After Successful 5G Rollout, India Aims To Be A Leader In 6G: PM Modi

Amid the efforts by telecom service providers to expand their 5G networks in the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that India is also working to become a global leader in the 6G technology. 

The prime minister inaugurated 100 ‘5G use case labs’ across India on Friday (October 27) during the seventh edition of the India Mobile Congress. “When I was going through the stalls at the exhibition, I saw a glimpse of our future in terms of 6G, cybersecurity, drone, space sector, green tech and so on,” Modi said.

The ‘100 5G labs initiative’ is aimed at realising the opportunities associated with 5G technology by encouraging the development of 5G applications which cater to the unique needs of India as well as the world. 

Talking about the expanding 5G network in the country, the prime minister said that India has 4 Lakh 5G base stations covering more than 97% of the cities and 80% of the population. This has also resulted in an increase in internet speeds in the county.

Modi said the rollout of 5G has increased the internet speed in India by 3 times, taking the country to the 43rd position in terms of broadband speed from 118th position earlier.

He also said that 2 Lakh gram panchayats in the country have been connected with broadband through the BharatNet project, a rural broadband connectivity programme using optical fibre. 

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio Infocomm chairman Akash Ambani said that the company has installed over 10 Lakh 5G cells across all 22 circuits of India. 

During the event, the Mukesh Ambani-led company also launched JioSpaceFibre, India’s first satellite-based giga-fibre service JioSpaceFibre

Speaking about Airtel’s 5G rollout, Bharti Enterprises’ chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said the company’s 5G services are now available across 5,000 towns and 20,000 villages. Airtel is aiming to roll out 5G services across the country by March 2024. 

This is not the first time when PM Modi has spoken about the importance of 6G technology. Earlier, during his Independence Day speech, he said India has been the fastest in the world to roll out a countrywide 5G network and aims to be a global leader in the 6G technology as well. 

In March, the government launched the country’s first 6G test bed and unveiled the ‘Bharat 6G Mission’ document. The purpose of the document is to provide a roadmap for the rollout of 6G services in India in the next few years. 

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