New Delhi, Aug 11 : The Broadband India Forum (BIF) on Thursday, questioned the government’s decision to require companies to submit demand studies in order to evaluate direct allocation of spectrum to establish private 5G networks that are captive to them.The government announced on Wednesday to conduct demand studies for the direct transfer of spectrum to companies with net worth greater than 100 crore who are keen to set up private 5G networks.
Enterprises that are willing to establish a Captive Non-Public Network (CNPN) by getting spectrum directly from DoT They are also invited to take part in this process according to the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) stated in an announcement.
TV Ramachandran, BIF President told IANS that they were pleased by the announcement made by DoT “but truly think about why such a study is needed at all”.
“There are 794 private networks in the rest of the world, and we must be aligned to the same.Pro-rata capacity for India could be between 150 and 200 private networks.There was also no demand study conducted for the networks that are public of 3G, 4G, or 2G.” Ramachandran argued.
The DoT has launched an initiative on the Saralsanchar portal to conduct the demand studies of enterprises.
The demand study order came following the successful 5G spectrum auction which earned the government over 1.5 lakh crore largely financed by Reliance Jio.
The government issued the “Guidelines for Captive Networks (CNPN) license on June 27, with the intention of establishing the legal basis for CNPNs.
The guidelines state that companies who are looking to establish CNPN can acquire spectrum leases through Telecom Service Providers or directly from DoT.
Ramachandran said that India should adopt 5G CNPN “with the possibility of direct spectrum to businesses to ensure that India can transition to Industry 4.0 rapidly.”
Private 5G captive networks concern the implementation of high speed, increased capacity of data and ultra-low latency applications within a closed manufacturing facility airport, hospital, airport or shipping ports, among others.
They are the sole end-users (the company itself) in the given location as opposed to a huge variety of users in public networks.
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