Make in India

— Vipin Tyagi

There is a transformational change in the government and businesses using new generation of communication technology.The importance of creating capabilities in the digital communication technology is crucial for the government as well as the enterprises.The history of R&D in the country has taught some hard lessons but the short-term considerations usually take precedence over medium-and long-term development objectives.

C-DOT was formed in 1984 with the singular objective of developing a digital switching system within the country. The technology and manufacturing capabilities were developed within the country, which resulted in large-scale expansion of telecommunication through digital telephony in the rural India.The important aspects of technology expansion included the right policies of procurement and willingness to deploy indigenous technology, especially during the nascent stage.

The opening of economy in the 1990s resulted in a total disregard for indigenous development of mobile switching and transmission capabilities. The ridicule for indigenous R&D and products resulted in a loss of focus on indigenous research and development. Incremental R&D for sustaining the rural network remainedthe focusof C-DOT till 2009.

The induction of new leadership in C-DOT from late 1990s recalibrated the portfolio and a clear strategy of

creating broadband networks of any size was embraced by C-DOT. This created a new level of performance and outcomes in terms of availability of telecom equipment like DWDM of 16 Tbps per fiber for core network (virtually unlimited capacity over fiber); Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) that provided download capacity of 2.4 Gbps and upload speed 1.25 Gbps in access on one fiber optic strand; XGS-PON (10 Gigabit symmetrical PON) that provided 10 Gbps upload and download in access on a single fiber strand; terabit and multi-terabit routers; switches and aggregators; POTP solutions for traffic aggregation; and Next Generation Network (NGN) core and access. digitization tool, state-of-the-art Network Management System (NMS).

It needs to be understood that the nation, with an ambition of a five-trillion-economy cannot afford to undermine or underfund R&D institutions that have good track record and delivery both in private and public sector. Products proudly “created in India” with design, development, manufacturing and IPR creation in the country will generate unprecedented employment and capability. Combining hardware and software using world-class system engineering practices and worldclass quality process like SET CMMI Level 5 to build world-class technology is easily achievable.