Indigenous high-tech company Tejas Networks is set to become India’s own Huawei after bagging the deal for Optical Networks expansion from Bharti Airtel.
Tejas Networks on Friday announced that telecom giant Bharti Airtel chose Tejas to expand Airtel’s optical network in key metropolitan cities. In a statement, Airtel said that the tie-up with Tejas networks comes as a part of the 5G roadmap that the telecom giant is planning for India.
With the Indian government also prioritizing government deals, chances are that India will also have an indigenous telecom behemoth like China’s Huawei. Moreover, if the true potential of Tejas is filled, it might also throw out Huawei off its own turf.
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This has created ripples in the market as Tejas, which has already witnessed its share value double over a short period of time, is now raking in bigger investments from all around the country. It mainly deals in optical, broadband and data networking products and also designs develops and sells products to telecommunications service providers, internet service providers, utilities, defence and government entities.
Tejas will supply, install and support its state-of-the-art TJ1600 DWDM/OT products for extending Artel's optical networks towards the edge, supporting 5G backhaul, B2B services, and broadband applications. The enhanced capacity will enable Airtel to deliver a superior experience to its customers as data consumption in India grows rapidly, ANI reported.
Randeep Sekhon, Chief Technology Officer of Bharti Airtel said, "Airtel has been making significant investments in expanding its metro network capacity as part of its 5G readiness and for catering to increased bandwidth consumption by fixed-line and enterprise customers. We are delighted to partner with Tejas in this key network intervention that will enable us to deliver a world-class experience to our customers.”
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In July this year, Tata Group acquired a majority stake in Tejas Networks by buying 43.35% of its shares through preferential issues of equity and warrants for Rs 1,850 crore. This move is being seen as a direct involvement of Tata in the telecom race, which currently is being dominated by Mukesh Ambani owned Jio. Tata Group also said that it will acquire more stake in Tejas and become the majority share owner in the coming months.
“The deal has a lot of synergies for Tata Group,” said Ashwinder Sethi, principal at management consultancy Analysys Mason. “On the one hand, it is looking to develop its own 5G solution and take it to the global markets. It already has the software and SI (software integration) capabilities through TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) and Tejas helps to bring in the hardware capabilities and also leverage the incentives through the PLI (production-linked incentive) scheme.”
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) already has a very strong presence in system integration but on the product side, it was weak given the lack of hardware capabilities.
Tejas Network was found in 2000 and has built many IPs in various areas of Telecom networks. Now it is emerging as a big player in the country, looking to mimic and even defy the success of China’s Huawei.
