V&D Telecom Leadership Forum 5G Conference: 5G & the Future of Mobile Data

Voice & Data organized the 4th edition of the TLF 5G conference titled 5G and the Future of Mobile Data on September 13, 2022. This was the first in-person event by V&D Telecom Leadership Forum, since having online TLF conferences for the past two years due to the pandemic-related restrictions.

The TLF5G conference with over 10+ high-impact sessions with 7 keynotes, 7 panel discussions + fireside chat, 155+ targeted audience. Over 30+ speakers were featured. The event saw participation from captains of the telecom industry, international speakers, network heads, and start-up founders, along with top policymakers, CXOs, and technology experts on the cloud, 5G services, and new digital platforms. The conference was attended by around 200 targeted invitees and broadcast live on Cybermedia’s various social media handles, garnering more than 10K social impressions.

Presenting the opening keynote on the telecom industry analysis, Peeyush Vaish, Partner & Telecom Sector Leader, Deloitte India, said the government has been very supportive of the reforms. 5G offers vastly improved network characteristics over previous generations. India will start with Rel-16 version. Rel-16 made 5G more suitable for deployments in industrial environments, enabling the potential for private captive networks. Some of the countries where 5G has been rolled out such as Korea and the USA had to invest a lot more in 5G.

487 MNOs have invested in 5G so far. 99 MNOs in 50 countries have invested in 5G. 187 MNOs have launched 5G mobile services. 20 operators in 16 countries have launched 5G standalone services. There has been a 155% increase in commercial devices in a year (2020 vs. 2021). Roughly 50% of global subscriptions are going to be around 5G, with about 40% in India. Revenues from the B2B segment are going to be far more than what previous generations provided.

We are now fostering innovation with 5G. Countries such as Germany, Finland, the UK, the USA, Sweden, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, etc., have earmarked spectrum for private networks in the mid-band (3.3-3.67GHz) and 28GHz mmWave band.

13 cities across India have been identified for the primary and secondary phases of 5G rollout. Allocation of spectrum and conclusion of trials have been completed by all three major providers. An initial commercial launch is expected, starting Oct. 2022. Between 2023-2040, 5G technologies will contribute approximately $450 billion (0.6% of GDP by 2040).

Although current accelerated 5G development investments in mature markets, it will not be sustainable in the long term. 5G network infrastructure spending will peak by 2023/24. Infrastructure investment in India is expected to be staggered.

There will be nearly 7.5 billion smartphones by 2025 globally, with 1.2 billion in India. Mobile global average usage per smartphone will reach 11.4GB. 5G subscriptions are forecast to reach 4.4 billion globally by 2027, and 5G subscription uptake will be faster than 4G. The Indian MNO will generate $17 billion in incremental revenue. In 2022, 3GPP Rel-17 will roll out. Mass rollout of the 5G standalone core network will also take place in Europe.

Welcome Note

Pradeep Gupta, Chairman, CyberMedia Group, welcomed everyone. It is a very exciting time to be in. Different sides of the industry are coming together, supported by the government. All of you are going to benefit greatly. We will be dissecting different parts of the 5G collage throughout the day, he said.

Vision 2030: New age, new needs, demand new approaches

Akhil Gupta, Vice-Chairman, Bharti Enterprises, said the evolution of new technology such as 5G will take time. We have announced plans, and 5G services will start next month. DoT and TRAI have played great roles.

There are some concerns that still exist, some serious concerns about use cases. Telecom is a typical industry that works on supply and demand. There will be some really good use cases. The first is mobility. Apps will require greater speeds for gaming, etc. Some adjustments will definitely be made. Next, is fixed wireless broadband. India will get truly digitized by providing proper and decent speed to everyone. This can be done over 5G. The operators will be putting up networks for private players.

The current level of shipment of 5G phones is already 22%. It will reach 40% in about five years. We also have a chipset shortage, which is fortunately easing. As we proceed, supply concerns will vanish. We will also need a huge number of small cells, which will be connected over fiber. Currently, only 30% of towers are fiberized. Right of way and approvals are also there. RoW rules are formed by the government, along with Gati Shakti.

Telecom is one sector that requires continuous and large investments. It is the duty of all stakeholders that they maintain ARPU to about Rs. 300. All stakeholders, along with DoT and TRAI, will overcome all the issues, and set up robust 5G networks. We need to provide good 5G networks for India.

P Balaji, Chief Regulatory & Corporate Affairs, Vodafone Idea, added that a lot of progress has happened in the past 12-18 months. The government came up with a reform package last year. They need to provide adequate time for the industry to repair itself. The recent 5G auctions are very clear. A fair amount of spectrum was available for operators. There is a need for financial health and repair of the industry.

With new technologies and services being rolled out, we will also need a lot of investment for a robust infrastructure. We will start to migrate from 4G to 5G. Micro cells will get built up for 5G. Every layer of the ecosystem should have enough cash flow and returns. A lot of 5G will also be driven by Industry 4.0. The opportunities are going to be significant. There needs to be a lot of collaboration between enterprises and operators.

On healthcare, we need to extend that to tier-2 and tier-3 cities, along with the help of telcos. Smart grids will also emerge. Some plans have been announced. The architecture of networks has substantially improved over the last 24-36 months. AI and blockchain have also been implemented. The density of 5G devices also need to gather speed, as we move on. The primary use case will come in the enterprise space. Devices are now getting tested by telcos. Gati Shakti is also a great initiative. We also need to sort out the financial things sooner. There is renewed interest in the sector.

Public cloud is perfect for India

Ms. Danielle Royston, Founder and CEO of TelcoDR and Acting CEO, Totogi, presented how the public cloud is perfect for India. In Mumbai, she got the idea of moving the telcos to public cloud.

Our industry is changing right before our eyes. We are talking about the public cloud, and AWS is a sponsor of this event. There is also Azure and Google Cloud. AT&T moved its network cloud business to Microsoft. Dish built its network on AWS.

The public cloud is perfect for India -- for scale and low price. India also has the lowest ARPU in the world. This creates a unique challenge for Indian operators. AWS Dynamo DB scaled 80.1 million requests in 2020. Graviron3 has 2x faster floating-point performance for scientific workloads. It is 2x faster for cryptography.

India just concluded a record-breaking 5G auction. Ericsson and Nokia are also knocking on the doors. You need to be sure that you are selecting solutions that are cloud native. Look at the price! It is that simple. She gave an Amdocs example. Cloud washing is a way to rebrand an old product by associating it with the cloud.

Reinventing Communications Together

Sameer Vuyyuru, Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS). Sameer delivered an industry keynote on Public Cloud- Re-inventing Communications together. I wanted to share a few observations about that. We will have a discussion about the trends that we see in telco, and how the cloud has evolved. What we've seen as the recipe for successful transformation and how, most importantly, AWS and telcos can work together.

There's a financial issue we have to solve, which is revenue growth, and capital for investment. That's where we think we can play a role. There is cost reduction. One of the biggest asks of every board member, every C level, and every VP at our telcos is, help us move from a telco to a Tech-Co.

When we deploy into an enterprise, guess how much of the total value of that enterprise workload is connectivity? It's between 5-10%. That is the value that telcos for all of their investment are capturing in the industry today. Our role at AWS is to help you capture 20, 30, 40, up to 100%. 5G is happening. But one of the things that you have to consider is, how are you going to address these b2b companies. They are already on the cloud. Your customers are already on the cloud, already using hyper scaler tools. But the procurement process of connectivity is abysmal, it takes months. Our enterprise customers want to click a button and get connected in seconds. And we're not there yet.

Why do we need to go through tenders for enterprises or governments? Why isn't the network as consumable as compute has been? As storage has been, as databases have been as analytics have been, and so on and so forth. Why aren't we billing the network in one-cent increments to the enterprise customers? There is growing demand from private networks across the world, but that is being led by fixed wireless, as Mr. (Pradeep) Gupta said earlier and what we recently have observed, is that sustainability issues are moving to the top of the agenda. Anecdotally, we were working with an operator in another continent. And they see their electricity bill, their energy bill skyrocket from 50 million to over 300 million in the space of six months. That's just not sustainable.

What has the cloud done. The cloud has gotten close to the business, the developers, and to the end users. If you're watching Netflix or Prime Video on your phone, the end user is using the cloud, the developers are developing on the cloud the businesses are running their applications on the cloud. So the constant refrain from our enterprise customers to us is get them to the cloud as quickly, cheaply, and programmatically as possible.

We are now going to market together with telcos with industry-specific bundles. For any industry out there, we serve hundreds of vertical industries out there. We go to market now with telcos and I'll show you a few use cases where we bundle the connectivity in. We talked about the carbon intelligent network. I'll show you figures of how much savings in both energy cost, and carbon cost we are able to achieve by moving to the public cloud.

We are starting to see that truly cloud-native companies start serving through a marketplace where you enter your user ID and password as the enterprise and you start consuming SAS as and when you need it. With that one-cent increment that they're talking about.

But there are challenges. The NEPS, the network equipment providers modernization is very slow. Price is one litmus test. If anyone comes and says we are truly cloud-native, ask them how big their container is. If it's more than a few kilobytes, it's not cloud-native.

We're frequently asked to do TCO on single-use case single workloads, and single piece of infrastructure deployments. But that misses the point of the cloud. The point of the cloud is that it's not a single use case. It is not a single piece of infrastructure. It is every single use case you have running at different times or concurrently on the same piece of infrastructure, and that thinking has got to change. The other one is security control and privacy perceptions are not always understood. We've publicly announced that the National Security Agency of the United States is using AWS cloud. MI5, MI6 are on AWS public cloud. They know what they're doing. So I think there's a little bit of fear of the unknown about the public cloud, but we have gone through the rigmarole of really critical industries, National Defense Industries, national security industries, moving to the public cloud. And we've worked with many telcos to do the same. It's a question of understanding what the actual requirements are. So those are the challenges.

The kind of data that we're bringing to bear, is very non-traditional. The BSS OSS, enterprise IT innovation, working with visionaries and even the established companies who are starting to really come on board. We believe, fundamentally, that the networks should run and run best on a public cloud, specifically AWS. That is a fundamental belief. We are building specific services, and specific infrastructure. When we talk about the capital investment needed to build a new company, a new network, sorry. That's what we do. We invest on your behalf. The question I'd like the audience to take away is, why do you need to invest a single dollar in CAPEX? I know that's a bit of an extreme, but I'm stretching a point to make a point. Why not experiment on the public cloud today? See how it performs. Challenge us. And let us invest. That's our whole business model.

We've publicly announced more than $3 billion worth of investment in partnering with telcos across the board. But what we require of you is to make the network available as a service to accelerate that growth.  There are a lot of different things that we've done together with telcos worldwide. Let's start with the consumer, and what you can do today. A lot of telcos today are monetizing Amazon subscriptions. It is built through the telco. It is an ARPU uplift that you can get today. I don't know whether you have realized this, but we have become the third largest advertising company in the world after the unnamed Ones Google and Meta and growing really fast.

Don't neglect the energy opportunity. It is a huge issue for the industry today. And it's only going to get bigger. So what we've been able to do is with a tier one customer in Europe, with that chipset, we reduce the energy cost 55% from what they were doing today. And more importantly, if you look at how quickly you can basically instantiate infrastructure. On day zero, we did a cloud infrastructure deployment in 20 minutes, to get a core up and running. That core averaged around 15 minutes to deploy. When that core lifecycled, it took us five minutes to lifecycle it across all of the network. That's where the cost savings come in.

So with that, the takeaway is we fundamentally rely on you, for the best-in-class connectivity for the quality of service. Our intent is to bring the edge computing, the AWS tools and services and the applications that run on top from hundreds of 1000s of applications that run on AWS to help you grow top line revenue.

5G – After the Auctions – Next Steps

In the session, titled 5G – after the auctions and next step, Lt Gen Dr. SP Kochhar, DG, COAI, said that we need to have at least 70% of towers fiberized. We are trying to put in our best. We are ably supported by the government. RoW and Gati Shakti are also there. Processing time has also been reduced to 21 days. Right now, nobody knows what are going to be the killer apps. We need to focus on areas that would probably need to look at AI. With 5G, computer vision and processing will also come in. Anything that touches the lives of people, will lead.

How are telcos rushing to implement 5G? Rashim Kapoor, Head Core & Hub CTO, Airtel, said our core and transport infrastructure are ready. As time goes by, we will be rushing on our rollouts. We are also going to add fiber to the towers. Fiberization of towers is good to have. RoW issues are still remaining. There is also a big focus on local networks. We are testing and doing live deployment. We are also looking at new chipsets from Intel and Qualcomm to reduce the costs.

Who is going to pay for the infrastructure? Sameer Vuyyuru, Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), said the cost aspect is going to depend on revenue generation. 5G deployments are going to be enterprise-driven. Consumers are still going to be the prime driver. We need to shorten the adoption side for the enterprises.

Lt Gen Dr. SP Kochhar, COAI, said in the shorter period, consumers may not pay for the services. Enterprises need to drive that. Rashim Kapoor, Airtel, added that mobile broadband will be a major contributor. Fixed wireless access will be a new service. Gaming requirements are of low latency. On the enterprise side, there would be many more use cases. Private networks will also provide a guarantee.

Sameer Vuyyuru, AWS, said we need to experiment and see. He gave three examples. We have engagements with all the Indian operators. Let’s go out and experiment!

Pradeep Gupta was the moderator.

5G Roll out

In the session titled 5G roll out, Dinesh Chand Sharma, Director, European Project on Standards, moderator, said it is no more the time to talk about technologies. We need to roll out and transform everything. Everything will get connected. Broadband demand has gone up, the role of latency has really gone up!

We have URLLC and mMMC. We will have a layered architecture. We are having smart cities, mobility, energy, etc. 5G has a lot of potential. 4G will continue to co-exist with 5G for a number of years. The government of India has added lot of options in place to ensure new technology gets rolled out. It is also focusing on 6G. There is the existing infrastructure that was rolled out. Rural infrastructure has connectivity. Affordability is the most important factor.

How has the existing infrastructure supported demand? Ashwani Khillan, COO & CTO, APAC American Tower Corp., said that we need to look at paradigms changing between 4G and 5G. Two clear paradigms are spectrum band, and we need more densification. We have more applications coming in. As we have more apps, we need to touch upon latency. That brings in the third paradigm: the infrastructure needs to be as close to the customer. Form factors are also changing.

Next, we need to keep scale in mind! With the move to 3300MHz, we will probably need to add 75% more PoPs. We need to have 6,000-7,000 towers additionally. 3.3GHz band can provide indoor and outdoor coverage. We need to add nearly half a million more PoPs, especially over the next 4-5 years. It is a big challenge for us.

Sharma said there will be 1 million 5G devices, against 60,000 4G devices in the same area. We will see 5G roll out in 13 cities initially. Khillan said all challenges have been accepted and put in place. New challenges are being put before us. There can be slow proliferation for any service. 4G started getting rolled out in 2014-15. 5G will go through a similar route.

DoT carried out a study regarding the massive rollout of 5G. Now, states have been asked to carry out mapping exercises. Gujarat and UP have almost completed this. How will such steps help? Khillan said the need is to increase the PoPs. They also need to be fiberized as soon as possible. We also used to run de-aggregation over edge data centers. We need to further improve that. We will need PoP every 200m in dense, urban areas. Streetlights may be a good example. They should all get fiberized, and be grid connected. We need to keep them light, with the infrastructure. All the stakeholders now need to get their acts together. Sharma said we are going to have new infrastructure. Government mapping will also be used.

Regarding QoS, Khillan said it is a common problem. With a large population, we need to work on QoS. It is difficult to satisfy all consumers. QoS is a continuous improvement in the process.

Redefining communications

Shyam Prabhakar Mardikar, President, Group CTO, Mobility, Reliance Jio, presented on 5G and how it is redefining communications. Spectrum is just one add-on. 5G is going to change everything that we do. Smartphones are now an integral part of the human anatomy. More and more machines will use massive connectivity and compute. Industry 4.0 has become a key buzzword. Industry verticals across all sectors will need digital workflows, robotics, and automated control systems. We will have three Vs – voice, video, and virtuality. We will have connected devices, machines, and industries.

5G is beyond more of the same. We are much beyond adding new spectrum. We will have hyper-connectivity, hyper compute, and hyper storage. We are creating multiple networks for multiple use cases. Next, programmability would be native to 5G. We will have 5G intelligent core, native security, and evolving intelligence. The elasticity of architecture is another major point. We will need to bring assets closer to the customer. We will have embedded compute, and device, user, and control. We will do self-learning through big data, and have hyper performance. The network will start adapting to the customer, to the use case, etc. India will need hyper performance in future.

We need to unlearn to learn! We need to have disaggregation, open interfaces, virtualization, augmented intelligence, and modular deployment. India deserves network densification and scale. We need AI/ML to enhance performance. We will also have converging industries. Overlap in processes and skills will be there. We will share digital platforms. We will also have domain automation and AI. We need to understand and collaborate to go digital.

Enterprise and private networks

Next, there was a session on the role 5G will play for enterprises and private networks. What is going to the impact of 5G? Tilak Raj Dua, Director General, DIPA, said we need to look at NTPC 2018, where we need to take a holistic view. We look at Industry 4.0, and see whether the Indian industry is ready for it. 5G auctions have now been done. We have the infrastructure side for network equipment. We have to provide coverage and capacity. We need to get RoI. New amendment to the guidelines has come in. For densification, we need to have more base stations. Enterprises and private networks have to address all of this.

There are currently some infrastructure challenges. That will be taken care of over time. We need to have more towers fiberized. We are at 35%. We need to move that to at least 70% by the end of next year. We can also do fiber sharing to reduce the Capex. Some models are already available for study and use. We will meet all those challenges.

Aditya Khaitan, Partner, Consulting, Deloitte India, said the use cases across industries are across supply chains. They are enabling all aspects. Telcos are now putting up more roadshows with enterprises, and use cases are getting developed. There were over 750 private networks deployed globally, as of Jan. 2022. As the ecosystem matures, challenges will be taken care of. From an Indian perspective, manufacturing, automation, education, etc., are the areas that will benefit.

In terms of core challenges, we will see a plethora of use cases right now. Every use case may lead to different deployment options. We need to have the evolution of use cases. From a CIO perspective, we will see integration with the existing platforms. One size does not fit all! Planning that is critical.

Himanshu Gupta, Country Manager Telecom, Media & Entertainment, HPE India, said there are focus areas for 5G. Broadband connectivity can be prime. China has already put over 7,000 5G towers. They have a plan to build 5 million towers by 2025. The way they are developing should be looked at very seriously. The pace of growth for private 5G has been slow. Rel-17 was only frozen in 2022. There is a lot at stake for our country. Private 5G can be a game changer for India over the next 5-7 years. The economic impact will be much higher. We are ready!

We will have eMBB and URLLC that will come up fast. These will propel the motion forward. We also need to do ecosystem development. We also need to have IT governance and security. There will be a transition, along with the new ecosystem. We need to have the inter-working of everything together. We need to decide on the RoI. We can start with introspection first. We can then map that with apps, etc., and do experimentation, along with strategies. We need to have investments that can help evolve organizations to a huge digital platform. We need to have partnerships. HP has a solution called 5G-in-a-box.

Kapil Ahuja, CEO (North), Reliance Jio, said there are five things offered by 5G. These are data, 10x speed, low latency, true sense of fixed-mobile convergence, and cloud, mobile, and IoT. The economic impact is going to be huge. We have embraced technology. The current consumption of data is huge. A lot is going to be offered to enterprises. Healthcare, education, and agriculture will see the massive impact of 5G. We have already seen the benefits of 4G. How this will evolve is going to be massive. There will be very efficient and targeted way of deploying 5G. Use cases are going to be developed here in India.

Challenges include access networks. Model two is a mix. Last is the standalone network. 5G is going to bridge the digital divide between large and small enterprises.

Shubhendu Parth, former editor, Dataquest and Voice&Data, was the moderator.

The future state of the industry

This was followed by another panel discussion on the role of 5G, cloud, and edge for the industry. About 40% growth is expected across all three areas – 5G, cloud, and edge, over the next five years. Sameer Vuyyuru, Head of WW Business Development for Communication Service Providers, Amazon Web Services (AWS), said that we have talked about the return of capital. Pick the best combination of technologies. The public cloud can enable some of the investment.

Security is priority for data. We have been selected by NSEs and financial exchanges. Edge is an area of interest for us. Edge serves the law of the land. We also have multiple engagements with telcos. Telcos can also create specific verticals and startups. The mental model of the edge needs to change. There is no discreet edge and no discreet cloud.

Regarding partnerships, he said that Dish Networks was building a cloud-native network. It happened with all the ecosystems participating together, and becoming cloud-native. There were over 50 partners that ran on AWS. Everyone is operating on the same environment. AWS Console is used for orchestration.

Sivakumar Selva Ganapathy, VP, Johnson Controls, said that we are going to look at how 5G can accelerate edge and cloud ecosystems. We can have an asset monitoring app, etc. We are looking at cloud and edge. 5G is going to be a key accelerator. Customers are very diverse commercially, and they are price sensitive, as well. 5G and edge are leading to the next level of business transformation. We should be able to experiment and take it forward.

How will cloud, edge, and 5G look like? We need to look at cloud and edge together. The volume of data will look to start all of this. We can leverage that, and give customers to pick and choose what they need. On the edge side, we are looking at concepts of MEG, etc., and see how we can go closer to the device. We also need to provide VAS. The core mingling is going to stay.

Today, we are in a world of 360-degree relationships. We need to transform responsibly. We need to be environment-friendly, etc. Partnerships are going to be very important in 5G. We also need to have digital literacy to improve the partnerships.

Saurabh Mittal, Head, Product Management Solution and Integration, Network R&D, Bharti Airtel, added that 5G is associated with speed. We will now have speed plus. We are also going to have pace! Here, P stands for programmability, A stands for automation, C stands for capability, and E stands for exposure. 5G gives a much more predictable environment. There are also exposures defined by 3GPP. 5G is an innovation platform for all of the enabling use cases.

From the telco side, we are investing a lot in enterprises. Service experience has to be of quality to succeed, and help the industry verticals succeed. 5G becomes different in predictabilities. Telcos are working with a lot of partners. New models can emerge at other locations. Telcos are poised to take all of those forward with the enterprises.

Telcos are used to working with enterprises. This is an ecosystem that needs to be supported. We also need to have people who have expertise in respective domains. Partnerships are models to overcome challenges.

Anil Chopra, VP, Research & Consulting, CyberMedia Research, was the moderator.

Skilling for the 5G Economy

The next session was on skilling. Sukanta De, Sdela Consulting, was the moderator. He said skilling for 5G is very important. The indigenous test bed for 5G was done at IIT Madras. 5G will be driving all the elements of Industry 4.0. India has adopted all the elements. 5G will be the key driver.

How can the educational value chain be more inclusive? India has many languages. Lav Bhardwaj, Senior Consultant, NCVET, represented NCVET Chairman, and said that education has been incorporating the future skilling areas. The national skills qualification framework has been looking at future skills. We have 250+ courses featuring IoT, AI, Industry 4.0 and 5.0, etc. We are now using technologies heavily across all sectors. We are also incorporating technologies. The government is seized of these problems.

We now need to reduce the skills gap. We are starting from school education. We are working with AICTE on several technology areas. NCVET is a new-age educator. We can have blended learning, and mix of all for the people.

Dr. Arvind Bali, CEO, TSSC, said that as far as 5G skilling is concerned, most companies are well structured. From the government side, there was lot of participation. We prepared all the qualifications. 5G will also be a use case for various sectors. Other technologies are also going to work on 5G. All of our qualification packs have got lot of 5G-related stuff. We are well equipped. We are also going to set up 10 Centers of Excellence in this financial year.

Last 5-6 years, the private sector has to learn from what has been happening in the government sector. The government has done lot of work. The responsibility now comes on the private sector. Most of the time, you are skilling on the job. At TSSC, we are trying to bridge the gap between the industry and academia. We are well equipped to provide any kind of skilling.

Prof. Rangan Banerjee, Director, IIT Delhi, added the 5G testbed was initially funded by Ministry of Telecom. We worked on all aspects of software and hardware with IIT Madras. We have been looking at building up the research capability. We have looked at standards, security, etc. It is now available across the country. At IIT Delhi, we have Bharti School of Telecom. Faculty works on various aspects of telecom.

We are also looking at multiple use cases. We are looking at smart sensors for energy, etc. We are looking at gaming and entertainment, and imaging and healthcare. We have a vision and articulation for looking at individual projects. We are checking how we can interface with the industry, DRDO, Navy, and Army. We have challenges, such as interfacing with the industry, and also attract students.

We need to look at the future needs of engineering managers in future. We need to do curriculum review all the time. We need to create the future workforce and have a competitive advantage. Startups will have a big role to play. We want to enhance our impact. We would like to work with the industry for the future success.

Dr. NK Goyal, President, TEMA, noted that every Indian has the right to connect. We always have dichotomy. India has given money for test labs. DoT is now looking for test labs. When it comes to research projects, India is capable of doing any kind of research. We want the access to market. We have wonderful plans for skilling. We need to proliferate this to the education systems.

We have been pushed into the digital era due to Covid-19 and government policies. Right to connect is a campaign to connect with the networks. Now, the government also wants to implement some digital fees.

Indigenous networks and ecosystems

The next session was on indigenous 5G networks and ecosystems. What does atmanirbharta mean for 5G? Y.G.S.C. Kishore Babu, DDG (S.R.I), DoT, noted that companies have been contributing to build the necessary competencies. Most of them are from global companies. Competencies built in the system are coming from everywhere. We can develop systems, and have technology ownership. We can also develop locally-relevant use cases.

Trusted source is something we are looking at among the available ecosystem. We also need to reduce the dependency on electronic components. In telecom, it is probably not possible for everyone to make 100% in India. We need to have the design ownership. That can help us in the value chain. We are already having competencies in design. India can be a value-added partner.

Dr. Rajkumar Upadhyay, ED & Chairman, C-DoT, added atmanirbharta is for all the sectors. Telecom has two aspects – security and economic perspective. Security, lot of software is being developed. Many countries have banned certain vendors owing to security. From the economic side, we need to look at where is it the cheapest available. Most talent is driven by India. We were given the task in 2020 to develop 4G. We have developed indigenous 4G and 5G NSA, along with Tejas. BSNL will launch 5G with 5G NSA. The time for India is now. Our 4G does not depend on any hardware.

Government of India has taken multiple initiatives. Now, we are manufacturing mobile phones in India. We need to bridge the gap between import and export. We need to bring atmanirbharta. We need to develop our own R&D. ISM has come in, and now, there are semiconductor fabs and semiconductor packaging. There is a major opportunity for India. We will close the gap. Government has come out with the PLIs, starting with telecom manufacturing. Chip manufacturing is one part. India has lot of design talent. Once you are declared a trusted source, anybody can buy from you.

Rajesh Tuli, MD, Coral Telecom, said this is the right time for India to do it! The ecosystem is very conducive. Ecosystems, such as MSMEs, are being supported. Grants are being given to the private sector. Earlier, it was meant for the public sector. We also need to have a market for the product that we develop. Regarding products, we have now designed domestic chipsets. The IPR belongs to us. My atmanirbharta depends on my privacy. Customers want an end-to-end solution. We need to develop the ecosystem further and create consortiums. The private networks will be one tool to promote the local designs. We request that the spectrum for setting up private networks should be for domestically-designed components. We will have to take baby steps. There are concerns about silicon. We need to focus on software being built around the chip.

PK Roy, former editor, Dataquest and Voice&Data, was the moderator.

Role of satellite

The last session was on the role of satellite and 5G. Rahul Vatts, CRO, Airtel India, and Director, OneWeb, said 52% of the world still has no Internet access. 20% of fixed broadband connections are <10Mbps. LEO is revolutionizing the communications market. LEO satellites provide high-speed Internet where traditional ground infrastructure is hard to reach. Retail, commercial, and government users can have LEOs promote business digitalization and IoT adoption.

OneWeb is already 5G-band compatible. It has a beam-centric design at mmW (Ka-/Ku-bands) for improved spectral efficiency. OneWeb has a distribution agreement with Hughes. We have a launch arrangement with NSIL. The model is to partner with telcos for backhaul, remote coverage, IoT, and Industry 4.0, respectively.

The Indian space economy is likely to reach $12.8 billion by 2025, at CAGR of 6%. Emerging areas include high-speed/low-latency norms, space exploration, navigation solutions, etc. Startup industry can leverage space communications for deep in-land solutions, enabled by 5G, IoT drones, etc. We are awaiting a space policy. We need to consider 100% FDI to attract investment and technology transfer. We need to prioritize spectrum allocation and also reserve 28GHz.

Space has lot of potential for India. Satellite comes with own set of challenges. We now need to miniaturize the satellites. OneWeb satellite is hardly 13kg. We have 40 satellites launching at one time. Total of 650 satellites are covering the globe. We need to get the spectrum. India has to endorse the same spectrum given for the world. India has not yet visualized an operator that has 500 satellites. There is no separate gateway license that is available. InSpace is a right step in the direction. Once you have all this in place, you need to build your entire network. Today, we need multiple approvals before we can start a service. This has to change!

We already have a 5G satellite-ready network. Rel-18 is going to come out soon. Apple launched a new device that allows satellite connectivity. OneWeb will have 2^nd generation models prepared by 2026, which will also be 6G ready. Pricing depends on the apps used. OneWeb has tied up with AT&T for coverage in USA. Government has the priority to connect the country. Our market is backhaul, ships, mines, etc.

Lt. Gen. AK Bhatt (Retd), Director General, Indian Space Association (ISpA), said what’s available for the world, has to be harmonized by India. India cannot have its own policy. Satellites today provide ubiquitous coverage worldwide. We have been arguing that 28GHz should be shared. We also need to have a single-window clearance. We need to be clear about how the satellite will communicate.

Satellites have actually come into light since the last decade. It used to be at 36,000km, but that had a challenge. Now, they have come down to 500km and 2,00km. That has lot of effect on latency. There are disruptive technologies that have come in. We can make use of the USO funds to connect the unconnected parts of India.

Regarding startups in the space sector, it is the most exciting domain. There will be 36 satellite constellations by end of next year. Pixxel will be launching this next year. They are available for mining, disaster management, etc. Another player from IIT is looking at debris management. They launched on June 30^th with the very first solution. We will also have rockets made with 3D technology very soon.

Ms. Minu Sirsalewala, Executive Editor (Special Projects), CyberMedia, was the moderator.

Ms. Rachna Garga, Senior VP & Group head, Cybermedia, presented the vote of thanks, acknowledging the main sponsors, TelcoDR & Totogi, the Platinum sponsors, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Hewlett Packard Enterprise & PC Solutions. She also thanked supporting partners, COAI, CMAI, DIPA, Indian Space Association, Telecom Sector Skill Council and Satcom Industry Association; Academia Partner, Apeejay Education and research partner, CMR.