NEW DELHI: India’s regulatory officials and policymakers need to ensure that each telecom operator has an adequate quantum of spectrum for providing mobile services, considering telcos in the country already work the least amount of airwaves per subscriber when compared to global levels, said a senior executive of Reliance Jio.
“I sincerely urge the regulatory and policymakers of our nation to ascertain how India needs to expedite its spectrum pipeline, as India’s operators already work with the least amount of spectrum per subscriber compared to anywhere else in the world, especially on sub-gigahertz (GHz) spectrum, let us not fall behind in any way,” said Mathew Oommen, President, Reliance Jio.
Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an industry association of incumbent telcos Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea has been reiterating the demand for additional spectrum to seamlessly provision fifth-generation or 5G services, and 6G in the future.
Oommen was speaking at the seventh edition of ETTelecom 5G | 6G Congress 2024 organised on Thursday.
Nearly 400 delegates are likely to attend the mega telecom event in the national capital with as many as 40 speakers sharing their views on a broad spectrum of areas such as 5G, 5G Advanced, network transformation, device ecosystem as well as next generation (6G) of technology.
The executive said that Jio, in just 11 months, deployed over 1.1 million 5G cells and during the peak phase, it rolled out one 5G cell every 10 seconds powered by the company’s in-house 5G Core. “With over 100 million 5G customers, we are already leveraging network-slicing capabilities to deliver differentiated and enhanced services.”
“We have created the digital public infrastructure and the connectivity infrastructure, and now we are working towards creating the AI (artificial intelligence) GPU infrastructure, i.e., the next-generation compute infrastructure,” he said.
To realise its full potential, the country needs to ensure that all of its citizens are connected, and they are equipped with the right set of tools and skills to be fully involved in the new economy and growth of India, Oommen said.
“Sustainable inclusiveness is a core driving force for Jio’s growth strategy. And it is essential for reaching the Viksit Bharat goals set by our honorable Prime Minister,” he said.
He added that telecom is an indispensable part and critical pillar of the new economy. “The industry is extremely capital intensive. It is important that our investments in telecom and assets are protected at all times. Cutting the fiber or destroying the critical telecom infrastructure can no longer just be ridiculed. Rather, it must have lawful consequences.”
He stressed that a telecom provider “cannot offer the reliability nor afford to continuously repair and build new fiber in the face of continuous fiber cuts”.
“I’m sincerely requesting the help of the policymakers across every state that we need to have active collaborative engagement so that no one can anymore destroy this critical telecom infrastructure and not be penalised,” the top executive of the country’s largest telco said.
Citing the Department of Telecommunications (DoT)’s Sangam Digital Twin initiative, Oommen said that this will enable telecom and digital service providers to build a digital twin of the nation’s telecom and digital infrastructure assets.
“I sincerely believe this can lead to the creation of a digital twin of all of our critical infrastructure, whether it is the financial grid, the health grid, the energy grid, or the transportation grid. All of these are connected by the telecom grid. This will evolve for us to create the next generation of a highly reliable and secure critical public infrastructure outside of UPI, and Aadhaar,” he said.
