Govt planning to launch 6G network by 2030, says Ashwini Vaishnaw

A 15-member Bharat 6G Alliance will focus on how to give highly differentiated experience for sectors such as health and education and how to increase productivity across the country

The Department of Telecommunications on Monday announced a 15-member Bharat 6G alliance of industry leaders and academia to work on 6G development as the government aims for 10 per cent of 6G patents by 2030.

Union Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said, “We should keep a minimum target that 10 per cent of the 6G IPR (intellectual property rights) are from India by the time we reach 2029 or 2030.”

Vaishnaw said that India has acquired over 200 patents of 6G technology so far.

With plans of launching the 6G network by 2030, the alliance will work towards setting up the 6G network, which will have speed almost 100 times faster than 5G, in a methodical, proper, and systematic way.

 

The alliance will be led by TCS Chief Operating Officer N Ganapathy Subramaniam, according to a report in the Financial Express.

The alliance will include Jagbir Singh, chief technology officer of Vodafone Idea; Rajkumar Upadhyay, chief executive officer of C-DoT; Kumar N Sivarajan, chief technology officer of Tejas Networks; Jagdish Mitra, chief strategy officer of Tech Mahindra; and Ayush Bhatnagar, senior vice president of Jio.

Alliance chairman Subramaniam said that the primary focus areas will be how to give highly differentiated experience for sectors such as health and education and how to increase productivity, according to the Financial Express report.

In March this year, the government had launched a vision document for 6G services which included a roadmap to the launch of 6G services, recommendations from task forces, and opening of spectrum bands.

The alliance under the 6G Apex Council will focus on growing 5G advanced and 6G intellectual properties (IPs) and essential patents from India, and building 5G advanced/6G products and solutions.

The government approved Rs 240.5 crore under the Telecom Technology Development Fund for two 6G projects — a 6G THz testbed through a consortium of IIT Madras, IIT Guwahati and IIT Patna; and an advance optical communication testbed with consortium members IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi.