Domestic Design Led Players under ‘VoICE’ compliment DoT on Public Procurement Make in India Policy

Public Procurement -Preference to Make in India- Order 2017- Notification of Telecom Products-Services or Works

10/22/2024 Download (1.92 MB) 

VoICE Comments

This is an excellent enabling policy from DoT in line with DPIIT’s Public Procurement Make in India policy. It also addresses some of our earlier objections that were given when Draft notification was open for comments.

We would like to congratulate the DoT team on the notification and hope the team of Government and industry can deliver excellent results for the country and global markets in coming months.

Exclusion of Semiconductors has been reversed. Notification states that 5G will be included as soon as manufacturing capacity is available. Only problem is regarding waiver of prior experience of MSME, in tenders has not been implemented as has been done for start-ups.

Clause 13, acknowledges of the DoT Gazette notification refers to 5G Trials. Manufacturing can commence only after some market access or orders are given as telecom products can be sold to service providers or other agencies like railways, armed forces and private 5G networks. It could happen in BSNL 5 G deployment, 25 to 30000 uncovered villages through USOF, private enterprise orders say for mining, steel plants in partnership with BSNL, export orders. We are quite optimistic that trial runs on 5 G are at least acknowledged and next step of manufacturing will also commence once orders start coming through any of the possible options suggested above. Some details are shared on this industry optimism below.

More than 10 Domestic Design Led 5G Players available to meet Domestic & Global requirements

• Consortium based coordinated efforts of Startups, SMEs can do wonders in 5G Networks, Private Enterprise Networks, Smart Intelligent Village with support from BSNL and DoT.
• Present set of 5G live 5G trial runs in Delhi in MTNL Network using BSNL’s 5G Spectrum are going on by VoICE Consortiums teams led by

1.      Lekha Wireless,

2.      VVDN,  

3.      Galore

4.      TCS Tejas 

• Many more from VoICE family are ready for similar launches across more cities like

                           i)          Bengaluru, ii) Chennai, iii) Hyderabad, iv) Mumbai v) Kolkata

Additional players are

                           i.          Signaltron

                          ii.          WiSiG (They have done successful 5G trials at Ambala along with CDoT)

                         iii.          Tidal Wave

                         iv.          W4S

                          v.          Resonous

                         vi.          CDOT

                       vii.          BigCat Wireless

Domestic Design led solutions need market access/ orders before going in for manufacturing. Routes open are:

a)      Trial orders of 5G say 1000 sites in BSNL Network with BSNL Spectrum and Infra support

b)     There are around 25000 uncovered villages and these players can be given a chance to prove their strength

c)      Private Enterprise Networks can another route as we are exploring these options also in partnership with BSNL using their spectrum.

d)     We are having ITU WTSA 2024 from 14 to 24 October 2024 at Bharat Mandapam with 3300 delegates from 190 ITU countries. Some of them at least can also place trial orders.

We are optimistic that in coming weeks/ months, at least some of the options above will lead us to a stage where manufacturing will commence and as India has just completed 10 years of Make in India, Indian Global 5G outreach and leadership of Hon’ble Prime Minister will also achieve.

Government and industry have already started taking note of technology developments from domestic design led start-ups and SMEs. From the above list, WiSiG was recipient of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Awards 2023 on technical excellence. Lekha Wireless got the best SME award on their 4G/ 5G efforts in IMC2024.

100 5G Test labs have been installed by 4 VoICE players in a consortium mode.

Even IIT Chennai 5G R&D technology transfer is in the pipeline. Optimus Logic will be taking the technology trial and go in for production.  Galore one of the players in trials, has orders on 5G with Avalon. Many EMS players are ready for 5G manufacturing and VVDN has inhouse facilities for 5G manufacturing.

Government can support the Domestic designed 5G technology through TTDF, USOF or trial orders for uncovered villages and intelligent villages and for export markets as 190 countries in ITU WTSA2024 have taken note of Indian 5G during IMC2024 also.