5G trial spectrum allotment to Saankhya Labs and IISc Bengaluru on hold by Telecom Secretary
The recent allocation of 5G trail spectrum to homegrown semiconductor chipset maker Saankhya Labs and IISc Bengaluru has been put on hold by Telecom Secretary, Anshu Prakash. The development has brought to the fore divergent views of two key wings of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the experimental 5G airwaves allocation process.
The sources from government and industry said that the allocations have been held in abeyance as Saankhya and IISc apparently did not follow the mandated process of seeking such experimental 5G spectrum. As per news source, they chose to involve DoT’s Standards, R&D & Innovation (SRI) division in the applications process instead of applying directly applying online to the mandated Wireless Planning & Coordination (WPC) wing.
To this, the WPC wing is learnt to have raised objections, prompting the telecom secretary to intervene.
Minutes of an internal April 29 meeting of DoT’s SRI division show that specific directions were given to WPC’s Regional Licensing Office (RLO) in Chennai, “to issue experimental 5G spectrum licences to Saankhya Labs and IISc without any further delay by April 30” itself. The RLO-Chennai was also ordered to grant such trial 5G spectrum to both applicants for six months, extendable upto 1 year. The news source has seen a copy of the minutes of the meeting that was attended by senior officials of Saankhya Labs and IISc.
Subsequently, Saankhya was granted in-principle experimental 5G airwaves in the premium 700/600 Mhz bands in Bengaluru to run trials for convergence of broadcast and broadband networks, while IISc was offered trial airwaves (in the 3.5 Ghz/2300-2400 Mhz bands) for testing in its campus lab.
But government insiders said the hasty manner in which such trial 5G spectrum was issued to Saankhya and IISc did not go down well with top officials in the DoT’s WPC wing, and the matter was put on hold after a review by telecom secretary Prakash and Wireless Advisor G K Agrawal.
“As directed by Secretary (Telecom), when Joint Wireless Advisor along with myself were also present, the matter (pertaining to decision on experimental licences) is to be kept in abeyance till further orders, and JWA, RLO-Chennai be informed for necessary action,” Agrawal said in an internal communication, dated May 5, seen by the news source.
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