Govt Allots Licence, Spectrum To Vodafone Idea And Reliance Jio For 5G Testing In Gujarat

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has alloted licence and spectrum to Vodafone Idea and Reliance Jio for 5G testing in urban, semi-urban and rural areas in Gujarat.

The Vodafone Idea has been allotted spectrum for 5G testing in Gandhinagar (for urban), Mansa (for semi-urban) and Unava (rural) with Nokia as equipment supplier.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio has been allotted spectrum for 5G trial in Jamnagar (semi urban/ rural) with Samsung as equipment supplier.

The licence and spectrum was allotted to the two telcos were allocated on 27 November, according to the Ministry of Communications.

On 11 November, the steering committee of DoT's Gujarat Licenced Service Area (LSA) for 5G visited the testing sites at Gandhinagar, with the technical team of Vodafone Idea Limited and Nokia.

The team checked the data speed at the Mahatma Mandir 5G site of Gandhinagar, which was found to be about 1.5 Gbps - almost 100 times faster than 4G. The speed test was done on non-standalone 5G mode, a Ministry of Communications release said on Thursday (11 November).

According to the ministry, following four use cases were also tested by the the team on site :-

1. 360 degrees virtual reality content playback – user connects on 5G to the content providing server and experiences the location in virtual reality, as if he/she is physically there.

2. Virtual reality connected classroom - Facilitates a teacher to reach students remotely through 360° live streaming via 5G network. Student gets a feeling of private lesson, where he/she can interact with the teacher via voice chat or exercises.

3. 5G immersive gaming - Gamers movements are captured online and sent to gaming platform via 5G network wherein it is merged to a pre-recorded gaming video.

4. Artificial intelligence assisted 360 degrees camera - Real time video stream from 360-degree cameras is uploaded via 5G network; the end users get real 360 experience and with added artificial intelligence, he/ she can also detect the things like people, bags, bottles, laptop etc.

The use cases were testing using standalone 5G mode.