5G-readiness on govt radar

Days after launch, users complain of patchy services

- JATIN GROVER

ALMOST A WEEK after the launch of 5G services - in eight cities by Bharti Airtel and beta testing by Reliance Jio in the four metros - all is not well as far as the quality and user experience of the services are concerned, leading the government to intervene in the matter.

In a first-of-its-kind exercise, the secretaries of department of telecommunications and ministry of electronics and IT, have jointly called a meeting of all handset makers like Apple, Samsung, Oppo, Vivo and others as well as telecom operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea on Wednesday.

The agenda of the meeting is threefold: one, ask the telcos about the readiness of their networks so that handsets can be tuned to them; two, find out from the handset makers regarding the status of software upgrades which are required in the 5G-enabled phones; and lastly, prioritize software upgrades so that early adoption of 5G can happen in the country.