Telcos push for high-power use of 6 GHz Wi-Fi band

NEW DELHI: Telecom operators Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have urged the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to allow high-power outdoor use of the lower end of the 6 GHz Wi-Fi band, saying that it could help expand high-speed broadband access in areas where fibre deployment is difficult or expensive.

The request, made through the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents the operators, comes as the government weighs concerns raised by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) that stronger outdoor Wi-Fi signals could interfere with existing satellite operations, according to two government officials.

India opened the lower portion of the 6 GHz band to licence-free, low-power indoor and very-low-power outdoor use earlier this year to support next-generation Wi-Fi devices and faster home broadband. The question is whether the government will also permit higher-power outdoor transmissions, which operators see as a way to improve coverage without the cost of extending fibre networks.

Queries emailed to DoT on Tuesday evening remained unanswered until press time.

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The case for higher power

Higher transmission power allows signals to travel farther, penetrate walls and other obstacles more effectively, and maintain stable connections over wider areas.

The government had set up an expert committee chaired by professors from IIT Madras, with representatives from telecom operators and Isro, to examine the proposal.

COAI said the committee had recommended allowing standard-power outdoor use at 36 dBm in the 5925–6425 MHz band. The industry body said the recommendation should be implemented without further delay.

“India’s broadband sector has progressed significantly, yet last-mile connectivity gaps persist particularly in rural, semi-urban, and difficult-to-reach areas due to Right-of-Way (RoW) challenges, limited fibre availability and high deployment costs,” S.P. Kochhar, director general of COAI, said in a statement. “The Expert Committee’s recommendation to permit Standard Power (36 dBm) outdoor use of the lower 6 GHz delicensed band (5925–6425 MHz) remains a practical and cost-effective solution to this challenge — one that is yet to be operationalised through the necessary regulatory notification.”

“Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) and Point-to-Multi-Point (P2MP) deployments at Standard Power are suited for last-mile broadband delivery where fibre penetration is absent, economically unviable or physically impractical. Enabling outdoor Standard Power operations ensures this 500 MHz of valuable delicensed spectrum is fully harnessed in [service] of national objectives and can be utilized by all service providers,” Kochhar said.

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“Enabling these operations will ensure that India’s delicensed spectrum serves not just indoor enterprise and [consumer] Wi-Fi but becomes a genuine engine of rural broadband penetration and digital inclusion,” he said.

In July, Mint was the first to report that DoT was facing a dilemma over whether to permit high-power use of the band, after Isro warned that high-power outdoor Wi-Fi transmissions could interfere with satellite operations.

Reliance Jio has been pushing the government to allow higher-power outdoor use to expand its home broadband services using unlicensed-band radio (UBR). Such services use spectrum without requiring operators to pay licence fees or auction prices.

In November last year, Bharti Airtel said it was conducting experiments and trials of UBR to assess whether it could expand into areas with limited fibre coverage.

The hurdle

The government will allow high-power use only if it can be ensured that existing users will not face interference and a solution to the problem is available, the officials cited earlier said.

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While operators argue that restricting the band to low-power indoor use would leave much of its potential untapped, some experts have warned that allowing commercial services to operate at high power on licence-free spectrum could undermine its intended purpose.

Parag Kar, an independent telecom analyst, told Mint in July that “If telecom operators or commercial broadband providers start using delicensed spectrum at high power, they can dominate the band and make it less useful for ordinary WiFi users, homes, enterprises and smaller users.”

According to Kar, high-power commercial broadband or UBR-type services should ideally use licensed spectrum, where interference management and accountability are clear.

Earlier this year, India joined 96 countries that permit licence-free use of the lower portion of the 6 GHz band. The spectrum supports high-speed Wi-Fi and devices such as Sony PlayStation 5 Pro, Apple’s augmented- and virtual-reality devices and Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.