India Mobile Congress: Telecom gear makers to invest Rs 40 bn, says govt

Telecom gear makers have committed to investing more than Rs 40 billion at the India Mobile Congress, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said Saturday.

"We were expecting an investment of Rs 2,000 crore but companies have committed an investment of over Rs 4,000 crore during our discussions at the India Mobile Congress," Sinha told reporters here.

The minister said major investment commitments have come from Ericsson, Samsung, Sterlite Tech, Cisco, Nokia and Intel.

"The National Digital Communications Policy has just been announced and these are the first set of investments flowing in," Sinha said.

He said discussions and announcements at the IMC show India is ready for the emerging 5G services. The 5G technology would facilitate machine-to-machine communications and has multiple usages.

"The investments will be made over a period of next one-two years," Telecom Secretary Aruna Sundararajan said.