Recently media reported that the Indian army units posted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) were experiencing a booming sound in communications due to 5 G waves from the Chinese side given expansion of communication infrastructure on the borders by China as a part of the extensive border development plan.
Apart from the disturbance, Indian Army posts would be facing the challenge of lack of adequate band width, speed and reliability of communications as the roll out of 5 G in the country is anticipated only by later this year. To the remote posts on the LAC last mile connectivity will be a problem.
Thus provision of telecom connectivity with high speed internet capability will remain a major requirement for armed forces across the board.
For the Indian armed force deployed in remote areas the necessity for such communications remains high due to operational necessities but provision is likely to remain difficult due to need for laying cable amongst other factors.
Providing 5 G on LAC
Now the Ministry of Science and Technology has reported that the Technology Development Bord [TDB] is supporting a start up M/s Astrome Technologies Private Limited, Bengaluru for Productization and Commercialization of ‘GigaMesh Solution for delivery of 4G/5G Telecom and Internet services for Defence and Rural Sectors’
To enable this, Technology Development Board, a statutory body of Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India supports M/s Astrome Technologies Private Limited, Bengaluru for Productization and Commercialization of ‘GigaMesh Solution for delivery of 4G/5G Telecom and Internet services for Defence and Rural Sectors’.
The board has been instrumental in development of a conducive start up ecosystem by promoting innovation and entrepreneurship in India. Now, to solve Internet Woes of Rural India, TDB has agreed to provide financial assistance of ₹2.97 crores, out of the total project cost of ₹19.79 crores to M/s Astrome Technologies.
The idea behind development of GigaMesh is that, fibre-like capacity is needed at every telecom site but deploying the same at each site is not feasible, due to cost and access related constraints. As 5G deployment happens, the number of cell sites will increase and each cell site will require multi-Gbps throughputs.
Therefore, telecom deployment in suburban and rural areas will require wireless products that can deliver both capacity and range. To cater this, Astrome has come up with GigaMesh i.e. ‘First E-band radio that features Multiple-Point-to-Point (Multi-P2P) communication offering lower CapEx cost & OpEx cost.
In addition, the device can provide up to 40 links with 2+ Gbps capacity each, communicating up to a range of 10 kilometers. This flexibility in range makes it suitable for both decongesting the dense urban networks as well as extending rural coverage, the device is also capable of making the existing infrastructure 5G ready. This revolutionary approach to high-speed multiple point-to-point (Multi-P2P) communication yields up to 6 times reduction in capital expenditure (CapEx) per link as compared to the state-of-the-art point-to-point (P2P) wireless solutions.
Sh. Rajesh Kumar Pathak, IP&TAFS, Secretary, TDB, said that “As 5G deployment is just about to start in India, after 5G spectrum auction, coupled with the fact that TSPs/MNOs are facing fund crunch to meet its CapEx & OpEx requirement. Hence, the low-cost network solution is ‘need of the hour”.
CISCO Support
Meanwhile telecom majors and equipment providers as CISCO are supporting the roll out by Astrome. CISCO reported that, “Astrome is the only company that has a product which features Multiple-Point-to-Point communication in E-Band, resulting in a much lower CapEx than the competition. Moreover, Astrome’s technology is driven by software to make it easy to deploy, maintain and repair remotely. GigaMesh also has proprietary algorithms to support load balancing between links in a Mesh topology which is required for successful deployment of dense 5G. CISCO is a development partners in the programme with Astrome.