Kolkata: Telecom companies underlined in a joint meeting with the parliamentary standing committee on IT on Tuesday that the government should make 5G spectrum<\/a> available across multiple bands, including premium millimetre waves, at affordable prices for boosting India’s readiness to deploy the next generation mobile broadband technology.
Separately, the parliamentary panel<\/a>, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor<\/a>, sought clarity from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on whether the government had actually banned Chinese telecom vendors, Huawei and ZTE from participating in 5G network<\/a> contracts.
Senior DoT officials, it is learnt, told the panel that there is no ban in theory on any Chinese gear makers, stopping them from selling 5G<\/a> gear, but like other companies from bordering countries, they too have to take additional approvals.
The Tharoor--led panel initially met top executives of Reliance Jio<\/a>, Bharti Airtel<\/a> and Vodafone Idea<\/a> n Tuesday to assess India's preparedness to go 5G. Later in the evening, it held a separate review meeting with DoT and the sector regulator.
Last month, DoT had told Parliament that a final decision on Chinese vendor involvement in 5G would be taken by the home ministry after taking into account the national security concerns.
Existing Chinese investments in India have come under close scrutiny of the government after rising tensions on the Sino-Indo border in August.
The government has so far barred the Chinese gear makers from supplying 4G gear to state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. But it hasn't issued any official circular regarding the same. The government is learnt to be also discouraging sourcing of equipment from Chinese vendors, ET had previously reported.
On the spectrum availability issue, a senior industry<\/a> executive aware of the discussions, said “the issue of auctioning idle spectrum, currently locked with various central ministries, for commercial 5G services came up during the talks.
<\/p>Read also<\/h4>