By Juan Pedro Tomás
Indian multinational conglomerate Adani Group confirmed its intention to participate in the upcoming 5G spectrum in India with the aim of building a private network to support its own businesses.
“Our intention is not to be in the consumer mobility space. As India prepares to roll out next generation 5G services through this auction, we are one of the many applicants participating in the open bidding process,” the company said in a statement.
“We are participating in the 5G spectrum auction to provide private network solutions along with enhanced cyber security in the airport, ports & logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution, and various manufacturing operations.”
The group also noted that its potential 5G investment will support charitable efforts in education, healthcare and skills development.
“In addition, as we build our own digital platform encompassing super apps, edge data centers, and industry command and control centers, we will need ultra-high quality data streaming capabilities through a high frequency and low latency 5G network across all our businesses,” Adani said.
Adani Group’s diverse businesses include port management, electric power generation and transmission, renewable energy, mining, airport operations, natural gas, food processing and infrastructure. The conglomerate has operations in 50 countries.
The Government of India recently announced plans to hold an auction of 5G spectrum by the end of July and confirmed that some frequencies will be reserved to enable enterprises to deploy private mobile networks.
The auction will offer frequencies in the 600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz frequency bands.
The government has also decided to allow enterprises to deploy and run private networks. These firms will be able to acquire spectrum directly from the DoT to set up networks to test and build Industry 4.0 applications such as machine-to-machine communications, IoT and artificial intelligence. The cabinet noted it decided to enable private networks to support a new wave of industrial applications in sectors such as automotive, healthcare, agriculture and energy, among others.
The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) had recently told the Government of India that local carriers will not have incentives to deploy 5G networks if authorities allowed private companies to run their own private 5G networks.
The COAI, which has local operators Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea as some of its key members, has sent a letter to India’s Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stating that there is “no business case for the roll out of 5G networks” if the government allowed local enterprises to deploy and operate their own 5G networks.
Meanwhile, Broadband India Forum (BIF), which supports private networks, recently published a paper in which it has challenged the premise that Indian operators would lose revenues as the entity considers that private 5G will lead to increased productivity for enterprises which will in turn increase the need for more external communications.
