India’s road to 5G has been a bumpy one. In 2018, the country’s Department of Communications laid out a roadmap in its National Digital Communications Policy for a 5G rollout by 2022. Following delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Commercial 5G services are now expected later this year or in early 2023.
Despite the delay, the Indian government is still hoping to launch a nationally-developed 6G network by the end of the same year. These almost simultaneous ambitions encompass the government’s push to encourage digital transformation through nationally-developed technology as countries elsewhere begin to view power and national security interests through the lens of technological development.
In November 2021, India’s Department of Telecommunications (DOT) announced the formation of a 22-member technology innovation group to develop indigenous 6G technology. Not long after the DOT’s announcement, India’s Minister of Communications Ashwini Vaishnaw announced that 6G development had already started. “We will have designed-in-India telecom software for running the networks, manufactured-in-India telecom equipment, served-in-India telecom networks, which can go global,” he said.
