After homegrown phones and operating system, India is now set to get its own indigenous 4G and 5 telecom technology. Union Telcom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has announced that an indigenously developed 5G and 4G telecom stack will be rolled out this year in the country. Vaishnaw, while speaking at The Business 20 (B20)- a dialogue forum with the global business community, said that so far only five countries of the world have end-to-end 4G-5G telecom technology stack but India is now set to join this list with its homegrown 5G and 4G technology. The country has developed the technology through public-private partnerships and the platform will be offered to the world starting next year.
“Our private and public partnership approach has given us a solution where the core was developed, invested by the public sector, public funds, and everything else sitting on it comes from the private partners. In this entire 2023, we will be rolling it out on about 50,000 to 70,000, towers, sites and then in 2024 will be offering it to the world,” Vaishnaw was quoted by a PTI report.
India’s homegrown 4G and 5G technology that has been tested to handle 10 million simultaneous calls will be significant for a number of reasons. To start with, it will reduce country’s dependence on foreign technology and will give a boost to country’s technological self-sufficiency. It will give country a technological edge in AI, IoT and similar related technology areas.
According to the reports in past, state-owned telecom company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will use the country’s homegrown 4G technology for delivering 4G services to its subscribers.
India has recently also received its homegrown mobile operating system called BharOS. The operating system is developed by IIT Madras and has been tested by union ministers for video and audio calls. All these steps together highlight India’s effort to reduce its dependency on foreign manufacturers and increased focus on network and data security.
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