Sony’s PS5 Pro launch in India entangled in telecom spectrum hitch

6GHz spectrum is hotly contested in India [File]
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Sony’s PlayStation 5 Pro console, a mid-generation refresh that launched on Thursday in many markets, is not releasing in India for the foreseeable future, Sony indicated in a statement. It is not uncommon for PlayStation consoles to have a delayed launch — at least for officially imported warranty-covered units. However, Sony has provided a specific reason this time around that may delay the console’s launch indefinitely.

PS5 Pro consoles support WiFi 7, a standard that uses a band of 6 gigahertz spectrum that many countries around the world have allowed to be used for wireless home broadband. However, 6GHz spectrum is hotly contested in India. The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd, has pushed strongly for this spectrum to be reserved for use in mobile internet technologies like 5G. 

“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,” Sony said in a statement.

The 6GHz spectrum debate has long pit telecom firms against tech and broadband companies, and the lack of a decision on the matter has complicated matters for consumer electronics manufacturers. 

On the other side of this conflict are Big Tech firms like Amazon and Google, as well as home broadband providers, who see WiFi as the rightful use case for this spectrum. So far, WiFi in India largely uses 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum. Currently, the government has not made a final call on whether to assign the spectrum in its entirety to WiFi, or to delicense it partially or wholly to telecom operators. 

Earlier this year, the COAI complained that WiFi 6E (which precedes WiFi 7) routers were being sold illegally in India. While the government did not seem to publicly comment on that allegation, e-commerce sites like Amazon have largely scrubbed their catalogue to remove WiFi 6E routers. 

The pro-WiFi camp in the 6GHz battle — whose success is somewhat necessary to a PS5 Pro launch in India — recently faced a setback. A consortium effort to develop standards for 6G, a priority for Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the Bharat 6G Alliance, put out a report recommending that 6GHz spectrum be used for 5G and 6G technologies, a recommendation that drew a rebuke from the BIF. 

The debate is far from over — India will only take a call on delicensing some or all of 6GHz spectrum after performing so-called co-existence studies to make sure that telecom networks or WiFi use of the spectrum does not interfere with ISRO satellites’ use of the same band, which is the current assignment for that band. 

Global telecom industry bodies like GSMA have also pushed for this spectrum to be used largely for telecom operators. “In countries with very high Wi-Fi demand, allocating an additional 500 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed use in the 6 GHz band … is sufficient to meet expected demand,” GSMA said in a report. 

It is however unclear if Sony is legally required to not launch the PS5 in India just because it supports the WiFi 7 standard with 6GHz spectrum. Apple, for instance, has restricted 6GHz spectrum only in mainland China, according to a help page on its website, and had it locked in Japan until recently, removing that restriction with a software update.