India's telecom tech stack to provide an alternative option to the world: Jyotiraditya Scindia

In what could become a new battleground for neighbours India and China, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on August 29 that if everything goes according to plan, the country could provide the world with an alternative telecom technology option.

He said there are only three countries in the world with this kind of telecom technology stack, including core and wireless components of 4G and 5G, and India is going to be one of them.

"If we successfully roll out indigenous telecom technology...I would wait until mid of next year, even though we are rolling it out as we speak. There are 22,000 4G towers already in place. Our core network is working across all four data centres...we already have live 4G customers. It is no longer a proof of concept and is actually in execution. When we roll out our 1 lakh BTS, then I am very confident this is going to be an alternate technology," Scindia told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

Transitioning from 4G to 5G will be incremental as a 4G core can be used for 5G. "Switching from 4G to 5 G is just incremental and not a monumental change. The only change that you will probably need is to bring a couple of BTSes onto the towers. However, we want to ensure that 4G is up and running and then move to 5G," the minister said.