India to Rollout 5G Trial Sites in 13 Cities in 2022: Which Are They?

Telecom Service Providers Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea have established the 5G trials sites in these cities.

According to a press release by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Monday, 27 December, 13 cities across the country will be the first ones to be equipped with 5G services in 2022.

The statement added that the indigenous 5G testbed project, funded by the telecom department, has reached the final stages and the project is likely to be completed by the last day of the year.

The eight agencies that partnered with the government department—IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IISC Bangalore, SAMEER and CEWiT—have been working on the testbed project for the past 3 years.

Moreover, telecom Service Providers (TSPs) Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea have established the 5G trials sites in these cities:

• Ahmedabad

• Bengaluru

• Chandigarh

• Chennai

• Delhi

• Gandhinagar

• Gurugram

• Hyderabad

• Jamnagar

• Kolkata

• Lucknow

• Mumbai

• Pune

"Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G (/topic/5g) User Equipments (UEs) and network equipment by 5G (/topic/5g) stakeholders developing 5G (/topic/5g) products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country," the statement further read.

The indigenous 5G testbed is a technology development project in telecom industry, which will aid in developing, testing and expanding the system components, cross-sectoral use cases of 5G technology and build the foundation for the development of a '6G technology landscape' in the nation, Moneycontrol reported.

(With inputs from Moneycontrol.)