The government has formed a technology innovation group on sixth generation (6G) standards for mobile networks to take the lead in the development of the next-generation technology globally.

The group, formed by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), will be headed by Telecom Secretary K Rajaraman.

The forum aims to create vision and objectives as well as develop a roadmap for research and development (R&D), pre-standardisation, development of applications and products, and action plans for 6G technology, reports Economic Times.

“India should endeavour to take a lead in 6G space. This will require a collaborative effort from the government, industry and the telecom service providers, academic and research institutions to identify the area of work and build synergy to innovate, create Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), standardise, contribute to global standards, create regulations, run pilots, and manufacture, test and supply at a global scale,” said the DoT’s memorandum dated 1 November.

According to the report, the 22-member group includes additional secretary Anita Praveen, member (Technology) Ashok Kumar Tiwari, member (Services) Deepak Chaturvedi, executive director Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) Rajkumar Upadhyay.

The group also has directors of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) in Delhi, Chennai, Kanpur, Mumbai, Hyderabad as its members. Further, the group members include director of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, as well as industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) chairman Ajai Puri who is also the chief operating officer (India and South Asia) of Bharti Airtel.

It should be noted that the move by the DoT comes as India is already trailing developing nations in auctioning and deployment of 5G tech.

The government is set to auction 5G spectrum sometime next year, with the commercial deployments of the technology likely to be six months after the sale.