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Due to the semiconductor shortage, chipmakers and smartphone OEMs both began focusing more on the 5G stuff, causing 4G smartphones to not only quickly become scarce but also pricier. Almost a quarter of smartphone shipments in India are now 5G-supporting — but their users, quite ironically, are yet to take advantage of it.

That’s set to change really soon though as the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has revealed through a press release that 13 cities in India are set to get 5G services in 2022. These are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Delhi, and Mumbai.

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“Costing Rs 224 crore, the project is likely to be completed by December 31, 2021, paving the way for end-to-end testing of 5G (/topic/5g) User Equipments (UEs) and network equipment by 5G (/topic/5g) stakeholders developing 5G (/topic/5g) products/services/use cases, including indigenous start-ups, SMEs, Academia and Industry in the country,” a statement from the press release read.

The project in question is the indigenous 5G testbed project funded by DoT, on which implementing agencies IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IISC Bangalore, SAMEER, and CEWiT had been working for 36 months.

Additionally, the DoT said that it had sent a request to TRAI in September 2021 for recommendations on the reserve price, band plan, block size, quantum of spectrum to be auctioned, and auction conditions in various bands (526-698 MHZ, 700 MHZ, 800 MHZ, 900 MHZ, 1800 MHZ, 2100 MHZ, 2300 MHZ, 2500 MHZ, 3300-3670 MHZ, and 24.25-28.5 GHZ) for public and private 5G networks.

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