These 13 cities in India may get 5G network next year

India is set to receive its first-ever 5G network service in the coming month. Initially, only 13 cities will get to experience the new 5G network. As per the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), cities like Ahemdabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Chandigarh, Delhi, Gurugram, Gandhi Nagar, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Pune will be the first set of cities to get 5G services.

The government, however, did not confirm which telecom operator will be the first to commercially roll out 5G services. All the three leading telecom operators like Jio, Airtel and Vi (Vodafone Idea) have already set up trial sites in these cities.

DoT in a statement also said that the indigenous 5G Test bed project, funded by the Telecom Department, has reached the final stages and the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021.

“Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G (/topic/5g) User Equipments (UEs) and network equipment by 5G (/topic/5g) stakeholders developing 5G (/topic/5g) products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country," DoT said.

DoT eight has partnered with eight agencies for the Indigenous 5G (/topic/5g) Test bed project started in 2018. These agencies are Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Bangalore, Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering & Research (SAMEER) and Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology (CEWiT).