India to promote indigenous telecom equipment
By Sanjay Singh
New Delhi, July 7: With over 90 per cent of telecom equipment, imported by Indian telecom companies, India is keen to build-up indigenous telecom gears by strictly implementing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), till India moves to develop 6G telecom ecosystem for the future by 2030.
Union Minister for Information Technology and Telecom, Ashwini Vaishnaw has stated that India should ensure for a 10 per cent share in global 6G patents by 2030.
His comments are critical for India’s indigenous telecom equipment manufacturers, as this would give boost to their business and ensure a level playing field to compete with western and Chinese telecom vendors, which currently dominate the telecom equipment business in India.
For indigenous telecom gear makers, its crucial for India to build an ecosystem for smoothening transition to the next-generation (beyond 4G) technological platform. This would require creation of a system for IPR production and involvement in global standards, with a focus on indigenous product development.
While launching Bharat 6G alliance, Vaishnaw said that the foreign direct investment in the country’s telecom sector has reached close to $24 billion between 2014 and 2023. He said that India has now become an exporter of technologies and it already has 200 patents for 6G.
The minister said Bharat 6G Alliance — a forum for development of 6G technology — will provide opportunities for filing more intellectual property rights for 5G advance technologies and as the world moves towards 6G, there will be more and more institutions and companies working together in India to file more IPRs for 6G.
For the first time, India’s technology contributions have made way into 5G development standards and recently UN body International Telecom Union has included India’s contribution into the 6G framework. A roadmap for IPR promotion in the telecom sector is due for a long time, as India takes around eight years for giving telecom patents compared with two years in the US and three years in China. It could increase India’s share in the global supply chain for telecom equipment, which is currently less than one percent.
About The Author
