India poised to lead global race towards 6G: COAI

New Delhi:  India is poised to lead the global race towards 6G, with an exciting opportunity to drive technological leadership, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) said on Monday.

With the ongoing efforts like the Bharat 6G vision, the government aims to create 10 per cent of 6G patents from India and is evaluating 470 proposals on ‘Accelerated research on 6G Ecosystem’.

The rapid pace of digital innovations in telecom is evident from the massive adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and GenAI technologies across areas like customer service, operational support, network optimisation and automation, predictive maintenance, fraud prevention and so on,” said Lt Gen Dr SP Kochhar, Director General, COAI.

According to a recent KPMG India report, 55 per cent of the organisations in technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sectors in India have fully integrated AI, with 37 per cent in the scaling phase.

The COAI further stated that with a massive 1.2 billion telecom subscriber base, the average monthly data consumption per wireless data subscriber has touched 21.30 GB by October this year.

“As of October, over 4,60,592 5G BTS sites were installed, leading to a surge in the 5G user base, which crossed 125 million and is projected to reach 350 million by 2026,” said Kochhar.

Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) emerged as a key 5G use case in India, with connections reaching nearly 3 million within a year of launch. As a major contributor to the GDP, the sector is providing employment opportunities for over 4 million people, directly and indirectly.

The global body GSMA estimates that 2 GHz of mid-band spectrum will be needed to meet the expected traffic growth in 5G in India.

“Since 6 GHz is the last remaining mid-band spectrum where city-wide coverage can be provided with mobile networks, it is crucial that this band be allocated to IMT. Further, there is another growing concern of Wi-Fi 6E wireless routers operating on the 6 GHz band being sold illegally via e-commerce websites to consumers in India, although Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has not decided with regard to its utilisation,” said the COAI.

–IANS