Government wants to promote local companies, K Rajaraman, DoT Secretary

A Telecom Investors’ Roundtable focusing on “Investment Opportunity in 5G operations and Telecom Reforms” started off in Mumbai morning. It was inuagurted by K Rajaraman, Chairman, Digital Communications Commission and Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications.

Speaking in the inaugural session, K Rajaraman stated that advancing 5G technologies is a crucial decision taken by the Government. Explaining the purpose of today’s round-table, he said, “The idea is to see how we can work together to bring in more investment in telecom sector and create jobs”. The DoT Secretary stated that many recent reforms have led to bringing down the high cost in telecom sector.

The DoT secretary also said that the Government wants to promote local companies and start-ups in the process of roll-out of 5G in India. urged all stakeholders to come together to ensure that the required technology stack for 5G is produced within the country. “We must come very strongly to promote local companies and try and test out various components, we should set up test pilots and do experiments, so that we create local champions. In this context, he called for working on developing technologies within the country in line with the vision of India @2047. He urged the stakeholders to share their views about what the Government needs to do in terms of taking India to a global presence in the telecom sector.

K Rajaraman further said that the research fraternity has done outstanding work in contributing low mobility large cell technology in line with 3GP standards. “We are also supporting various startups working on these technologies, if there is more funds required for supporting TSDI, we will do”. He called for startups and early-stage companies to join this exciting phase in telecom industry.

“We expect that the R&D fund from USOF will act as a seed fund for bringing in more investment from the industry. C-DOT has set up a collaborative platform where industry investment can be leveraged to create technology stack which can be used by industry to approach markets”, he said.

The DoT Secretary invited all telecom industry stakeholders to participate in the India Mobile Congress which is coming up in September to demonstrate indigenous technologies and market them to foreign investors. There will be a technical session on 6G also in the Indian Mobile Congress, he added.

R.K. Pathak, DDG(IC), DoT made a presentation on ‘Present Status and future roadmap for 5G’ which can be accessed here. https://www.communicationstoday.co.in/present-status-future-roadmap-for-5g/

In the presentation, it was highlighted that 5G will enable citizens to get 100 Mbps on the move.

Some key-points about 5G roll-out in India:

1. Cumulative economic impact of 5G on India can reach one trillion USD by 2035; it can usher in a major societal transformation in India by enabling rapid expansion of IT In various sectors.
2. Government envisions an Atma Nirbhar Bharat 5G New Radio (NR) Standalone End-to-End Network.
3. 5G promises to fuse ultra high connectivity, dynamic content and computing, opening up a realm of applications driving individual intelligence to facilitate towards unlimited collaboration of things.

The Additional Secretary (T), DoT V L Kantha Rao, in his welcome address stated that the Roundtable will speak of investment opportunities in telecom sector, especially in 5G sector. He said that DoT will be a match-maker to ensure that those who have ideas and seek investment are matched with industry players, after due diligence of the tech players, so the players being showcased have gone through stages of tech readiness.

A number of selected start-ups and MSMEs demonstrated their technologies in the sidelines of the roundtable.

CT Bureau