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

As of now, the world has three telecom technologies, Scindia said

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.

Moneycontrol reported on August 14 that India received inquiries from at least 15 telecom operators and bilateral inquiries from nine nations, including Kenya, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, and Egypt.

Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom operator, also plans to export its indigenously developed technologies to the rest of the world, having deployed them at scale to power its 4G and 5G networks.

It has previously said it was seeing interest from global operators for its 5G stack, which includes 5G radio, core, OSS/BSS, small and pico cells and other software solutions,

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) said in its report for 2023-24, released on August 7 that Jio's investments in next-generation networks and digital technologies would sustain a competitive edge and market share gains. “This will ensure strong and consistent shareholder returns over the coming years,” it said.