Jio, Airtel meet first year minimum rollout obligation norms for 5G

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio successfully tested 5G services and data speeds on both the 26 GHz, or millimetre (mmWave), and 3300 MHz spectrum bands in the Mumbai licensed service area (LSA). The Department of Telecommunications’ Mumbai service area wing undertook the testing to check the minimum rollout obligations (MRO) on August 8 (Jio) and August 9 (Airtel).

“The company has rolled out 5G services on 26 GHz spectrum across all 22 telecom circles in the country in accordance with the norms set by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for complying to the Minimum Roll-out obligation criteria,” Airtel said in a statement. Both the telcos have completed the minimum rollout obligations for the first year after acquiring 5G airwaves through the spectrum auction held in July 2022.

Last week, similar tests were conducted in Gujarat and Kolkata. Airtel and Jio launched their 5G services in October 2022, and have been rapidly expanding the coverage since then.

In last year’s 5G spectrum sale, led Airtel bought 19,867.8 MHz of bandwidth for Rs 43,084 crore. It had bought 5G airwaves in the 3.3-3.67 GHz and 26 GHz bands but given pricey spectrum in the 700 MHz band a miss.