In a significant step towards developing indigenous technology, the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a premier telecom R&D centre of the Department of Telecommunications signed an agreement with IIT Roorkee and IIT Mandi for the development of ‘Cell-Free’ 6G access points.
Both the IITs are collaborating to develop this technology.
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The agreement is signed under the Telecom Technology Development Fund (TTDF) scheme of the DoT, which has been designed for providing funding support to domestic companies, Indian startups, academia and R&D institutions involved in technology design, development, commercialisation of telecommunication products and solutions.
This scheme aims to enable affordable broadband and mobile services, playing a significant role in bridging the digital divide across India.
Traditional mobile networks use cellular topologies in which each cell is serviced by a single base station like 4G/5G to service mobile customers. ‘Cell-Free’ Massive MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) eliminates the idea of cells and cell boundaries by deploying several access points (APs) across a vast region to serve many user devices at the same time.
A large number of APs are dedicated to each user within their coverage area, meaning a single user may be supported by many Aps. This ensures ubiquitous connectivity to the users, eliminates dead zones, enhances signal strength, and significantly boosts data speeds, offering an exceptional user experience even in densely populated areas.
This 6G project will focus on developing APs for enabling the upcoming 6G radio access networks and also aims to contribute to the 6G standardization activity, drive commercialization, generate intellectual property rights (IPRs), and develop a skilled workforce to support the emerging 6G landscape.
