India Open for RAN business
India’s Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a government owned telecommunications technology development centre, announced this week that state run BSNL will commence Open RAN trials in the coming month. With the Indian Government now throwing its support behind Open RAN, C-DOT is rolling out a raft of measures it hopes will not only address BSNL’s immediate challenges but also help India claim a leading position across the expanding Open RAN value chain in the longer term.
India’s fourth largest operator with over 140 million subscribers, BSNL’s long delayed 4G network roll out plans have resulted in growing churn as customers turn to domestic rivals Bharti Airtel and Jio for access to 4G and 5G services. Subject to the Indian Government’s “Built In India” laws, BSNL has blamed its slow 4G roll out on the delayed delivery of home built radios from supplier Tejas Networks, a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services.
Speaking at ET Telecom’s Open RAN Summit, C-DOT CEO Dr Rajkumar Upadhyay provided an update on the O-RUs and Open RAN solutions currently under development, firstly with partners VVDN and WiSig and secondly with Lekha Wireless, Signaltron Systems, Sooktha Consulting, and Resonous Technologies. C-DOT is now expanding on these initiatives launched in 2022 to support new entrants in the Open RAN space, falling under the auspices of its 5G Alliance and funded by the Indian Government’s Technology Telecom Development Fund (TTDF).
Dr Upadhyay announced the upcoming launch of a TTDF 2.0 which will provide funding for O-RU development, RAN Intelligent Controllers (RICs), Service Management Orchestration (SMO) platforms, and Open RAN chipsets. A newly launched O-RAN Test and Integration Lab will provide the platform to facilitate and accelerate commercial launch of these products.
These efforts on the domestic front align with the Indian Government’s recent announcements. Last week at a meeting of the Quad’s foreign secretaries in Tokyo the Indian government, along with fellow Quad members Australia, Japan, and the USA, reiterated its pledge to support the commercialisation of Open RAN. It followed this up with a new technology security initiative with the UK which will cover the shared development of Open RAN technologies and, perhaps more significantly given the dynamics at play, the development of semiconductors, AI and quantum computing.
India clearly sees an opportunity to grab a slice of the growing Open RAN market. With BSNL struggling to stay competitive however, solutions emerging from these efforts may find it more difficult to scale up on home soil. BSNL is currently the only operator required to purchase products built in India. While this may be offset by new opportunities abroad and in emerging 5G markets like small cells and private networks, we may see further regulatory changes in India to support its Open RAN ambitions.
