Ericsson to invest $15 million as part of 'Make in India' campaign

The Swedish telecom major, Ericsson, is investing $15 million for setting up a telecom equipment plant in Pune, as part of the ‘Make in India’ campaign. As reported by The Hindu, the plant will serve as an export hub for the company’s exports into South East Asia, West Asia and Sub Saharan Africa by 2016. Some of the equipment that it plans to manufacture are Minilinks, which helps telecom operators manage traffic aggregations, along with other 2G, 3G and 4G-related products. “Mobile broadband will be the platform on which the ‘Digital India’ vision can be delivered. Wide deployment, availability and affordability of broadband will enable the country to bridge the digital divide and facilitate economic growth,” Chris Houghton, head of region, India, Ericsson said. He was speaking at the inaugural session of ‘India: Broadband for All’ seminar organised by Ericsson and Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI). “The broadband infrastructure in the country needs to be expanded to offer superior coverage, quality and capacity,” Houghton said. “Further, given that we see the networked society taking shape in India as it is in other parts of the world, India needs to prepare and take a more proactive approach on 5G which is expected to be commercialised by 2020,” he added. “The policy framework must ensure that operators are encouraged and have business case to invest in the networks so that services like commerce, banking, education, health and entertainment can be reliably delivered to large masses of India,” Rajan Mathews, director general, COAI said. Investments in broadband need to be encouraged and facilitated in India so that the benefits of broadband to business and society can be ensured, industry experts said yesterday. With inputs from IANS