Indigenously developed 5G, 4G tech roll out this year: Vaishnaw

Gandhinagar: Indigenously developed 5G and 4G telecom technology stack will be rolled out in the country this year and the platform will be offered to the world from next year, said Union telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday. While speaking at The Business 20 (B20), the official G20 dialogue forum with the global business community, Vaishnaw said that only five countries in the world have end-to-end 4G-5G telecom technology stack but now with the public-private partnership, India has developed its own technology which has been tested to handle 10 million simultaneous calls.

'We will roll it out on about 50,000 to 70,000, towers, sites & in 2024 will be offering it to the world'

"Our private and public partnership approach has given us a solution where the core was developed, invested by the public sector, public funds, and everything else sitting on it comes from the private partners. In this entire 2023, we will be rolling it out on about 50,000 to 70,000, towers, sites and then in 2024 will be offering it to the world," said Vaishnaw.

The minister also elaborated on four broad approaches directed towards economic management, digital economy, regulation in digital economy and development of new technology that India has taken under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help solve some of the pressing problems.

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'Govt took an approach to create public-private partnership using public funds & create certain platforms'

Vaishnaw said that for digitalisation, the Prime Minister took a different approach where India built a system, a digital ecosystem in which the monopoly of any big tech doesn't come in. "I could foresee that in five-six years from now, India's example will be given everywhere in the world," Vaishnaw said.

He said that the government took an approach to create a public-private partnership using public funds and create certain platforms. The minister said that the model was initially used to create a payment system platform which banks joined, then insurance companies, e-commerce, start-ups and then people came in.

"In the month of December, on an annualised basis, the digital payment transactions in India were USD 1.5 trillion. That's huge. That's more than many other countries," said Vaishnaw. He said that the Prime Minister has taken an approach to use public funds to create a robust platform and let everybody join that platform.

"This reduces the concentration, this reduces the monopoly. This democratises the entire digital benefits. It is a very inclusive approach. It is a very democratic approach and it's a very sustainable long term approach," said Vaishnaw.

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