Road tech plan meets telco resistance

poses; therefore the spectrum should be auctioned,” India’s largest telco wrote to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on 4 June.

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Telecom operators, through the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), have also argued that the V2X policy should leverage existing 4G/5G networks, fibre backhaul, edge capabilities and nationwide telecom infrastructure, rather than creating parallel networks that may be economically inefficient and operationally fragmented.

In contrast, technology companies and industry groups, including the Broadband India Forum (BIF) and the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), argue that V2X is a public safety service and that the spectrum should be assigned on a shared, non-exclusive basis to enable faster and wider deployment.

As part of a government taskforce recommendation on the technology, a dissent note by Wireless Planning Commission member Sharad Kumar Chauhan, had last year pegged the value of the 30 MHz spectrum reserved for V2X in the 5.9 GHz band at approximately ₹900 crore per annum based on the 2024 auction reserve price of 3,300 MHz 5G band.