Views of Airtel, Jio and Vodafone CTOs at 5G India 2021 event

Jagbir Singh, Chief Technology Officer of Vodafone; Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel; and Shyam Mardikar, Group CTO – Mobility at Reliance Jio expressed their views on 5G business in India at a panel discussion at 5G India 2021 Virtual Conference and Exhibition.
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Jagbir Singh, Chief Technology Officer of Vodafone Idea, said, “5G is still in its building phase and might take time to reach across the country. It is going to take another 2-3 years for 5G rollout, while in the meantime 4G is definitely here to stay and complement its counterpart.”

Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel, said: “Telecoms are geared to meet challenges related to 5G technology. Ingredients to make 5G successful are device availability and the right spectrum charges making faster wireless speed available to the common users. Challenges of 5G can be met if it is connected to the macro level and is well equipped with fiber and connectivity.”

Shyam Mardikar, Group CTO – Mobility at Reliance Jio, said: “We need a lot of effort to create a fiberized network. Once we are able to do this, then we can create a very flexible software stack on top of it which will make the network programmable. If a method is programmable, utilized well, infrastructure is there to support it, then creating a cloud for 5G will need no doubt an effort but its efficiency will start kicking.”

AK Tiwari, Member (Technology), Digital Communications Commission, DoT, Ministry of Communications, said: “DoT is doing its best to facilitate and prepare various segments for the next level of technology. The Indian Government is committed to contribute to 5G deployment and significant sectors are responsive and receptive towards it.”

He also referred to the 5G forum report that pointed out that India will be gaining $1 trillion with the eruption of 5G and digitalization giving various recommendations in close partnerships with industries.

TV Ramachandran, President of Broadband India Forum, said, “5G rollout will undoubtedly leverage economic progress and most importantly optimise machines and devices which is the need of the hour.”

“5G is a promise to Indians to connect virtually everyone and everything including machines, objects, and devices. 5G, as a technology, will enable new services and use cases for consumers, enterprises and society at large. This will open up new revenue streams targeting use cases across different industry verticals,” said Sanjay Bakaya, Country Head – India & Regional Vice President South Asia, Mavenir during the keynote address.

Tarun Chhabra, Head of Mobile Networks Business at Nokia India, said: “5G will be the foundation for Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT) and unleash a range of business opportunities for the enterprise segments like healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture with its high data rates, low latency and the ability to connect millions of IoT devices and sensors.”

“The key towards maximising 5G is the ability to bring understanding not only of how the radio network is performing but also how the cloud is performing. The ability to allow adjustments to high-value workloads in real-time is also vital. This is a vital capability because the efficiency of the cloud will dictate the efficiency with which the entire network is running. This is done through the combination of telco-specific cloud-native solution and cloud-first automation,” said Shikha Sayal, Director Enterprise Sales, VMware.