BW World Telecom Day: HFCL’s Jayanta Dey Speaks On 5G Inclusivity, 6G

The world’s second largest telecommunications market, India, reached the landmark of highest wireless data consumption per user in the world before COVID-19 struck in 2020, with average monthly wireless data consumption per user reaching 16.4GB in 2022. A Deloitte report suggests that this figure is projected to triple to about 54GB per month by 2028 even as 5G rollouts continue and internet penetration grows.  

While Jio and Airtel fight it out for 5G supremacy on the consumer-front, many companies including HFCL are focused on delivering 5G solutions for businesses and enterprises across industries. They are playing a key role in enabling industries to leverage the power of 5G and helping usher in the age of Industry 4.0.

Against the backdrop of World Telecom Day, BW Businessworld spoke with Jayanta Dey, Executive President-5G at HFCL, to assess India’s progress in 5G, what is lacking with it and the impending 6G technology. Excerpts:

How is India performing in 5G and telecom? 

The rate at which 5G has been rolled out is phenomenal. People whom I know from the industry (but based outside India) have said they are surprised by the pace of 5G rollout. It started in October-November last year but we already have over one lakh 5G cell sites. The pace of deployment has been very rapid.

How should India leverage 5G in a better way?

We should focus on leveraging 5G to help address some of the prevalent issues in country. This includes digital divide and making sure that 5G isn’t just enjoyed by people living in cities, as large part of our population resides in the rural areas. Hence, we must think on how to make 5G more inclusive and implement use cases to benefit everybody. For example, manufacturing is a very crucial sector for India, but how do we leapfrog in this through 5G, so that, we are also known for our hardware manufacturing capabilities apart from software prowess. 5G as a technology should be leveraged to make the country much more competitive globally across sectors.

Could you tell us about HFCL’s focus on 5G?

In 5G, HFCL is focused on two parts including the radio part of the network and the transport part. From the solutions point-of-view, we are building and investing in these products but our approach to the market is to be a solution provider where we integrate ours and also our partners’ products for customers. For example, if a customer needs 5G core (which we don't build ourselves), we are reintegrating, re-validating with some of our ecosystem partners to avail it. Similarly, cloud is an important part of our 5G private solution. So, we struck a partnership with Microsoft. We are also forming partnerships around IoT gateways, sensors, autonomous mobile robots and more, which connect with the 5G network. We also have a 5G private solution which is very easy to deploy. We call it ‘zero-touch deployment’. It takes the plug-and-play approach and comes with machine-based analytics powered with AI and ML.

PM Modi recently asked Cisco for a joint R&D over 6G. What is HFCL’s view on 6G and how are you working on it?

Within HFCL, as part of our technology team, we have dedicated people contributing towards 6G standards. Our team is working with Telecommunications Standards Development Society India (TSDSI) to help define the standards for 6G, particularly within the context of India. 6G will be part of an evolutionary journey from 5G. We will first go to 5G Advanced, then 6G.

How will 6G be different?

It will bring a lot of features and functionalities. Today’s networks are about communication. 6G will have inherent features around ‘sensing’, which is going to be very important.

If you look at 6G, the right spectrum will very important. It is very clear that it will not have Sub-6GHz spectrum. Instead, it will be on the higher bands such as 7GHz or may be even terra hertz. Hence, adding that itself will come with its own challenges. So, HFCL is investing into FWA CPE products, which is not just for Sub-6GHz but also for the millimeter wave. The experiences gained while building our FWA CPE product for millimeter wave will come very handy for 6G. Also, since artificial intelligence (AI) will be very intrinsic to 6G, we are also investing on AI/ML.

You mentioned ‘sensing’ as a stand out feature in 6G. How is that different in 6G?

Sensing is about being able to sense the environment. Today, sensors are not integrated into 5G. Sensor data is getting collected and then you are using the 5G network to transport the sensing data. So, you are using it for more as a communication network. With 6G, sensing will be an integral part. For instance, if you want to know whether an obstruction is in front of you, we use radar technology separately. But with 6G, it will be part of the technology. 6G will be more like a sensor network which will be able to sense data.