The Adani Group, led by billionaire Gautam Adani, announced on July 9 that it has entered the competition for telecom spectrum, but its intention is not to be in the consumer mobility space.
The company said it would use the 5G spectrum, if awarded in the open bidding, to build a private network to support all of its operations, including ports, logistics, power generation, transmission, and distribution, as well as various manufacturing operations, according to a press release.
"As India prepares to roll out next generation of 5G services through this auction, we are one of the many applications participating in the open bidding process," the group said in the statement.
“We are participating in the 5G spectrum auction to provide private network solutions along with enhanced cyber security in the airport, ports and logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution, and various manufacturing operations,” the statement added.
“As we build our own digital platform encompassing super apps, edge data centres, and industry command and control centres, we will need ultra high quality data streaming capabilities through a high frequency and low latency 5G network across all our businesses,” the statement also said.
Earlier, PTI reported that Adani Group's entry into the race to acquire telecom spectrum, will pitch it against Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio and Sunil Bharti Mittal's Airtel.
Applications for participating in the July 26 auction of airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation or 5G telecom services such as ultra-high-speed internet connectivity, closed on July 8.
According to sources as mentioned in PTI, Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea had applied to bid for 5G.
Sources cited by the news agency also said Adani Group had recently obtained National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licences.
The ownership information for applicants is to be revealed on July 12 in accordance with the auction timelines, and at that time the bids should be known. The auction, which is scheduled to start on July 26, 2022, would feature a total of 72,097.85 MHz of spectrum valued at at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore.
The auction will be held for spectrum in various low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz), mid (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands.
The central cabinet on June 15 this year had approved a proposal to auction high speed 5G telecom spectrum for 20 years starting July 26.
5G telecom services, expected to roll out soon, will have 10 times more speed and capacity than 4G.
The cabinet has also green-flagged so-called private captive networks using which enterprises and technology giants can have their own networks to enable machine to machine communications, Internet of Things and artificial intelligence applications across automotive, healthcare, agriculture, energy, and other sectors.
(With inputs from PTI)
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