While speaking at a platform hosted by PhonePe to unveil “The Indus Appstore” (sort of indie version of AppStore), the Minister for Railways, Communications, and Electronics & Information Technology, talked about India’s standing in the Telecom sector across the world. The minister also opined that the Telecom industry has come out of its difficult phase and is now a “sunshine” industry. He also talked about the O-Ran technology, which allows software and hardware equipment to be independent.

“When you say Telecom, people used to remember the 2G scam. Those days are gone and today it’s like Standards, IP, patterns, development, and manufacturing. Close to a billion dollars in exports of telecom equipment, very complex telecom equipment is today exported. Exported to the US, Europ and these are cutting-edge equipment. So it’s a very different story now.”

“Our next target is now, to focus on taking leadership in the 6G development. 6G development will happen over the next almost 5 years.”

Even with just two players, India has witnessed one of the fastest rollouts of the 5G technology. More than 4,00,000 5G sites have been installed till now.

Independence from Software and Hardware marriage

The minister also talked about the revolution in the telecom sector where the telcos are no longer restricted to a particular vendor for buying the hardware and software.

“The times when software and hardware were married, you can buy your software from the guys who were selling you hardware, those times are gone. Basically, today’s technology is where your hardware and software is getting separated and independent.”

Before the absence of O-Ran, telcos were tied to buying the software from the same hardware vendor. Since most of the telecom equipment manufacturing companies were Chinese, the geo-political tensions created an obstacle for the Indian telecoms to do business with them. With the adoption of the Open Ran Access Network, telcos will no longer have to depend on equipment manufacturers who are not in friendly relations with the Indian government.