Why India’s 6Ghz spectrum dilemma is affecting PS5 Pro console launch in the country Premium

India and China have not allowed the use of 6GHz spectrum for WiFi yet, affecting the launch of the Sony PS5 Pro console.

The story so far: Earlier in November, the PlayStation 5 Pro console was released in key markets around the world, but no announcement was made regarding India. On November 8, Sony said, “PS5 Pro will not be available in some countries (which presently includes India) where 6GHz wireless band used in IEEE 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) has not yet been allowed.” 

In India and throughout the world, WiFi has mainly used two key bands of frequency: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Home broadband users may recognise these frequencies as separate transmissions from the same router — 2.4GHz has limited data bandwidth, but can blanket a larger area with coverage. 5GHz is significantly faster, but covers a shorter distance. The frequencies for the spectrum used by these WiFi bands was de-licensed for indoor and outdoor use separately in India starting in 2002. 

This state of WiFi technology remained the same well into the introduction of WiFi 6 in 2020. That technology uses both 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies simultaneously, with greater efficiency, resulting in better speeds. But in 2021, WiFi 6E was introduced, splitting the world into two regions: those who allowed the use of 6GHz spectrum, and those that didn’t. 

By 2021, several regulatory authorities around the world, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, the U.K., and the U.S. began delicensing a third band of spectrum for WiFi. The WiFi 6E standard was introduced that year, allowing the creation of routers that broadcast on this frequency, bringing up theoretical maximum speeds to 9.6Gbps. This relied on the band of spectrum between 5,925MHz and 7,125MHz, known as 6GHz spectrum. 

But in several countries, that is not yet the case. India and China have not allowed the use of 6GHz spectrum for WiFi yet. While the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) generally tries to keep wireless frequencies for telecom, WiFi, satellite and other use cases uniform around the world, several countries have not yet agreed on a standard division of the 6GHz band. 

The 6GHz band is currently with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for satellite use cases. However, satellite communications over 6GHz are unlikely to interfere meaningfully with WiFi-like use cases; at any rate, at the World Radiocommunications Conference last year, India and some other countries were able to get an extension till 2027 on what to do with some or all of the spectrum.

Around the world, and certainly in India, telecom operators have expressed intense interest in getting 6GHz spectrum for 5G and 6G, a demand that India may be poised to entertain. Tech companies, such as those represented by the Broadband India Forum — Google, Meta, Amazon, and others — have argued for a US-like allocation for this spectrum to WiFi.