There is a difference of opinion amongst the telecom companies about the adoption of Indian-centric 5G norms. Reliance expects India to adopt Indian standards to generate intellectual property rights. (IPR). These have been proposed by Telecom Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI). These standards, among other things, call for deployment of 5G services in the 3.4 GHz band and suggest mobile towers to be spaced 12 km apart in villages to ensure ubiquitous coverage.

Bharti and Vi, however, say that these standards fall short of interoperability with global standards, and hence not commercially viable. They do not mesh with global standards recommended by 3GPP (the 3rd Generation Partnership Project). These standards govern LTE network operations worldwide and its suggested 5G standard has been backed by International Telecom Union (ITU). Telecom companies in the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, China, Russia and the Middle East, among others, have rolled out 5G services based on 3GPP’s standard. It backs 5G deployment in 700 MHz band and wants the towers to be spaced 6 km apart.