NEW DELHI: Homegrown HFCL Limited and the US-based chipmaker Qualcomm Technologies have come together to bring out locally designed and developed Wi-Fi 6 products with the former aiming to achieve Rs 450 crore of annual revenue in the next three years with its Make-in-India for the world strategy in line with the Centre's ambitious Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) campaign.
"We are working with Qualcomm for the development of Wi-Fi 6 products which is next generation of Wi-Fi, and compatible and complementary to 5G networks," Mahendra Nahata, managing director of HFCL Limited told ET, adding that the the company is eyeing to increase its Wi-Fi segment revenue upto threefold to Rs 450 crore in next three years.
In 2020-21, the Delhi-based company's income from W-Fi portfolio stood at Rs 150-crore.
The connectivity range of Wi-Fi 6 would be 50% higher than its predecessor, and requires fewer access points that deliver better performance.
In December last, the Cabinet had cleared the setting up of public Wi-Fi networks, which according to telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, would unleash the broadband revolution in the country and empower the lives of ordinary Indians.
The Centre is aiming to deploy 2 million public Wi-Fi access points by the end of 2021, telecom secretary Anshu Prakash earlier said.
In 2018, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had freed spectrum in the 5 GHz frequency for public Wi-Fi services. The entities could use frequencies in the 5150-5250 MHz, 5250-5350 MHz and 5725-5875 MHz without any license. The move was initially opposed by incumbent telecom operators.
The homegrown company is expecting massive orders from private and public telecom carriers as well as enterprise customers following their fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) strategy and upcoming next generation of networks.
The dual band indoor and outdoor access points would be manufactured within the country while other dual band home-mesh routers, and other variants are in pipeline for this year.
"When the next generation of technology comes, the commercial and enterprise networks will need high throughput that will be achieved either on indoor small cells or Wi-Fi 6. So this Wi-Fi 6 wil have a huge demand for 5G applications and even now wherever high data throughput is required," the top executive said.
The Indian company will market the co-developed products worldwide after necessary trials under its IO brand.
Last year, the company shipped 100,000 units of 100% indigenous carrier-grade Wi-Fi systems in a record time.
Nahata said that it is a tectonic shift shift in terms of technology since the data throughout would be two to eight fold higher, and a 75% lower latency could be achieved while being even more power efficient as compared to predessars or a Wi-Fi 5 product.
“Wi-Fi 6 is a transformational re-imagination of how Wi-Fi works as it is designed to accommodate the ever-growing number of connected devices. The Qualcomm Networking Pro Series platforms raise the bar for managing the surge in connected devices, handling the variation and complexity of those devices, data needs and improving the quality of the overall connectivity experiences they deliver, all with increased security," Rajen Vagadia, Vice President Qualcomm Global & President, Qualcomm India Private Limited said.
Based on Qualcomm's networking platform, the IO products are designed to provide effective connectivity in complex surroundings, ensuring secure data transfer.
Vagadia further said that the US company is happy to join hands with HFCL for the development of their Wi-Fi 6 portfolio of products. "We look forward to bringing the benefits of latest technology, greater capacity and network efficiencies of Wi-Fi 6 to HFCL’s customers and end users across India and the world.”
Wi-Fi Alliance estimates that the worldwide economic value of Wi-Fi would reach $3.3 trillion in 2021, and projects it would reach $4.9 trillion by 2025.
In 2017, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) had recommended a model in which public Wi-Fi aggregators or village-level entrepreneurs would open up public data offices (PDO) to drive mass WiFi deployments.
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