Government to set up four new telecom centres of excellence

Mumbai: The government has signed a clutch of memoranda of understanding (MoUs) for setting up centres of excellence in communication technology.

While the government has already signed MoUs for setting up two centres of excellence in October 2007, it signed fresh MoUs linking IIT Delhi with Airtel, IIT Kanpur with BSNL, IIT Mumbai with Tata Teleservices and IISc Bangalore with Aircel for setting up four more telecom centres of excellence.

A Raja, minister of communications and information technology said that while all the leading communication technologies in the world had been adopted, an Indian face of technologies such as e-commerce, tele working, e-governance, e-health and e-education, etc, that affect day-to-day life of common man, were also neede.

To be a world leader and to reach masses we have to use state of the art technology especially in the wireless domain, the minister said at afunction for signing the MoUs for centres of excellence at the `India Telecom 2007- Digital Divide to Digital Oportunities’ conference is being organised jointly by the department of telecommunications and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

This is a must to enable embracing of technologies by the masses. This will also bridge the digital divide and will lead to harnessing of full potential of our telecom growth. While the growth of telecom sector is very satisfactory, it is essential to foster development of telecom R&D facilities in India, he said.

We, as a country, have special requirements especially for rural and remote areas and indigenous R&D would be able to address those requirements effectively, Raja added.

Raja said the concept of cluster of centres of excellence across the country is a timely move for inculcating the best practices, nurturing innovations and acting as incubator for R&D efforts. This is one of the most important public-private partnership initiatives in the Indian telecom sector, he said.

The India Telecom 2007 exhibition-cum-conference aims to discuss new growth drivers that are revolutionising the telecom sector in India and around the world and assess challenges and opportunities associated with new technologies and growth frontiers. It would also focus on showcasing the huge potential that India holds in the telecom sector for inviting investments in telecom equipment manufacturing.

The conference will bring together operators, equipment manufacturers and experts representing top institutions, cutting edge technology companies and major investors along with existing and upcoming communications infrastructure companies for interaction with the high-level policy makers. The India Telecom series of exhibition will be held every year.