The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has formed eight working groups to create a roadmap for the deployment of fifth-generation or 5G in different sectors such as agriculture, fintech, transportation and education. The working groups include members from Chinese vendor company Huawei, who will look at healthcare and fintech sectors, according to a notification by the department. “The objective is to conduct a study and to produce a report with actionable points which brings out the use of 5G mobile technology in the respective sectors and how global use cases of 5G mobile technology in these sectors can be utilised and adapted to the Indian requirements," the DoT said in a notification.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will approach the Union Cabinet for approval of the structure of production-link incentives for telecom gear makers in India. In November, the Cabinet approved an incentive of Rs 12,195 crore (€1.5 bn) to introduce production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom and network products. The Digital Communications Commission on December 1 approved the proposal for the scheme. The product lines that have been specified include core transmission equipment; 4G/5G, next-generation radio access network and wireless equipment; and access and customer premises equipment (CPE)

The Department of Telecommunications is working on identifying additional spectrum to address Indian telecom operators' demand for a "larger chunk" of airwaves to rollout 5G services. DoT has allocated the 3300 MHz to 3600 MHz band for 5G services. Worldwide, the allocation of bands for 5G services is from 3300 MHz to 4200 MHz. India doesn’t have that much bandwidth, so we are looking for an additional 150 MHz,” a senior official said. Telcos had previously urged the telecom department to ensure optimum availability of spectrum in the 3300-3600 mid-band earmarked for 5G services.

"With an aim to qualitatively improve the ease of doing business of the IT industry particularly business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT-enabled services, the government has drastically simplified the other service provider (OSP) guidelines of the department of telecom. The new guidelines reduce the compliance burden of the BPO industry. It is clarified that the registration requirement for OSPs has been done away with altogether and the BPO industry engaged in data related work have been taken out of the ambit of OSP regulations.