5G needs more fiberisation, telcos need to invest more: Finolex

Pune: Telecom companies need to invest more to fiberise more of their network for a large and meaningful rollout of 5G telephony in India, currently only at around a third overall, with the company also planning an expansion in its non-cables business, said Deepak Chhabria, executive chairman of the city-based cables and appliances maker Finolex Cables.

“Earlier, we used to have a lot of business in the optical fibre cable (OFC) space with the government, but most of it now is with the top two private players in India, and we have also entered the EPC business in the supply and laying of OFCs. We have a current fibre cabling capacity of around 8 million kilometres. In 5G telephony, cell towers need to be more close to each other, and the telecom companies need to invest more in towers, as well as fiberising the towers, as there will be more applications, such as telemedicine or autonomous driving, that will run only on 5G. Only around 35% of the towers are fiberised in India now,” Chhabria said, in an interaction with TOI.