“Telecom powers all the critical technologies that power tomorrow and make life so much better. It has brought about socio-economic development of enormous proportions.”
Ravinder Thakkar,
traffic and data consumption. In fact, just a few years ago India was one of the lowest-ranked countries in broadband penetration, but today, we are the largest data consumer with 600 million broadband users, he continued.
He further said, “Talking about VIL, ever since its merger two years ago and now, completing the world’s largest telecom integration, we have more than doubled the capacity of the data networks. We are delivering two times faster speed on our latest VI-Datanet network. We have created a digital network for the new India. We are committed to serve the digital needs of the nation and the digital champions. The ongoing pandemic has necessitated the need to go digital. We witnessed the impact of this changing digital behaviour in the first week of the lockdown itself. We reported a growth that takes nearly a year was witnessed in just seven days. The pandemic has taught us to be more reliant on digital infrastructure and connectivity. The latest VIL advertisement shows how a farmer’s daughter uses IoT to remotely operate a scarecrow, and how a senior professor takes online classes from the safety of his home. This indeed, is the new reality and the new normal. Telecom will continue to play the role of an enabler and contribute to growth of people, societies, businesses and the overall economy.”
“The Prime Minister has a vision of Digital India. The telecom industry is realizing that connectivity needs a strong foundation for the government’s supply chain development programs. There is financial inclusion, digital payments, and supporting the rollouts of various government programs, such as agriculture, rural, banking, government subsidies, distribution, and many more. As we move to the next decade, the future connected India will be built on technologies such as M2M, IoT, AI, blockchain and robotics. The NDCP 2018 highlights the need to leverage such emerging technologies. The robust digital infrastructure in the country also emphasises the need for a financially strong telecom sector. Speed implementation of the policy is the need of the hour for helping India achieve the goal of a trillion-dollar economy by 2025,” he added.
5G Destination
Thakkar added that 5G is now the next destination. We are making our networks ready for 5G. VIL’s own network is built on the many principles of 5G architecture. Deployment of 5G-ready technologies, such as massive MIMO, DSR, small cells, Open RAN etc., are necessary. The establishment of an ecosystem is also the need. With the Indian government’s approach and support, a vibrant private sector, Digital India will grow and fulfil.
Pradeep Gupta noted that it’s great that in the telecom networks, there’s a 50-times increase and the traffic of 365 days came in just seven days. There was 50-fold increase in place and the industry stood up firm and ensured that would happen. Some of these things we could not have visualised 25 years back. It was considered a luxury. One could not visualise the transformational change that would happen.
TV Ramachandran, President, Broadband India Forum, added that in 1994, he entered the telecom sector. He was the CEO of Sterling Cellular and Essar Telecom. There was a challenge of setting up the networks and how they evolve. In those days, people could not even realize what a mobile phone could do. There were challenges of setting up the network, educating the customers, bringing awareness, etc. When they launched the network, the biggest thing to show off that you have arrived was by placing your mobile phone on the table at the hotels. That was a big thing in those days, and considered an elitist toy. We have come a long way.
Compared to the giant networks of today, back then, those were small networks. People did not know about mobile technology in India, except some of the experts from the defence services. Those from the defence services were a bit experienced in setting up mobile networks. All the mobile operators used to take experts from there. That’s how we all went forward. When they set up the small networks, for them the challenge was not spectrum, which is one of the biggest issues today. But then, as new entrants, because we were starting from a zero base, when somebody had a mobile phone,
they had to talk to somebody. There were very few mobile connections in India. So, he’d have to ring on your landline. Interconnection became the paramount criterion for success, going forward. by the private sector. The huge growth has been almost entirely due to private sector’s initiative and investment. Of course, the government has played an enabling goal, through policy and regulation. In terms of the risk and capital, it has been creative, and innovation has come from the private sector.