NEW DELHI: Home-grown telecom equipment maker Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited said that the company is working with top telecom operators in India who are interested in replacing their telecom gear from foreign original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with HFCL’s.
“We should be receiving some orders very soon since we've been working with them (telcos) for long now,” Bhuvnesh Sachdeva, Deputy CTO and Associate VP at HFCL told ET. He added that if a telco has already deployed its base, it will not replace its equipment with a new vendor’s but for all the new deployments telcos will consider HFCL rather than the foreign OEMs that they’re working with.
The company is confident that it provides equipment which is at par or even better than the equipment of global OEMs. “We are flexible in our approach and offer customized solutions which foreign OEMs can’t,” Sachdeva said.
Sachdeva’s comment comes at a time when the country is deliberating on the fate of Chinese telecom gear maker Huawei after US had blacklisted the gear maker and is now persuading its allies to block Huawei from their new and upcoming mobile networks.
Talking about the challenges of being a home-grown equipment player, Sachdeva said, “When we started operations, the ecosystem was not ready. To develop an entire end-to-end ecosystem in India was a challenge; we sourced technologies from outside to make sure customers get the desired quality and technology.”
The executive further said that all its products are made in India and are fully compliant to PMA guidelines of the government – which gives preference to domestically manufactured electronic goods. “We can be extremely flexible when it comes to customer requirements,” he said.
The gear vendor is currently not working on 5G but has tied up with a foreign player for 5G backhauling. “5G requires lot of R&D and investment and we're not ready for it yet,” Sachdeva said.
Earlier this year, HFCL received a purchase order worth Rs 2,467 crore from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for setting up of the converged nationwide IP /MPLS backbone & access network.
Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL), HFCL, Tejas Networks, Paramount Wires and Cables are some of the known home-grown equipment manufacturers in India.
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