“5G Will Revolutionize Telecom, Including the Underlying Technologies”, Says Sanjay Lodha

Edge computing is fast emerging as the mainstay of many products that require real-time data processing. And as 5G is being adopted across a range of industries, with an aim to develop AI-enabled applications, it has become highly imperative that companies seek high-performance computing services. As a principal player in the high-performance computing (HPC) segment, Netweb Technologies is slowly but steadily charting its path towards building globally relevant and yet locally applicable 5G solutions to facilitate end-to-end solutions when the technology finally arrives. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Sanjay Lodha, Co-Founder at Netweb Technologies.

1.How has been the overall journey of Netweb Technologies so far?

Sandeep Lodha and I founded Netweb on September 22, 1999, as the world of networking was being reinvented, to transform the landscape of technology in India. We were compelled to deliver a unique product and service to India. As one thing led to another, we went into a broad spectrum of networking. We started delving into the server-building components with the cascading effect.  Netweb currently offers several software and hardware-based solutions in Server, Workstation, Storage, Supercomputing, Cloud, and AI. Our journey in HPC started with being part of project Kabru which was the fastest academic supercomputer of that time, now we have more than 500 installations and several pieces of software and solution to make HPC deployment and management easier. Currently, we are offering customized private 5G solutions and we will be rolling out other products and solutions on 5G very soon which are getting developed in our 5G lab centers.

2.Where have you set up the lab and what's the purpose of setting up these labs?

Currently, we have two labs one R&D lab in Hyderabad and one in Delhi the purpose of setting up these labs is to come out with the products and end-to-end solutions for setting up the entire 5G setup in organizations and the other use cases.

3.How big is the private 5G market and how much do you plan to target?

Today Global market is already deploying Private 5G. According to Polaris Market Research, the global Private 5G Network market is estimated to be valued at USD 924.4 million in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 40.9% during the forecast period (2021-28) which is almost 41% of a growth rate. Our targets are not set up yet as it is a big and highly growing market and we're still in the process of developing the products and solutions for private 5G, and also it is a very recent thing in India and the use cases of 5G are still getting defined. However, as we're already working on one of its use cases in Africa, we should get our first deployment done there in a very short period.

4.What can be the use cases of 5G in India?

Some of the assumed early adopters in India would be:

• Ports and Airports –There are already clear indications of the investments in the spectrum for usage in this use case. Supply chain management was always a formidable use case and with Ports and Airports, the tracking and movement of the materials as well as other critical equipment will become much more convenient.
• Defense – The wide coverage, high throughput, and low latency bundled with added security features that Private 5G will offer is going to be one of the most important use cases for its immediate deployment for defense purposes.
• Retail – With the huge growth in the retail industry there are added issues to further streamline the issues of stocking, movement of wares, warehouse management, and supply chain management. Private 5G can solve any such issues for them.
• Manufacturing – This had been a global favorite for Private 5G, and it should be not too different for India. While the IoT and Robotics will take some time, 5G is going to be a big enabler to the possibilities of creating a smart manufacturing space. Other use cases like Conditions Based Monitoring (CBM) will make them early adopters.
• Hospitals & Hospitality – Hospitals have a good amount of monitoring devices for patients as well as many pieces of equipment which need to be maintained for critical requirements. Private 5G can prove immensely helpful for such use cases.
• Remote Connectivity – Private 5G will play a big role in providing really good broadband facilities in remote areas. for example, providing very fast internet connections at panchayat levels. It's going to provide good bandwidth and low latency.

5.How do you plan to fulfill this upcoming rapid demand for private 5G?

We're working on the various aspects of the technology to have more products and solutions to provide the complete 5G solution. We are focusing on making our products and solutions more India-centric and also localizing the products so that when there is demand, we will be able to provide end-to-end solutions and products to our customers.

6.How has the cloud been at the core of Telecom's digital transformation and how this sector is leveraging intelligent technologies like Artificial Intelligence, and High-Performance Computing?

5G is surely going to revolutionize telecom; apart from a sea change in the radio side of the technology, it has seen a tremendous change in the underlying technology complementing the scope. A major part of these technologies will benefit from cloud solutions on the edge as well as the core. 5G itself is quite digitized with on-demand scaling, it's getting into new use cases and customer bases. The major source of revenue for Telecom will now come from machine-generated data. For any meaningful analytics and insight, data is the most important component. Hence AI workload will be a much-integrated technologies part of the 5G offering which will need to be tackled at the Edge as well as core and the base of Cloud-based technology with microservices and other technology are just going to make this work.