India is exporting indigenously developed and manufactured telecom gear to over 70 countries globally. Companies like Tejas Networks, HFCL, C-DoT, and more are making telecom gear locally. Even Reliance Jio has developed its own portfolio of RAN and core equipment for 5G and 4G.
Madhu Arora, an official from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), speaking at a conference organised by the Telecom Equipment and Services Export Promotion Council (TEPC), said, "There are several Indian companies that have been designing, manufacturing and exporting telecom equipment. Telecom equipment designed and manufactured in India are now being exported to nearly 70 countries."
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According to an ET report, Arora said that India's exports have grown by 35% and India is now reaching an equal footing in terms of quality with other nations which house the best manufacturers in the world.
Telecom service providers (TSPs) in India have deployed close to 4,50,000 BTS (base transceiver stations) for 5G. Arora mentioned that over 80% of the BTS is indigenously developed. It is unclear whether the entire indigenous BTS is deployed by Reliance Jio or some of it is also from Airtel.
To push local production/manufacturing and design for telecom equipment in the country, the central government is running PLI (production-linked incentive) schemes. This has motivated many major MNCs (multi-national corporations) as well as Indian companies to increase their production capacity locally.
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BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) is using indigenous 4G equipment to launch 4G in India. In fact, according to the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) chairman, Anil Kumar Lahoti, work is ongoing to come up with indigenous 5G tech that BSNL will use to deploy 5G throughout the country.
India is still in the nascent stages when it comes to telecom equipment, gear or technology. In the coming years, the world should notice a major shift of manufacturing telecom gear in India and further, India should likely emerge as an export capital for all the major technology.
