In the times where we are seeing aggressive collaboration happening between Indian telecom operators and foreign equipment makers including Huawei, Ericsson, Qualcomm, ZTE and the likes; Rajiv Mehrotra, Chairman of Vihaan Networks is of the view that government should make it mandatory for Indian telcos to use only Indian equipment and gear.
“The Indian equipment market is with foreign companies because our mobile operators work only with them, they don’t promote Indian, it’s very unfortunate. By promoting these foreign companies, they are promoting their economy, they are not doing anything for the Indian economy,” said Mehrotra to ET in an interview.
“Government has to tell mobile operators that they have to use Indian equipment, the mandate has to come from government,” he added. “.it feels very bad when people come and ask which is the foreign collaboration and with whom you’re working. They can’t think that something can be fully Indian.”
Telecom equipment provider VNL recently partnered with BSNL to provide solutions for disaster management. The solution helps to find people who are trapped after an earthquake or any other disaster. With the solution, the trapped people can be found upto an accuracy of 1 metre.
According to Mehrotra, India has the biggest opportunities when it comes to telecom equipment manufacturing. “We have 17% of the population and we are the second biggest market. So opportunities are here as we have 40000 villages where there is no coverage. In about 15 months, we can provide mobile and wifi broadband coverage in 40000 villages,” he said.
