(a) whether India is lagging behind in introducing 2G, 3G across the country particularly in rural villages and 4G technologies is still in initial stage and the Government is planning to introduce 5G technology;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) the progress for achieving the target of introduction of 5G technology in the country?
THE MINISTER OF STATE (IC) OF THE MINISTRY OF COMMUNICATIONS &
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS
(SHRI MANOJ SINHA)
(a) to (c) Madam, the licenses granted by the Government to the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) for provision of mobile telephone services are technology neutral and the TSPs are free to deploy any technology as per their business decision. The TSPs provide mobile telephone services using appropriate technologies (viz. 2G, 3G and/or 4G) to comply with their minimum roll out obligations and thereafter cover the geographical areas as per their business decision.
As per survey of 2011, about 55000 villages in the country were not having coverage of mobile telephone services. However, thereafter, the coverage of mobile telephone services has been provided in a number of villages through schemes supported by Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund such as “Scheme for Mobile Communication Services in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected areas”, Shared Mobile Infrastructure Scheme”.
Various TSPs including M/s Bharti Airtel, M/s Idea Cellular, M/s Reliance Communications, M/s Reliance Jio and M/s Vodafone have started providing services in their respective licensed service areas in majority of the cities/ towns across the country progressively using 4G technology.
The 5G technology is still in the development stage and only limited trials have been conducted across the world and therefore no timeframe has been prescribed for introduction of 5G technology in the country.