India Overthinking Private 5G Demand

It's time to stop using studies as a smokescreen to delay or stifle an established good initiative. A truly digital India cannot be built by stalling innovation

- TV RAMACHANDRAN

GHz bands, backed it with subsidies, and has issued 167 licences. The UK introduced a Shared Access licensing model and released on-demand spectrum based on industrial expressions of interest, without spending time on a study. The US had no centralized study but it enabled widespread adoption (300 deployments) through the dynamic CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) framework in the 3.5 GHz band. Korea has, in the 4.7 GHz spectrum, about 100 (19 enterprise-led) licences.

India, contrastingly, has spent more time debating the need for a study than others spent going from demand assessment to deployment.

Industrial demand is evident