Bharti Airtel on Thursday stole a march over Adani Group in bagging an external contract in the private 5G network space. The company did so by entering into an agreement with Tech Mahindra wherein the two would deploy the new technology solution at Mahindra and Mahindra’s auto plant at Chakan in Maharashtra. This will make the Chakan plant the country’s first 5G-enabled auto manufacturing unit.
Adani Group was the only non-telecom firm to have participated in the auctions in July to acquire 5G spectrum for building private networks. It has both options – build the networks for its own firms as well as for other enterprises.
The natural advantage which Adani Group had over telcos like Bharti was in bagging contracts for private networks of enterprises, as it would be one of the mainstays of its 5G business. Further, since telcos are opposed to direct allocation of spectrum to enterprises, it was felt that the latter would opt for a non-telecom firm to build their private networks.
However, the Bharti-Tech M partnership surprised observers by not only being the first to cement an alliance but by also laying the roadmap for a wholly new nature of partnerships that are possible between telcos and other enterprises to deploy private 5G networks in the days to come.
So far, the speculation was that enterprises would either lease spectrum from telcos and build such networks themselves or wait for the government to directly allocate spectrum to them.
According to sector analysts, the partnership is likely to put to rest the strong opposition voiced by telcos against the direct allocation of 5G spectrum to enterprises for building private networks as there would be possibilities of collaboration in such cases also.
While the two sides did not disclose the commercial aspects relating to this partnership, industry experts said that since Bharti Airtel will be providing the spectrum to build the private network, its share of the contract fee would be higher than Tech Mahindra’s.
“This is just the beginning, and I am certain we will showcase many more innovative use cases that will help redefine manufacturing in India,” Ajay Chitkara, director and CEO, of Airtel Business, said.
“We are confident that this partnership will help unlock opportunities across industries to improve productivity, drive intelligent network-led enterprise digitalization, and spur innovation,” Manish Vyas, president, of communications, media and entertainment business, and CEO, of network services, Tech Mahindra, said.
Earlier, the country’s leading information technology companies like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, and HCL Tech, have said that how they see a huge opportunity in the field of private networks, which would open an entirely new revenue stream for them.
“With 5G in manufacturing, the industry 4.0 principles can actually become a reality. You would need the applications, you would need the private network so that you could connect internally as well as connect meaningfully with the ecosystem that you are building, so we are looking at all those opportunities,” N Ganapathy Subramaniam, chief operating officer of TCS had said at the post-earnings briefing of the company’s July-September quarter results.
Similarly, Salil Parekh, chief executive officer of Infosys had said around the same time, “We see a huge amount of traction in this (5G) business as we look forward, so it’s one of the growth drivers”.
Under private networks, corporates can set up their own WiFi, and data network instead of taking the services from any telecom service provider as is the norm today. Such networks would help healthcare chains to connect their different centers through high-speed data through which they can conduct remote surgery and similar functions which require low latency. Similarly, an automobile manufacturer can connect their centers across the country and move to fully, much faster digital operations.
SOURCE: The Indian Express
