Interview with Jitendra Chaudhary:“IP/MPLS routing is the intelligence layer of every telecom network”

India’s networking and connectivity market is entering a new phase of complexity, with BharatNet’s expansion, 5G densification, data centre growth and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven network demands converging to create both scale and depth of opportunity for indigenous technology providers. In an interview with tele.net, Jitendra Singh Chaudhary, Executive President – Communications, HFCL Limited, discussed the company’s evolution from system integrator to global telecom product company, its research and development (R&D) investments across internet protocol/multi-protocol label switching (IP/MPLS) routing and 6G technologies, and its growing footprint across national infrastructure programmes…

What have been the key business and operational highlights for HFCL’s communications business over the past year?

For HFCL, the past year has been a strong one for the business. You would have heard about the $1.1 billion optical fibre supply contract, the largest in our history. On the defence side, HFCL’s newly established Advance Systems has built a confirmed export order book of Rs 15.70 billion spanning surveillance radars, thermal weapon sights and electronic fuses. On the network equipment side, which is what I look after, our IP/MPLS routers hold nearly 60 per cent of BharatNet Phase III’s routing footprint, supplying across circles including Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

IP/MPLS routing is the intelligence layer of every telecom network. It decides where data goes, how fast it gets there, and how the network keeps running when something fails. Building it requires years of protocol-level engineering – only a few companies globally have built it, and fewer still have deployed it at this scale, from the Himalayan foothills to island territories like the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. 17,000 of our routers are live inside BharatNet today, with an 80,000-unit commitment across the programme. The same routers run inside Tier I private operator networks, the most commercially demanding networks in the world, where there is no scope for failure.

On the wireless side, India’s first indigenously developed and commercialised 5G fixed wireless access product came from HFCL, with approximately 1 million units now carrying live subscriber traffic across Indian telecom networks. At MahaKumbh 2025, our unlicensed band radio and Wi-Fi products delivered the connectivity backbone for 660 million visitors in partnership with India’s largest mobile operator, and everyone stayed connected.

Globally, telecom infrastructure is being driven by AI workloads, data centre expansion, and the need for intelligent, secure and sustainable networks. HFCL is focused on building technology that meets those requirements, designed and engineered locally. The scale and complexity of deployments we have executed have positioned us to compete and deliver in the most demanding markets in the world.

How has HFCL evolved from a system integrator to a global telecom product and solutions company?

HFCL has spent decades executing the most demanding network programmes in India. We built and deployed 4G networks for one of India’s largest mobile operators, enabling the fastest 4G roll-out in the country. Our mobile data offload solution has been deployed at scale for India’s largest mobile operator, decongesting their cellular network and serving millions of users daily. We delivered a nation-wide, very advanced, secure and critical network infrastructure for the tri-services – the Indian Army, Indian Navy and Air Force – under the Network for Spectrum programme, the world’s largest purpose-built defence network, deployed across some of the most extreme terrain in the country.

This operational depth became the foundation for building our own products. The mobile networks we built and ran are now running on our IP/MPLS routers. The offload deployments run on our Wi-Fi systems. The 5G networks being built today run on our 5G transport and networking products. We have filed patents covering energy-efficient systems, AI and machine learning (ML)-based telecom applications, and advanced networking technologies directly relevant to 5G and 6G. From executing 4G deployments to filing IP for 6G, this is the arc of this company’s evolution.

We build products around what customers actually need. This understanding comes from having been inside their networks for decades. It means building solutions that address real operational challenges, not just product specifications. And it means staying with the customer after the product is deployed. Behind every HFCL IP/MPLS deployment sits a team of dedicated experts monitoring network performance around the clock, supported by an element management system that gives full visibility across every node. When something needs attention, we see it before the customer does.

Our manufacturing facilities are built to the same standard that the products are held to in the field. State-of-the-art facilities with the quality controls and production discipline that carrier-grade infrastructure demands. Design, manufacturing, deployment and long-term support within the same organisation. Complete ownership of the product lifecycle, with the customer at the centre of every stage.

HFCL has made significant investments in R&D and indigenous product development. How is this capability shaping the company’s competitiveness in both domestic and international markets?

Our R&D investment starts with what customers need today and what they will need next. This has driven every product decision HFCL has made, from IP/MPLS routing and 5G networking products to the 33 patents we have filed in AI, ML and 6G technologies.

IP/MPLS protocol engineering has been the most demanding of those investments. Years of work at the most complex layer of any telecom network, where indigenous capability is rarest and engineering difficulty is highest. That investment is now validated at a national scale across the most demanding network environments in India. The same R&D culture has produced firsts in other parts of the portfolio. HFCL was the first Indian company to develop and commercialise 5G FWA CPE, with approximately 1 million units now deployed and carrying live subscriber traffic across Indian telecom networks.

On the Wi-Fi side, HFCL became the first Indian enterprise to offer OpenRoaming across its entire Wi-Fi portfolio, enabling seamless and secure connectivity across networks globally. These are not incremental product iterations – they are capabilities built ahead of market demand.

We are also part of an IIT Delhi-led, Department of Telecommunications-funded consortium developing hollow-core fibre technology for 6G and quantum networks. The R&D investment is not just validating what has been deployed. It is already working on what comes next.

Sustained R&D creates more than just a product pipeline – it creates a continuous feedback loop. Every large-scale deployment feeds real-world performance data back into the engineering organisation. The product improves because of where it has been deployed, not just where it was designed.

That depth is what shapes competitiveness. In the domestic market, it earns trust in environments where failure is not an option. Internationally, it travels as proof of performance that does not need to be explained.

HFCL is playing a central role in government programmes such as BharatNet. How are these projects reflecting the broader opportunity for Made-in-India telecom products?

The Make in India vision is enabling Indian companies to engineer complex technology from the ground up, backed by indigenous IP and genuine R&D investment, and deploy it at a national scale. BharatNet is where that is most visible. It is the world’s largest rural broadband programme, connecting 250,000 gram panchayats across 600,000 villages. Its first two phases focused on getting optical fibre to every gram panchayat.

The current phase goes further, mandating IP/MPLS ring topology for the first time, because a network that has become the lifeline of rural digital and economic participation for hundreds of millions of Indians must stay live without interruption. That mandate is itself a statement. It says that the network has grown into something too consequential to run on anything less than the most resilient routing architecture available.

What that architecture carries is worth stating plainly: A gram panchayat official in rural Uttar Pradesh accessing land records without a three-day journey to the district headquarters. A farmer in Punjab benefiting from crop insurance claims now being processed digitally, because the network underneath his village is resilient, Indian and live. These are not aspirational use cases. They are what the infrastructure supports today.

HFCL’s routers account for nearly 60 per cent of BharatNet Phase III’s routing footprint. When the routing layer is designed and built indigenously, India no longer pays a premium to foreign vendors for technology it can build itself, and the sensitive information of its citizens remains safe on infrastructure that belongs to India.

The broader signal for Made-in-India products is this. A programme that mandates carrier-grade technology at a national scale, and then sources it indigenously, demonstrates that the capability exists. That demonstration travels. It changes what India can credibly offer to other markets, and it changes what Indian companies can credibly attempt next.

What is your outlook for India’s networking and connectivity market over the next two to three years?

The fundamentals are strong. BharatNet Phase III is expanding to all 600,000 villages. Telcos are continuing to invest in 5G roll-out and network densification. Data centre investments from global hyperscalers are accelerating, driven by India’s digital infrastructure push and favourable policy environment, including tax incentives. Each of these is generating demand across the full network stack, from routing and transport to access and wireless.

AI workloads are adding a new layer of demand. As more compute moves into Indian data centres, the networks connecting them need to be faster, more resilient and more energy-efficient. This is reshaping what operators and enterprises are asking for from their network vendors.

HFCL is building the technology that answers those requirements, here in India. The scale of what has been deployed across national infrastructure, commercial networks and defence puts us in a strong position as these market opportunities develop.