Telecommunications equipment and service provider HFCL Ltd stated that it plans to provide 5G equipment and turnkey services, marking the beginning of an upgrade from the foundation of a telecommunications contractor.

The company has successfully achieved diversified manufacturing in recent years—especially fiber optic cables and terminal equipment—that its new 5G network service division will begin commercial operations at the end of 2021 or sometime in January next year.

In addition, it recently opened a new R&D center in Bangalore, dedicated to the development of 5G and Wifi products. It will focus on the new standard of Wifi 6-it can support data speeds of up to 1000 Mbps on client devices and is supported by the US chip giant Qualcomm.

5G has incredible potential in India, which is completely dependent on wireless technology to meet the demand for high-speed internet.

Of the estimated 250 million households in the country, only about 3 to 5 million households have wired broadband connections.

Therefore, the country is expected to become the biggest beneficiary of 5G technology in the world, because households that have not been able to access broadband connections so far can use the power of this new high-capacity wireless technology to achieve this goal.

HFCL is currently the main contractor for the construction of fiber optic networks for Reliance Jio's 4G and fiber-to-the-home services, and it intends to sell its 5G products and services in India and abroad.

Although companies such as Reliance Jio said they plan to launch 5G services this year, HFCL founder and chairman Mahendra Nahata said that he expects the 5G spectrum auction to only take place early next year.

Given its relatively cash-rich balance sheet, it is widely expected that Jio will lead India's 5G deployment, while Bharti Airtel is catching up, while Vodafone Idea is struggling to keep up.

HFCL will introduce traditional solutions—such as operator boxes used to create 5G wireless cells—as well as discrete components and components that operators can use to create their own 5G networks from scratch.

In addition, the company will also provide pure service-oriented products in the form of 5G system integration.

At present, due to the proprietary nature of the technology involved, all such solutions are only provided by traditional large telecom providers such as Ericsson, Nokia and Huawei.

However, 5G networks are expected to be based on open technologies, such as traditional computer networks, and are likely to be built using off-the-shelf hardware and software.

This opens up huge opportunities for companies such as HFCL, Tech Mahindra, Infosys, HCL Tech and TCS.

Nahata said: "We have started to develop 5G radio access networks for macro cells and small cells, which will be a large demand for 5G networks."

"We are also beginning to develop transmission network equipment, such as routers and switches, which are also needed in a large number of 5G networks."

He said that HFCL is also setting up a service-focused department, called the system integration department, for the 5G market.

With 5G, "Telecom is moving towards OPEN RAN," he said. "Before, it used to be the same supplier that provided the core and access networks.

"Now, it has been broken down-the radio access network comes from one supplier, the core comes from another supplier, and the transmission may come from a third supplier.

"But if you have multiple vendors in a network, you need a system integrator to integrate different components and make it run as a network. We are developing this capability because we believe in the open RAN environment of 5G In China, system integration will require a very large number of services."

He said that the company has contacted some multinational companies that may need such system integration services.

"We will also negotiate with operators to provide these SI services in India and abroad. I have high expectations for this department, which will start operations in the third or early fourth quarter of this year," Nahata added road.

In terms of equipment or hardware, the company is increasing its production of fiber optic cables and is making ambitious expansion of its Hyderabad fiber optic plant.

The factory is currently producing more general types of optical cables for fiber-to-the-home services, etc., and will be able to produce more specialized types of optical cables, such as micro ducts, armored optical cables, ADL, etc., Nabata said.

He said that the ongoing expansion will increase the company's optical fiber production capacity by 25%, optical cable production capacity by 22%, and FTTH optical cable production capacity by 20%. He added that most professional products will target export markets.

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