State-owned BSNL’s 4G technology will be upgraded to 5G in 5 to 7 months and rolled out on the company’s 1.35 lakh telecom towers in the country, Union Telecoms and Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Thursday. Speaking at a CII event, the minister said the government had plans to increase the Telecom Technology Development Fund from Rs. 500 crore per year to Rs. 4,000 crore to stimulate domestic innovation.
In response to a question regarding BSNL’s Role in Telecom Sector by Uday Kotak, CEO of Kotak Bank, Vaishnaw said BSNL will become a very strong stabilizing factor in the telecom sector.
He said BSNL has about 1,35,000 cell towers across the country with a very heavy presence in the rural areas that are still not fully covered by the other telecom providers.
“telecom Technology stack is rolled out. It is a 4G Technology stack that will be upgraded to 5G in a five to seven month time frame. This technology stack will be distributed across the nation’s 1.35 lact telecom towers,” Vaishnaw said.
BSNL asked Tata Consulting Services (TCS) to offer 5G test equipment to enable the telecom company to start trials for 5G services.
The minister said that with the rollout of 5G over the BSNL network, the public sector company would become a major player in the telecoms space compared to the other two big players and a third player, and especially in the remote areas that would not served by a typical market mechanism.
Speaking on fostering innovation and startup ecosystems, Vaishnaw said Indian Railways and Defense have launched a model to support startups from the idea stage to proof of concept and in some cases a market or revenue stream for at least three to four years Offer.
“We’re bringing this model into the telecom space. A Rs 500 crore per annum telecommunications technology development fund has been set up. We will increase that to 3,000 to 4,000 crore rupees per year. This technology development fund will be available to the entire industry,” Vaishnaw said.
He said Railways has already connected over 800 startups to the program, while 2,000 defense startups are participating.
“You can develop new ideas for new solutions. Start with an idea and work your way down to the product level. Similar experiments are being carried out in many areas,” the minister said.
He said that the industry has a responsibility to get world-class certifications for their products and always takes on a greater challenge and deliver something of better quality than just the word Indian industry will notice.
The minister said Indian Railways designed the Vande Bharat bogie with a 1mm margin, making it an export quality design, and newspapers in 18 countries published about it themselves.
“We took on the challenge that the design freedom had to be less than 1 mm. We could have exported to Germany if we made 3 and definitely 1mm. Hopefully by the time we meet, maybe this time next year will have about 75-80 trains, and if those 80-100 trains run for 2-3 years, all the world market will be Indian market,” Vaishnaw said.
He said it was a very difficult task to design a rail bogie with such latitude and a very sturdy spring, almost like a cushion for the vehicle to rest on.
“Despite the state of our tracks today, this train is capable of providing a ride quality that is significantly superior to any other train in the country. It is comparable to most international trains in the world. The train was tested at 180 kilometers per hour on a route between Delhi and Kota and that a glass of water didn’t even shake,” Vaishnaw said.
The minister said the sound quality on the train was 1-100th of that on an airplane.
