s Executive Commissioner, Technical Services, Ubale Maska as Auction Adviser while the Director, Spectrum Administration, NCC, Oluwatoyin Asaju, is the Committee Chairman.

Speaking during the inauguration, Danbatta said, apart from developing the IM for auctioning of C-band spectrum for 5G deployment in Nigeria, the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the committee will include the development of an award process to be used pursuant to which the grant of Spectrum licenses may be made.

The Information Memorandum (IM) defines the process that the Commission has decided to adopt for the auctioning of the 3.5GHz spectrum band.

It will provide information on the Nigerian telecommunications market, details of the Spectrum to be made available, the pre-qualification process, the Auction process and indicative timetable.

Other ToRs reeled out for the committee by Danbatta include the auctioning of the C-band spectrum for 5G deployment in Nigeria in line with the award process; as well as report regularly/fortnightly to the EVC through the Office of the Executive Commissioner,

Technical Services of the Commission on the progress made by the Committee.