‘The day is here’: PM Modi to launch 5G services at India Mobile Congress today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Saturday launch India's 5G services in select cities. As per an official release, the services will ‘progressively cover the entire country in the next couple of years.'

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The launch, slated to take place at 10am, will also mark the opening of the 6th edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC). The 4-day event, to be hosted at the iconic Pragati Maidan in the national capital, is organised jointly by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

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“The day is here, India,” tweeted Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union minister for Electronics and Information Technology, ahead of the launch.

Saturday's rollout follows the recent 5G spectrum auctions in which spectrum worth 51,236 MHz was allocated to telecom service providers at a gross revenue of ₹1,50,173 crore.

Telecom giants to demonstrate 5G

Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea, the three major telecom operators in the country, will, as per a report in HT's sister publication Mint, demonstrate one use case each in front of the prime minister to highlight the potential of the technology.

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While Jio will connect a teacher from a school in Mumbai with students in three different locations, one each in Maharashtra, Gujarat in Odisha, Vodafone will demonstrate the safety of workers in an under-construction Delhi Metro tunnel by creating a ‘digital twin’ of the tunnel on the stage, the report stated.

Meanwhile, for Airtel, a girl from Uttar Pradesh will learn about the solar system with the help of virtual reality and augmented reality.