India releases a 6G spectrum roadmap and advances a THz testbed

On 22 July 2026, India’s Ministry of Communications reported the release of a national spectrum roadmap for 6G. The Bharat 6G Alliance had expanded to 90 members by 15 July, while a separate three-year project is establishing a terahertz testbed. The work remains focused on research, spectrum and standards: it is preparation of a technology base, not an announcement of a commercial network.

What the programme covers

The Bharat 6G Alliance includes telecom operators, equipment manufacturers, startups, research institutions and universities. It has seven working groups covering:

• 6G technologies;
• radio spectrum;
• applications, use cases and revenue models;
• devices and components;
• green and sustainability aspects;
• stakeholder engagement;
• outreach.

The spectrum group submitted its own report, and the Department of Telecommunications released a spectrum roadmap after stakeholder consultation. This step matters because a laboratory radio technology becomes part of a network only after bands, coexistence rules and equipment availability are addressed.

The terahertz testbed

India approved a three-year 6G Terahertz Testbed project at the SAMEER research centre in Kolkata together with IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati and IIT Patna. The government release says a high-data-rate line-of-sight link was demonstrated at India Mobile Congress 2025.

Terahertz bands offer large potential bandwidth but impose strict constraints on range, antenna direction, obstacles and hardware components. A testbed is intended to measure those limits and validate prototypes; laboratory performance cannot be assumed to transfer directly to a city or regional network.

Standards participation

The government supports Indian participation in 3GPP, ITU and oneM2M. Within IMT-2030, India has promoted ubiquitous connectivity as a 6G usage scenario and coverage, interoperability and sustainability as important capabilities.

This is as relevant to the market as raw link speed. Common specifications determine whether networks, devices and service platforms can work together. Early testing and standards participation can reduce the risk of isolated, incompatible implementations.

Implications for enterprise communications

6G still requires research and standardisation before industrial use. Businesses should not put assumed specifications for a future network into current project commitments. It is more useful to track the directions already visible:

• integration across different network types;
• new bands and more directional radio links;
• device-interoperability requirements;
• infrastructure energy efficiency;
• coverage and service-resilience testing.

Enterprise applications should remain independent of a mobile-network generation. Queues, retry control, fallback paths and message TTL are necessary in 4G and 5G and will remain necessary in future networks. The practical approach is covered in our guide to branch connectivity resilience.

What remains undisclosed

The official release does not set a commercial 6G launch date, final bands, equipment cost or target coverage figures. It also does not include the full methodology and result set for the terahertz demonstration.

The announcement should therefore be read as progress in research and standards infrastructure. Comparing it to a ready commercial service or promising a specific business speed would be premature.

Practical conclusion

India is developing three necessary layers of future connectivity at the same time: a 90-member ecosystem, a spectrum roadmap and test infrastructure. This sequence can narrow the gap between research, equipment makers and standards.

For companies operating in Russia, the useful action today is to watch interoperability and architecture principles, not plan a migration to a network that does not yet exist. Notification services and integrations should retain explicit SLOs and independence from one transport route under any mobile generation.

Source: the Government of India’s Press Information Bureau release dated 22 July 2026.