Government says 5G rollout will start in September — but will it?

Vodafone Idea, meanwhile, said it had achieved a speed of 6 Gbps during trials held in Pune this May, in the high-frequency millimetre wave (mmWave) and the mid-frequency bands. Vodafone Idea used equipment provided by Ericsson. Reliance Jio too had achieved a download speed of 420 Mbps and an upload speed of 412 Mbps using its own equipment.

But one has to bear in mind these speeds could drop drastically once the network takes on subscriber load, which will impact latency and coverage.

That said, will the Indian government be able to roll out 5G by September as is its current plan? Some say it is possible, while others say it is ambitious, with a year-end rollout being the more likely scenario.

Ericsson, which is one of the leading makers of telecommunications equipment and a major player in India, feels the infrastructure is ready and telecom service providers can hit the ground running as soon as they are allocated the spectrum.

"With global technology leadership of more than 121 live 5G networks, Ericsson is well poised to support Indian telecom operators in their journey towards 5G," a confident Ericsson told CNBC-TV18.

However, Rishi Bhatnagar, Chairman of the IET Future Tech Panel — a private platform for engineering stakeholders — and President of Aeris Communications, an end-to-end Internet of Things company, said a more realistic window for rollout would be the the end of the year.

"All telecom operators and equipment manufacturers have together done pilots all over India. Hence ,in a way, the backend infrastructure is mostly ready, but the stress testing of the same is still pending. Hence, it is doubtful if (telecom operators) can absolutely hit the ground running right away ... the transition time is expected to be within 4-5 months," Bhatnagar said.

Others too expressed reservations about whether 5G services can be rolled out in two months. It must be noted here that the 5G rollout will initially be limited to just 13 major cities in India. "India is a vast country, and large swathes don't even have access to 3G, let alone 4G or 5G. It will remain a challenge to roll out services so swiftly," one industry watcher said, on the condition of anonymity.

According to media reports, Airtel too expects a moderate rollout of 5G services, but not because of equipment — which the carrier says it has enough of — but because of the low 5G smartphone userbase in India, which stood at 4 percent last fiscal and is expected to grow to 14-16 percent by the 2023-24 financial year.

Jio too said it is ready, stating that "5G coverage planning has been completed for 1,000 top cities across the country", and adding that it has been conducting trials "on advanced use cases across healthcare and industrial automation".