Telecom industry’s future will be increasingly reliant on fiberisation: Interview with APAR’s Girish Gupta

APAR Telecom Solutions is supporting India’s evolving telecom ecosystem through a bouquet of new and future-ready cabling solutions. In an interview with tele.net, Girish Gupta, senior vice-president and business head, Telecom and Convergence, APAR Industries, talks about company’s focus areas and future plans…

What are APAR Telecom business’s key focus areas?

APAR Telecom Solutions is committed to delivering sustainable and innovative optical fibre cable connectivity solutions that cater to the evolving needs of various industries, including telecom mobility networks, enterprise solutions, defense, and both rural and urban connectivity. The company focuses on developing and deploying unique optical fibre products while also providing customised solutions to address the dynamic requirements of the network ecosystem. With a strong dedication to customer-centricity, innovation, and sustainability, APAR continually enhances its product and service offerings to future-proof its clients’ needs in an increasingly digital world.

How do you see the Indian digital connectivity infrastructure evolving in the next few years? What will be the key growth levers?

Exponentially growing data demand, availability of data sets for analytics and evolution of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) shall drive the future of digital connectivity infrastructure. I think, we will have broadly three sets of connectivity needs in this evolving digitally connected society.

• With increasing 5G/cloud penetration, service providers will need to focus more on latency and slicing of networks. This will require 10 times more cell sites, creating a denser ecosystem while solving for cost, complexity, consumption and concurrency. AI shall definitely enable operators in automation of routine tasks, predictive maintenance of networks, energy efficiency and optimising network performance while delivering quality of service (QoS). In this new converged world of wireless and wireline, both upcoming new cell sites and old towers which are approximately 40 per cent connected with fibre today will need to be connected 100 per cent with fibre at the back end to deliver this demand and deliver network performance.
• With need for data localisation, hyper scale data centres are expected to grow three times in the next five years while edge data centres will emerge across cities to deliver low latency and QoS. With billions of devices getting connected and performing in real-time scenario, these edge data centres will create demand for dedicated fibre corridor for them.
• Digital inclusion is a critical aspect of Viksit Bharat and moving forward, 100 per cent village connectivity is required. Bharatnet is one such programme for creating digital connectivity across 640,000 villages over the next few years. Satellite policy is another such initiative by Government of India to enable remote connectivity. Such initiatives will play a crucial role to provide wireline and wireless digital services to these rural areas.

The telecommunications industry’s future will be increasingly reliant on fiberisation for advanced connectivity infrastructure, as the demand for high-speed, low-latency networks will increase as more devices become interconnected.

Given the growing customer focus on digitalisation and sustainability, how are you aligning products and solutions with these themes?

APAR Telecom Solutions has integrated digitalisation and sustainability into its core strategy. We have been enabling connectivity with our optical fibre cables, local area network (LAN) cables and copper cables over the years to meet the demand of high-speed connectivity. To address the need of cutting down the plastic and carbon content, APAR has specifically designed future-ready cabling solution Giga-Volt hybrid cable for resilient digital connectivity and power in one cable solution. Our manufacturing initiatives align with key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), focusing on responsible consumption, climate action, sustainable industrialisation, fiberised communication systems, and internet of things (IoT). This alignment positions us to contribute to global sustainability efforts while ensuring our products are future-ready to support the next generation of digital infrastructure.

Beyond supplying telecom products, APAR is also working on deployment of fibre networks across towns and cities for enabling 5G. This entails collaborating closely with government entities, infrastructure providers and telecom operators to guarantee the availability of right solutions for Viksit Bharat infrastructure.

What are the business’s future plans? What are the key upcoming opportunities that you are looking to tap?

As industries embrace digitalisation, APAR Telecom Solutions is poised to expand its product line and manufacturing capabilities to meet the evolving connectivity demands of sectors such as transport, energy, oil and gas, and enterprise solutions. The company is focusing on developing innovative cabling solutions that go beyond traditional telecom applications, ensuring they address the diverse connectivity needs of today’s dynamic environment. By fostering growth through innovation and striving to exceed client expectations, APAR aims to maintain its leadership in connectivity solutions while adapting to the future landscape of communication technology.