Airtel started 4G in 2012, and Jio brought it in 2016, but both companies launched 5G commercially in 2022. BSNL is just gearing up for 4G roll out in almost middle of 2024. Considering Airtel's entry in 4G space, BSNL 4G is just 12 years late. But recent tariff hike by Airtel, Jio and Vi made the customers to look into BSNL's plans and many are porting to BSNL, despite having only 3G offering in most places.
Saankhya Labs | https://saankhyalabs.com
VNL | https://www.vnl.in
HFCL | https://www.hfcl.com
Coral Telecom | https://www.coraltele.com/
Amantya Tech | https://www.amantyatech.com/
Lekha Wireless | https://www.lekhawireless.com/
Galore Networks | https://ga-lore.com
But interesting development is some of Indian start ups want to use BSNL's spectrum for 5G trials. Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (VoICE), a group of home grown telecom companies plans to conduct 5G trials - in outdoor and indoor environment in selected areas of Delhi, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Selected locations chosen for this 5G trials on BSNL's network are Delhi (Sanchar Bhawan, IIT campus, Connaught Place, JNU campus, India Habitat Center), Hyderabad (IIT campus), Bengaluru (Government Office, Government Indoor Office), Gurugram (selected pockets), Chennai (selected pockets).
VoICE includes Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tejas Networks, VNL, United Telecoms, Coral Telecom, and HFCL. RK Bhatnagar, director general, VoICE held a meeting with Robert J. Ravi, CMD of BSNL on July 24.
As per initial reports the trial will utilize BSNL's 700MHz spectrum. BSNL will also share towers, power backup and other logistical and infrastructural support. The public can also use 5G during trial, like Jio offered free 4G and 5G during initial days.
The other companies which are interested for 5G trials are: Lekha Wireless, Galore Networks, Velmenni, W4S Labs, Sooktha Consulting, Amantya Technologies, VVDN, Bharat RAN Consortium, Signaltron, Resonous Technologies, WiSag Networks, Niral Networks, BigCat Wireless (Chennai), Tidal Wave Technologies (Mumbai), Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), IIT Delhi backed Wireless 4 Space.
These companies will explore various 5G-based services like voice, video, data, network slicing, private 5G networks, Private Automatic Branch Exchange (PABX), and easy mobile communications.
Note that in the process of deployment of BSNL's country-wide 4G rollout, Tata group's IT services arm, TCS is doing the system integration, Tejas is supplying 4G/5G equipment while Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) is supplying its network core solutions.
2Yrs Back, DoT Grants over 50 Crore to Companies to Develop Desi-5G
Most of us forgot, back in June, 2022 DoT approved 43 startups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) for a grant of more than 50 crore to develop indigenous 5G equipment and technology like 5G core, RAN, NMS, IMS, chipsets, devices, ICT solutions and applications enhancing deep tech, to create competencies in domestic entities and prepare the country for the roll out of 5G services. Under the scheme, startups will get a grant of ₹50 lakhs while MSMEs will get a grant of ₹2 crore, and a consortium will get a grant of ₹10 crore. Approved companies include BKC Aggregators, Coral Telecom, Wisig Networks, SASTRA University, and Versatile Antenna Systems. It seems the grant has paid off.
BSNL is now selling 5G-ready SIM cards.
That means once you upgrade to BSNL 4G SIM card, that would support BSNL 5G in future.
Details of these companies are coming soon.
Tejas Networks | https://www.tejasnetworks.com
Tejas Networks is majority owned by Panatone Finvest, a subsidiary of Tata Sons. (Tatas acquired 56% of Tejas in 2021) Anand Athreya is the CEO & MD of the company. Tejas initially won a Rs 696 crore pan-India deal from BSNL in April 2023 for the supply, installation and commissioning of more than 13,000 TJ1400 access and aggregation routers to upgrade BSNL’s IP-MPLS-driven MAAN network within 18 months. Tejas has also completed the supply of “large quantities” of IP/MPLS routers for BSNL's MAAN network, which is actually the backhaul for highspeed 4G/5G mobile network. In August 2023 BSNL gave the contract to supply 4G/5G RAN equipment to Tejas. The deal was worth Rs 7,492 crore (about $900 million).
Headquartered at Bengaluru, Tejas has clients across the globe - Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, USA, Europe, CIS and Mexico.
Now subsidiary of Tejas Network
Ace Technology aces - Parag Naik, Vishwakumara Kayargadde, Hemant Mallapur, Muthukrishnan Chinnasamy and Venkana Gouda Krishna Gouda Patil founded Saankhya Labs in 2006 in Bengaluru. Saankhya Labs was India’s first fabless semiconductor solutions company, and they also developed the world’s first production Software Defined Radios (SDR) chipsets. Their products and solutions are powered by award-winning, patented, ultra-low power consumption, fully programable SDR chipsets. Saankhya offers a wide range of communication products for 5G NR, Broadcast and Satellite Communication applications. Saankhya Labs and Ligado Networks announced partnership for development of Next-Generation Satellite Communication Solutions.
They are now developing an ORAN 7.2x compliant multiband 5G Remote Radio Unit (RU). In March 2022, Tejas Networks acquired 64.40% stakes of Saankhya Labs for Rs 283.94 Cr in cash.
A subsidiary of Shyam Group, Gurugram-HQed Vihaan Networks Pvt. Ltd (VNL) was founded in 2004 as a telecommunication enabler that indigenously develops end-to-end telecom infrastructure products and solutions, and became the first Indian company to realize the potential of research and development of telecom technology that led to marvellous simplification of telecom tech for rural ICT expansion.
Banking on Shyam’s 50 years of core expertise in wireless telecommunications, strategic communications for military and disaster management applications, VNL is now foraying into developing solutions for tactical, homeland security and other critical missions, as well as a wide range of industrial and civil application scenarios.
VNL is India’s first and only company to design and manufacture its own portfolio of end to end GSM, LTE & Broadband network solutions for commercial purpose as well as a wide range of solutions for tactical communications, wireless signal intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance solutions.
Check out VNL's advanced tech protecting army base: https://vimeo.com/557150418
Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd, founded in 1989 by Mahendra Nahata, is one of the biggest Indian private sector company in Indian telecom market. They are specialize in making telecom equipment, power equipment (Exicom Tele Systems takes care of it) and optical fibers. They have four strong manufacturing units in Solan, Gurgaon, Goa and Chennai. In Goa they have a separate plant for OFN (optic fibre network) manufacture.
In 2010 Mahendra Nahata's Infotel Broadband bagged all India spectrum on 2300MHz band. Later Reliance Industries acquired it, and rebranded the Infotel to Jio. Jio's OFN is largely deployed by HFCL. Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries, through its two subsidiaries - Reliance Strategic Business Ventures and Reliance Ventures, holds a 5% stake in HFCL.
HFCL also supplies and installs the OFN for Railtel, PGCIL and Defense. They also developed 5G radios with O-RAN and vRAN support.
United Telecoms Ltd | https://www.utlindia.com
UTL Group's telecom solutions arm, United Telecoms was founded in 1983 as as a solutions company and emerged as a growing enterprise with multiple domain expertise. UTL was one of the first business houses to bring cellular services to the country. Dr. P. Raja Mohan Rao, one of the founding members of UTL Group, established JT Mobiles, which was the first mobile service operator in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, as a joint venture with global players Jasmine Telecom, Telia and Telecom of Thailand.
They pioneered the e-Governance initiative that creates a high-tech interface between the government and its citizens, which has been successfully adopted by many state governments.
Bengaluru based UTL has extended their business portfolio to optical transmission, exchange, MPLS core, access, mobile phones, and telecommunications software. UTL supplies GPON products for Bharat Broadband Networks. Their telecom R&D is primarily focused on DWDM (Dense wavelength-division multiplexing).
As per their website UTL builds every 4th telephone exchange in the country, every 3rd village network, every 3rd microwave radio and every 4th telephone instrument in the country. Presently the company's footprint extends over 60-plus nations across South Asia, Africa, America and Europe.
UTL works closely with C-DOT (Centre for Development of Telematics), and manufactures the technology, developed by C-DOT.
Founded in the year 1991, Noida based Coral Telecom has brought its own indigenously designed & manufactured digital communication systems with a host of never-before features. The company works in many business verticals including Defense, Railway & Metro, e-Goverance, hospitality, distributed call centres, telecom carriers.
Following PM Modi's Aatma Nirbhar Bharat policy, the company manufactures their products at the factory unit in Solan, Himachal Pradesh. Coral was one of the companies which got grant from DoT to develop home grown 5G technology. Coral has their private 5G network solutions - Coral Air.
Founded in 2018, Amantya is a product engineering and systems integration company with sales and engineering centers in the US and India.
Amantya’s 5G network portfolio includes a variety of system integration and porting capabilities that provide network services on RAN and Core, ONAP integration, 5G lab setup, MEC charging integration, and network slicing. We also offer 5G testing services ranging from RAN/Core testing, performance/benchmark testing, GCF conformance testing for UE, MIMO testing, etc.
Founded in 2010, Bengaluru-HQed, Lekha Wireless has developed their own software for 5G-NR stack, 4G/LTE stacks, NB-IoT stacks. The company is also certified partner of AMD since 2016.
In first phase of 5G trial in Delhi, Lekha Wireless deployed core from Niral Network.
In February 2024, ITI Limited, country’s first PSU post-independence and premier telecom manufacturing company has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU)s with Lekha Wireless, Niral Networks, and InstaICT Solution Private Limited to create and manage entire Private 5G ecosystem for an enterprise, i.e. plan, design, deploy, implement and manage.
Established in 2013 and headquartered in Bangalore, Galore Networks delivers carrier grade products and services for global communication service providers, enterprises and critical infrastructure and vertical market segments. Their innovative and end-to-end solutions are centred around complex cutting edge technology platforms like LiDar Drone Solutions, 5G, IoT, Cloud Offering’s/NFv -SDN and legacy network products ranging from 2G-3G & 4G.
The Next Gen Core of Galore is compliant with native cloud and can be deployed on commercial network on off the shelf (COTS) hardware on the host OS or as Virtual Network. Galore’s 5G vRAN (gNB) solution is virtualized and ORAN compliant and supports both Standalone (SA) and Non-Standalone (NSA) 5G Architecture. Galore’s virtualized RAN (Open vRAN) software solution reduces the OPEX and CAPEX significantly by supporting open interfaces and disaggregates the hardware from the software enabling to build a multi-vendor web-scale cloud-based network. The solution supports macro and small cells, indoor and outdoor, enabling interference management, carrier aggregation and dual reception to improve the efficiency of the network and enhances the quality of experience for the user while providing broadband speeds.
Signaltron & Signalchip
Himamshu Khasnis founded both the companies. Signalchip was founded in 2010 - that time it was one of few fabless semiconductor companies in the country. Signaltron was founded in 2019.
In response to Indian Army's bid on GeM (Government e-marketplace) for supply of 4G-LTE NIB (Network In a Box) solutions in 2023, Signaltron proposed Sahyadri NIB solution, that is highly mobile as it weighs just 7kg. The chip used in this 4G NIB is developed by Signalchip. This is the first time an Indian system running on an Indian chip for complex communication technology has been inducted into the army. Sahyadri NIB is capable of working in both standalone and cellular modes and capable of seamless inter-operation with legacy analogue and IP telephony systems.
WiSig Networks
Hyderabad based WiSig Networks is a pioneering supplier of advanced 5G O-RAN equipment, software, and services. This startup is backed by IIT-Hyd.
Intel, WiSig, and Sweden based Sivers Semiconductors jointly developed the world’s first fully stand-alone 5G millimeter wave FR2 solution for Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), which can also be utilized as an integrated backhaul terminal in Sub-6 GHz 5G radio access networks. This unique solution is based on the Intel Agilex FPGA portfolio, Sivers RF and antenna technology, and full-stack software developed by WiSig, and was to be live demonstrated in the Sivers Semiconductor stand (stand #5E2) during the MWC2023 in Barcelona, Spain.
In March, 2024 WiSig Networks and Programmable Solutions Group (PSG), an Intel Corp. subsidiary, unveiled world's first ORAN massive MIMO (multiple input multiple output) ULPI Radio Solution Pioneering innovation delivers a remarkable 10x improvement in uplink cell edge coverage. Benefits include increased capacity, improved signal quality, better spectral efficiency and cost-effective solutions for telecom operators.
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