Tech Mahindra- ITI to make 5G tech in India

ITI Limited, a public sector undertaking (PSU) manufacturing telecom and defence equipment and information technology service provider Tech Mahindra, a have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to work together in the areas of 4G & 5G smart networks, Smart Cities and Health Care services.

ITI and Tech Mahindra will collaborate to create “Make in India” stack as part of this MoU for the upcoming 4G & 5G opportunities in India. A large part of Tech Mahindra's business involves providing software solutions for telecom companies.

ITI Limited, will produce the 4G technology upgradeable to 5G Radio access network and related equipment in line with government’s initiative of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat. Tech Mahindra will be responsible for providing the software intellectual property, implementation and integration services, operations and maintenance services. Indian companies have been quite vocal lately about reducing their dependence Chinese imports and replace it with domestic alternatives. China accounts for around 14 % of India’s total imports, and major items in the import basket being components for smartphones and automobile, telecom equipment, plastic and metallic goods, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), and other chemicals.

This partnership intends to jointly build a framework that will provide solutions of the upcoming wireless technologies to different telecom service providers in the country and also address business opportunities globally.

R M Agarwal, Chairman & Managing Director, ITI Limited,said, “The initiative is to build local competence by synergising the offerings of ITI & Tech Mahindra to create a next generation wireless stack that will help India to become self‐sufficient in the area of telecommunications.”

ITI with state of the art facilities and capabilities for manufacturing Telecom equipment plans to manufacture the eNodeB and 5G new radio products in the different plants using Tech Mahindra software and wireless technologies. 5G New Radio is a new radio access technology (RAT) to be the global standard for the air interface of 5G networks. eNodeB is the hardware that is connected to the mobile phone network that communicates directly wirelessly with mobile handsets, like a base transceiver station in GSM networks.

The partnership will not only help to reduce dependency on import of Telecom equipment from foreign countries but also address the concerns in building a strategic network for defense communication, said ITI in a statement. “Through this partnership we commit ourselves to the Government’s initiative of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat.”

Sujit Baksi, Head APAC Business & President Corporate Affairs, Tech Mahindra, said, “Tech Mahindra will bring state of the art platform technologies and software capabilities and ITI will use its world class manufacturing facilities and expertise to build wireless solution for next generations.”