Google, Facebook, Microsoft To Drag Indian Government To Court On 6GHz Decision
Google, Facebook, Microsoft To Drag Indian Government To Court On 6GHz Decision
The tech giants were defeated in their bid to gain access to the coveted airwaves
Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Cisco are considering legal action against the decision of the Government of India to auction the 6GHz spectrum for telecom services, instead of delicensing it.
Recently, India approved the auction of low-frequency 6GHz spectrum band for use by telcos to offer wireless telephony services using technologies like 5G and 6G, rejecting tech companies' claims to these airwaves.
Industry experts claimed it could hinder the country's technological growth and economic benefits. Globally, the trend is to delicense the airwaves for broader Wi-Fi and Al applications.
TV Ramachandran, the president of the Broadband India Forum (BIF), an association of tech players like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google and Cisco remarked, “Previously, we urged the government to delicense the lower 500 MHz of the 6GHz band and an additional 160 MHz from the 300 MHz to be held back until 2030. But as per the decision, our recommendations have fallen flat.”
However, there are sufficient grounds to challenge the decision in courts, as it does not align with global practices. Since the decision is not final, there’s a chance to rethink before the spectrum is assigned.
(Licensed spectrum must be auctioned while delicensed airwaves can be allotted administratively or without auctions).
Ramachandran added, "The 6GHz spectrum is critical for the growth of data-intensive applications such as AR/VR and gaming, streaming, and most importantly AI. This could hurt India's AI ambitions in sectors including healthcare and finance.
He said that airwaves were delicensed in 85 countries. In the US, non-telecom companies are allowed to operate in this band and offer services such as Wi-Fi6. The government’s decision could raise security concerns because the international mobile telecommunications (IMT) equipment for 6GHz was built by non-trusted sources banned by India.
The BIF president continued, "Meanwhile, modern Wi-Fi devices powered by delicensed 6GHz are widely made by Indian manufacturers.”
Presently, the 6GHz band is partly used for satellite operations of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). The advantages offered by 6GHz are immense. It supports internet speeds of up to 10 Gbps, like 5G speeds or up to 100 times faster than 4G.
Telcom companies state that if 6GHz was delicensed in India, as done by the US, they could offer ultra-high-speed internet to over a billion people. This would be without licence liabilities and costs that operators must bear, thus upsetting a level-playing field and hurting their business model.
They added that it would be the exchequer’s loss, as the spectrum has immense commercial potential and demand for mobility.
However, Ramachandran disagreed with it. He stated, "The government is missing the point that the combined economic benefit of delicensing 6GHz and innovation will be much higher than one-off revenue that an auction would fetch.”
The tech industry emphasized the availability and benefits of superior and standardized Wi-Fi technologies such as Wi-Fi 6E and WiFi 7 in the 6GHz band. It said that many countries, with much smaller requirements than India, had delicensed the entire 6GHz spectrum band for greater broadband proliferation.
The BIF held that delicensing the 6GHz band could yield recurring economic benefits of over $60 billion annually from 2028, with a cumulative impact of $180 billion by 2030.
The cellular body, Global Standard for Mobile Communications (GSMA) estimated that identifying IMT in the lower 6GHz band would yield a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contribution of $21 billion in a decade.
