Dr C.S. Rao, chairman and co-founder, QuadGen
QuadGen Wireless Solutions Private Limited has a legacy of one and a half decades with proven domain credentials as a network systems integrator and provider of network engineering services. Recently, QuadGen, India and Viettel High Tech, Vietnam entered into a entered into a strategic partnership to drive innovation and growth in the comprehensive 5G test lab and deployment of 5G public and private network infrastructures in India. The partnership aims to contribute to India’s rapidly advancing 5G landscape and align with the government’s Make in India initiative. In an interview with tele.net, Dr C.S. Rao, chairman and co-founder, QuadGen, elaborates on the partnership and outlines the company’s future plans for the Indian 5G market…
How long have Quadgen and Viettel been associated with the technology-related business?
Viettel High Tech (VHT) is the key research, design, development and production unit of Viettel Group and has electronics, telecommunications and defense wireless products experience over the past decade. VHT has 13 years of experience in 4G services, having offered 4G products since 2015-16. As for QuadGen, the company was founded in 2007 when 4G was coming into the picture. We have been present in the global market since 2010. We have served telecom operators in America such as AT&T, Verizon, T- Mobile, and DISH. Now, we want to enter the Indian market owing to its large size and market opportunity. In India, over 600 million people are expected to become 5G consumers. We have partnered with Viettel to enter the Indian market.
What is the business objective of the technology collaboration between Viettel and QuadGen?
QuadGen develops the software stack, while Viettel specialises in developing the hardware. Together, we make a 5G product family. The business objective is to promote these 5G products, which have a huge potential in India. The country requires several 5G base stations. We offer cost-effective, highly-reliable and 3GPP standards compatible 5G base station products for rural and suburban India. We consider ourselves an alternative to Huawei and ZTE, which are banned in the country. We recognised an opportunity in this market segment where Huawei and ZTE were previously active in India. That is the critical business objective.
What are the telecom network segments that QuadGen and Viettel want to pursue in India?
5G aims to cater to two segments of the market at a high level. The first is the public network market, which includes network providers such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited and Vodafone Idea Limited. The other one is the private network segment, where large manufacturing enterprises have their own private 5G networks. For example, manufacturing plants spread across hundreds of thousands of acres in the sectors of automation, pharmaceutical factories, steel plants or mining networks are considered a part of the digital private network segment. Telecom network operators provide connectivity services to this private network segment under a model permitted by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and the government to enable wireless private network services for large corporates. These are the two broad segments.
We are looking at both public and private network segments. In the public network market, we are trying to facilitate 5G network expansion in rural areas at highly competitive price points. Typically, players do not enter rural markets as 5G products are expensive and the rural population largely uses wireless broadband. 4G is now entering the rural market after five to six years of its launch. However, rural areas need not wait as long for 5G.
What are your long-term plans under the Make in India initiative?
The government is encouraging local manufacturing and assembly rather than getting finished products from overseas markets. We are committed to the government’s objective. We have established a manufacturing set-up in Hyderabad. We have invested in a company that has an electronic assembly manufacturing line to manufacture our products and have additional capacity for local assembly and manufacturing. We can do this within six months from now.
What competitive factors are being considered for your 5G solutions intended for the Indian market?
The Indian market has three unique characteristics in the case of wireless services. First, the ARPU on a monthly basis is the lowest in India compared to anywhere else globally, including China and Vietnam. We pay an ARPU of nearly $1.5-$2 per month. So, for the whole year, telecom service providers generate $18-$24 in revenue from one customer, particularly in rural India. Second, the subscriber density per square km is very high in the country. Densely populated urban areas have around 1 million subscribers per square km, whereas rural areas have 500-1,000 subscribers per square km. The third characteristic is very high concrete density per square km due to high building density, population-wise.
These three factors impact the network roll-out. The increased concrete density affects the base station’s ability to send a signal inside the building, called in-building coverage, especially for 5G. This is because the signal must pass through multiple buildings and walls, facing absorption and attenuation. This leads to poor indoor coverage. High subscriber density also impacts roll-out. Telcos should be capable of handling 1M subscribers per sq.km in dense urban areas, but typically a single base station caters to only 5K-10K subscribers as per the multi-channel capability. To provide coverage to 1 million users in 1 Sq.km area, 100-200 such base stations will be needed. Therefore, a high-capacity base station is needed to avoid multiple base stations on rooftops. The products must have a proper design and architecture to meet these three different deployment scenarios for public network roll-out. Our equipment addresses this requirement at a competitive price with a low capex per subscriber. At the same time, we do not compromise on quality or deployment capability. This is the uniqueness of our solution.
What is the expected range of business revenues in this line of 5G solutions?
The total addressable market in India is at least about $10 billion. Of this, almost $4 billion-$6 billion goes to bigger companies, leaving $4 billion for other small companies. We aim to capture at least 5-10 per cent of the remaining $4 billion market over the next two to three years.
What are the future trends that you foresee in the 5G market in India?
Trends in terms of subscriber demand and technology adoption will determine the future of the 5G market. Subscribers are likely to consume new technologies and much smarter phones. Currently, smartphones already have 10-15 megapixel or HD cameras. These built-in cameras can be ultra-HD or 4K in the future. This kind of video-driven, camera-driven society will lead to much higher bandwidth consumption. Phones also have multiple sensors for monitoring various health metrics such as pulse, blood pressure and ECG. Another device is a tablet that involves a higher form factor of display. The third device is wearables, which will also be embedded with 5G. This means that a subscriber now has multiple devices, including a phone, a tablet and a few wearables. Laptops embedded with 5G will also gain traction.
With all these 5G-embedded devices, a subscriber is likely to consume significant amounts of data. Data consumption from a subscriber is likely to be at least 40 GB per month, up from around 5-10 GB per month on average today. 5G will lead to this quantum jump in data consumption. This data consumption requirement necessitates an increase in base station capacities to serve the growing number of 5G subscribers. The fibre backhaul capacities connected to every base station must also increase. Today, if a base station has a fibre backhaul at 1G, it may need to go up to 100G.
Device complexity, base station complexity, increase in capacity and the fibre network’s traffic carrying capacity are likely to drive the introduction of a new range of products in every three-year cycles. By 2026, we will be in a totally different world. At least 20 per cent of the industry will transform, if not 100 per cent. These trends will automatically have an impact on our ability to offer different products with different capacities.
