Vodafone Idea wants 5G auction to be held after 2020

Vodafone Idea, the country’s largest telecom player, on Wednesday said the 5G auction in India should happen only post 2020.

“The industry needs time to develop India-specific use cases before the advent of 5G in the country and the most appropriate time to hold auctions will be somewhere after 2020,” said Vishant Vora, Vodafone Idea’s chief technology officer.

The company, which is in the midst of integrating its networks, has already started the process in nine circles while a full integration is expected to be completed by June 2020. Once the integration is completed, our network will be 5G ready as the new radio, core and transport equipment are being installed in the network which will be ready for future technologies, he said.

Vodafone Idea also plans to exit over 90,000 sites to cut on duplication and reduce capital and operational expenditure. When asked if Vodafone Idea would participate in auctions if they were to be held this year, Vora declined to comment.

Globally, a full commercial rollout of 5G is yet to happen.

Apart from this, the company is deploying a massive MIMO technology at various locations that will enhance its network capacity. “With our current spectrum holdings, we will be able to offer IoT services and near 5G services. The issue of auction after 2020 and spectrum is different…it is more related to developing India-specific use cases for 5G,” he said.

For this 95% of services, 4G spectrum is more than adequate. There’s no need to do 5G for IoT in 95% of these use cases, Vora added.

5G will be required for select use cases like Virtual Reality (VR), HD Gaming or remote surgery as these use cases require lower latency and high throughput.

The company has given its network expansion contract to Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei. Asked about security concerns globally with Huawei, he said the Indian government has not taken a position on such deployments, and asserted that the company will comply with the rules of the country. “Within Indian context, the government has not taken a position unlike some other countries like Australia, New Zealand and the US….we will follow whatever the Indian government decides and we will work to ensure that India’s strategic needs and security are fully looked after.”

After the entry of Reliance Jio in late 2016, the industry underwent a consolidation spree wherein Vodafone and Idea announced their merger to create the largest telecom player by displacing Airtel from its top position.

Vodafone holds 45.1 % stake in Vodafone Idea, while Aditya Birla Group holds 26% and Idea shareholders own 28.9 %.

The company has chalked out a three-pronged strategy for consolidating the two networks. First, to make the dominant network better in each circle as the anchor network. Secondly, complement the anchor network with required support from the other network. Subsequently, the plan is to enhance network capabilities and capacity with the introduction of new technologies such as dynamic spectrum refarming (DSR), spectrum refarming, massive MIMO and small cells.

The company has already started refarming of its 900 MHz spectrum for 4G services. When asked if the company lags behind its peers Airtel and Reliance Jio on 4G network, he said, “We might be a little behind, but once the integration is over, we will be way ahead of all of them as all our network will be technology agnostic.”

He also said the 3G network might be phased out ahead of 2G networks which will continue as many users still prefer it. “There are customers that are satisfied and will continue to use 2G. A lot of IoT machines were originally done on 2G and GPRS. 2G will not be phased out anytime soon”.