India will be in step with world on 5G services: Sunil Bharti Mittal

Sunil Mittal was replying to a question on Indian telecom industry's readiness and timeline for 5G services roll out

Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal said on Wednesday that the commercial roll out of 5G services in India will be in sync with other parts of the world.

"India will be in step with the world, as world starts to roll out 5G technology in commercial sense, most likely in 2020 is the time," Mittal told reporters here.

He was replying to a question on Indian telecom industry's readiness and timeline for 5G services roll out.

"I would say real 5G allocation of spectrum is year and half away. We can start with some (spectrum) bands which are there today but eventually the eco-system will develop on the band which gets decided in Sharm el Sheikh in 2019," Mittal said.

Global body International Telecommunications Union, part of United Nations, freezes spectrum for technologies.

The World Radiocommunication Conference of ITU is scheduled to be held in 2019 to freeze spectrum for 5G technology.

Mittal said industry readiness for buying spectrum for 5G services will depend on the price that government fixes for it.

When asked about the timeline that Indian telecom operators want for auctions, Mittal said: "I will not give any date. They (government) can decide on their own. We will take spectrum when we need.