C-DoT to Get Working on 6G as Telecom Secy Launches Quantum Communications Lab

Last week, DoT Secretary K Rajaraman visited the C-DoT to inaugurate the Quantum Communications Lab, as the latter stressed working on "futuristic technologies" in order to "catch up with the market on time".

Quantum Communications Lab Launched at C-DoT

In a press statement last week, C-DoT said, "the telecom secretary has stressed upon C-DoT to keep track of emerging technologies, aligned with the technology life cycle. He has asked C-DoT to start working on 6G and other futuristic technologies in order to catch up with the market in time".

Notably, global companies such as Samsung, Huawei, LG and others have already started work on 6G. Theoretically, 6G will be 50 times faster than 5G, and will see first commercial launches towards the end of 2020s.

However, for India, the story looks a little different than the rest of the world. With 5G rollout some time away, the country's 4G networks have seen major upgrades over the past year or so. Network Disaggregation and Massive MIMO looks set to boost 4G capability even further. What's more, Reliance Jio has recently recorded 4G speeds in excess of 20 Mbps. 4G has a theoretical speed limit of around 100 Mbps, however.

During the 5G trials, though, Vodafone Idea managed to hit download speeds of 3.7 Gbps, while other participants are yet to break the 2 Gbps mark. In India, 5G still looks like it will take a while, as the DoT has just begun the procedure for the commercial rollout.

Therefore, 6G looks like something very unattainable for India right now. But that would be the wrong assumption; the country has been attracting a lot of investments via the PLI schemes, and therefore will look to carry the momentum throughout the decade.