India’s maiden 5G spectrum will be on sale — 300 MHz mid-band spectrum. It starts from 3.3 GHz to 3.6 GHz. TV broadcasters use a chunk of frequency spectrum close to this — 3.7 GHz to 4.2 GHz. With this, they downlink TV services from satellite. There is an apprehension that the guard band of 100 MHz between 5G and broadcaster’s band will not be sufficient and could lead to out-of-band interference from telecom services.

The frequency between 5.9 GHz to 6.5 GHz is used to uplink TV services. It should be protected for broadcast and not assigned to 5G. Frequency up to 3.6 GHz only should be allocated to for 5G.

It is necessary to maintain adequate separation as the interference from telecom operations could affect the satellite TV operations. There should be a safe gap 100 MHz between the 5G services and TV services. 5G operators should use filters to restrict out-of-band emissions.