Telecom became the unmissable hero of pandemic and continues to be so!

Currently, India is the second-largest among the telecom networks and the fastest-growing app market, and the second-highest number of internet users globally, with subscriber base more than 1198 million, giving a big boom to the telecom industry, and attracting more investments in this sector.

Further, India contributes the highest in the global mobile traffic-per-smartphone at 14.5 GB per smart­phone per month, and the Indian telecom sector is the third-largest sector in terms of FDI inflows, contributing 7.1 percent of total inflow. With the new policy allowing 100 percent FDI investments in India, FY22 will see more boost and an increase in telecom, mobile and internet services.

During FY21, the three wings of the telecom industry-mobile (wireless), fixed-line (wire-line), and inter­net services have seen mixed results and fiber deployments have significantly increased.

Manufacturers of telecom equipment and traders have been deeply affected with shortage of semiconductors and are currently stressed as never before, albeit OEMs are assuring time-based supplies to our customers on priority that promises to keep our market share high.

Having said this, major concern is that if the ongoing semi-conductors and raw material supply crunch continues, it will disrupt inventories for production of products and test equipment, including routers and IoT devices, which in turn will impact device sales and service revenues for telecom operators.

Recently, one of the major optical fiber cable manufacturers has increased their capacity from 30 million to 50 million fkm and have shifted focus toward upcoming 5G developments. Parallelly, there has been a steady growth in fiber deployments resulting in an increase in revenue of associated companies including network equipment suppliers and test and measurement companies.

Telecom service providers have also started laying down the foundation for 5G. As it is a completely different ecosystem, service providers for the first time need to engage with industries. They will now have the capability of offering customized speed to different segments.

In 2022, the telecom network will also start to ₹shift into space. A leading provider’s new project will commence in India by 2022, and it plans to offer satellite services from the Himalayas, deep deserts, to the security agencies, extending satellite communication to any place in the world.

It clearly indicates that in FY22, across all levels and classes of customers, communication with all its flavors data, voice, and video with low latency and high throughput will be the focus. All telecom manu­facturers, traders, and service providers are gearing up to meet the focused targets.

FY22 focus will be mainly on the massive growth of data and computing power, and high number of base stations required for 5G, O-RAN, and more importantly we will see fog computing data center as a completely new market.

Recently, the Union Minister of Communications, IT, and Railways, stated that the government expects to auction 5G spectrum by April–May 2022. Till then, the telecom industry needs to wait and closely follow up the events and progress.

All the OEMs, traders, operation and maintenance teams are gearing up to have processes with checks and balances in place to avoid any data leaks and ensure complete security when handling vast amounts of data. At the government level, security of data has become a foremost concern. In FY22, Indian government is hugely focused on network security and its safe operation across all networks. With respect to this, the Indian government plans to release the first list of trusted telecom equipment providers, and it is expected to be released soon.