The Centre has unveiled new policy reforms for satellite communication services in order to smoothen various procedures and clearance processes. As India enters the next phase of the telecommunication revolution with 5G, the government has also asked the industry to boost the 5G tower deployment across the country.

As per Union telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, the current pace of 5G tower development is "very less" and "slow" at 2,500 per week. He urged the telecom ministry to increase it to at least 10,000 per week so the services could reach the farthest end of the country at the earliest.

The minister said the Centre has played its part in bringing reforms to ease several procedures and that now the ball is in the telecom industry's court to ramp up the 5G equipment installation to allow ultra-fast 5G services on a mass scale. He said these reforms will allow people in the remotest parts of India to benefit from digital services.

The minister also said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given us a clear mandate that the country should become the leader in telecom technology. “(This) means one has to work on every aspect of telecom technology in creating new solutions, making sure that globally India's inputs are heard at every forum."

The minister said that as part of the latest sectoral reforms, companies will no longer need SACFA (Standing Advisory Committee on Frequency Allocation) nod to install 5G antenna on street furniture. Other Satcom-related reforms are allowing companies to deploy VSAT terminals on any mobile vehicle; self-certification of antennas; and simplifying the NOCC process and reducing the timeline to 6 weeks from 8 months.

Apart from this, the Centre has delicensed three bands for near-field communications -- 865-868 MHz band (for Internet of Things and Machine to Machine communications), 433 - 434.7MHz (in-vehicle equipment) and one more for contactless inductive chargers.

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Ramp up 5G tower development: Vaishnaw to telcos