According to Jyotiraditya M. Scindia, Union Minister of Communications and Development of the North Eastern Region, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has deployed 93,450 towers for its commercial 4G rollout using an indigenous telecom stack. He believes that it is still a long way to go, but the company is on track, as per its goals.
He highlighted the collaboration between Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), a public sector firm; BSNL, a public sector undertaking; Tejas Networks, a private firm; and Tata Consultancy Services, a system integrator, which together built India’s first domestic stack in 22 months. As per the minister, India is now the fifth country with an indigenous telecom stack.
Further, Scindia emphasised the need for India to develop domestic service capabilities and promote indigenous production. He noted that India, as a nation, has to ensure that it becomes a hub for designing, solving, and scaling from India. He also noted that the Bharat 6G Alliance is fostering public-private collaboration for 6G development. He mentioned that the entrepreneurs and innovators must ensure India leads in technology in the future.
Meanwhile, Neeraj Mittal, secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT), mentioned that while India lagged in 4G, it matched global strides in 5G and aims to lead in 6G.
In addition, Abhijit Kishore, Chairman, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and chief operating officer (COO), Vodafone Idea Limited (Vi), noted that the industry must connect the dots to showcase collective potential and make India a technology hub for citizens and global stakeholders.
