Telecom Leadership Forum 2017: A Star-studded Day for India Telecom

The much-awaited Telecom Leadership Forum 2017 saw the bigwigs of the telecom industry coming together and opening up their hearts and minds on the theme of the event--‘Digital Telecom for Digital India’.

In his address, Trai Chairman RS Sharma threw light on the importance of regulatory environment as India strides towards a Digital economy. He stressed on the fact that 3rd generation of regulations is technology and data driven and so a conducive environment is required for Digital India to happen.

On 5G, he said: “The future networks are to be of high capacity and ultra-dense nature. These ultra-dense networks will be the foundation for 5th generation (5G) communication networks. Traditionally, technological deployment in India lags behind the developed nations of the world. Presently, India is in a position to usher in 5G communication along with the rest of the world’s best technology adopting nations.”

Idea Cellular MD Himanshu Kapania said: “The impact of Digital India is going to structurally reform and the impact of digital India on individuals is going to be unimaginable. Our vision of a Digital India is a ‘transformed’, ‘empowered’ and a more ‘inclusive’ Indian society, founded on the bedrock of a world-class, robust wireless broadband infrastructure and services in the country.”

On some of the steps taken towards Digital India, he explained that “We are working with handset makers to make smartphones available to consumers at INR 1,500-2,000.”
Besides, Idea is also involved in massive roll out of mobile broadband network. It has has put in focused efforts in setting up a pan-India mobile broadband network which now spans across 6,000 towns and over 115,000 villages.

The company is also building mobile data capacities to meet requirements of a billion Indians. “As India goes increasingly digital, large mobile broadband capacities are going to be required. Idea has set up an optical fibres cable network of approx. 150,000 route kilometers to strengthen wireless broadband services and will continue to build OFC for boosting its transmission data capacities. At the same time, the company is augmenting its existing radio capacities by deploying 1800 MHz FDD spectrum and 2300 and 2500 MHz TDD spectrum bands,” Kapania added.

In addition, a lot of deliberations and brainstorming took place on sessions such as Smart India: Smart Life, Smart Enterprises, which revolved around pointers such as how are operators and the telco ecosystem working on solutions for speeding up the broadband infrastructure rollout in the country? And how fiber will be the backbone for strengthening broadband infrastructure?

On session around 5G, the panelists discussed how will 5G transform the current 4G network, service delivery and customer experience? How will it speed up IoT, and a range of new emerging valued added services for various sectors such as ---transport, healthcare, security, education, and energy?

Finally, the valedictory Session was given by Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan. The event saw the presence of Oomen Mathews, President, Network, Global Strategy and Service Development, Reliance Jio, Anupam Shrivastava, CMD, BSNL, Dr Anand Agarwal, CEO, Sterlite Tech, Nitin Bansal, MD, Ericsson, Shyam Mardikar, CTO, Airtel, Harish Krishnan, MD, Public Affairs & Strategic Engagement, CISCO, Abhay Savargaonkar, CTO, Airtel, Neeta Verma, DG, NIC & CEO, MyGov, Ashutosh Vasant, CMD, Railtel, among others.