What IMC 2025 Revealed About the State of Telecom

IMC 2025 lived up to its reputation as India's most anticipated communication event in India attracting big industry players—Intel,Qualcomm,Mediatek,Ericsson,Nokia along with research institutions and startups.

All the 7 layers of the networking stack from the PHY to APPLICATION were well represented by various organisations. 

Mobile operators serve as the face of the network but we often forget that they are powered by a long list of manufacturers and service providers. IMC gave them a platform to showcase their products and directly engage with customers. 

5G is already here and very predictably there were talks around whether it has delivered on the promises it made.

Speakers shared their thoughts and while the general consensus was that 5G did bring about somewhat faster speeds and a bit of lower latency the massive promises that it made especially around remote healthcare AR,VR and smart cities have all been forgotten. 

mmwave is no where to be seen or even heard of. It's quietly disappeared. 

5G now just another G network with a little more speed that is already being targeted for a phase out as action is being taken to build the next generation of communication platform — 6G. 

Every time a new generation of communication protocol bursts on the scene it involves a complete teardown of existing deployments of base stations and throwaway of handsets to create a way for new communication technology. This has been happening decade after decade for the last 5 generations and after 5 generations of telecom networks it's probably time to rethink how we design our communication systems. 

Cell towers are civil construction projects. Base stations are highly energy intensive and require significant cooling to operate reliably. Small cell networks powered by wifi could provide and answer. Can they successfully transition to providing outdoor connectivity? Some experiments have been promising but there has never been a dedicated push towards it. 

The Telecom infrastructure project is trying to build more distributed networks and has managed to survive for a decade now. But can it create a real world impact? 

The Google fi project has been highly successful in enabling low cost connectivity but it has not really displaced the G networks. There have been other players like fon that did achieve international success but ultimately could not breakthrough the highly competitive networking market. 

Maintaining networks is tough. Unless an organisation has huge manpower it's downright impossible to build wireless infrastructure. Therefore the market is dominated by a handful of players not just in manufacturing critical components but also maintaining networks. 

India aspires to manufacture telecom equipment. At the assembly level that is straightforward. In a very simplistic sense base stations are just PC's with a network card. Antennas are within reach too. India already manufactures fiber optic cables —the real challenge would be to build chips. Semicon India addressed that but fab building could take a lot of time. 

The technical challenges facing the industry terahertz gap is real. Can frequency generators be built that can effectively capture this band? Fiber optic cables are very effective and really cheap to make, do we even need to innovate here?

Space based communication is coming up as an alternative to terrestrial networks but can it provide stable infrastructure that can last decades?

Spectrum sales are a pure money grab operation. It needs to change at the policy level. 

But more generally. Is this the only way to do things though? What about new discoveries? The electronic and communication industry is now mature. Breakthrough innovations are not happening at a pace that they once were. Moore's law can't be expected to continue to provide economic gains. 

Researchers still have a role to play in designing a new class of electronics. Industry spending will always be biased and focussed on backing tech that improves the bottom line. But real innovation does not merely change. It transforms. History is full of examples when a new process or a tech arrives and changes the way things are done.

Nobel Prize winner Herbert Kroemer reflected deeply on this tension between exploration and pursuing business objectives and quoted David Mermin who captured the sentiment really well

"I'm awaiting the day when people remember the fact that discovery does not work by deciding what you want and then discovering it"

I was really happy to see participation of African companies in the IMC.Africa needs to work closely with international partners to enable rapid interconnection and unification of the continent. Communication networks connect us all but there are still a lot of people who remain unconnected especially in rural areas where it doesn't make business sense to install a network. 

The "internet for all" movement that seeks to provide equitable access to the internet to everyone is a praiseworthy initiative. But to make that a reality we must look beyond G networks and embrace other forms of communication. FTTH can be economical,if electricity can reach every home so can fiber. Wifi can provide cheap wireless connectivity. 

The internet has changed the way we communicate,learn and trade. Now the challenge is to ensure that everyone can participate in it. Freely.

Akshat Jiwan Sharma

Strategy Consultant--Innovation/ Materials science/International relations/Telecommunications/Digital Transformation/Partnerships 

Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771 email:[email protected]