India’s DoT outlines new policy to boost telecoms coverage

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Investment; 28 July 2025; 8319 views

India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has set up ambitious targets to achieve 100% population coverage with 4G and 90% coverage with 5G, according to a draft of the country’s National Telecom Policy 2025, now being circulated for public consultation.

Comments, suggestions, and feedback from stakeholders and the general public are being requested within 21 days from 23 July.

According to the Indian Express news service, the policy outlines ten strategic objectives to be achieved by 2030, including a plan to double the export of telecom products and services and to double the number of telecommunications startups in the country.

The policy strongly emphasises rural connectivity including increasing the fiberisation of telecom towers from the current 46% to 80%, ensuring 100% fiberisation of all Gram Panchayats – local self government bodies at village level – under BharatNet, a project aimed at providing broadband connectivity to Gram Panchayats, with uptime exceeding 98%. The aim is also to enable fibre connectivity to all government institutions at the village level and beyond.

Schemes are being proposed to expand mobile networks in underserved rural, remote and urban areas, as are incentive programmes aiming to boost the adoption of fixed-line broadband. Another aim is to integrate telecom infrastructure into the disaster recovery protocols of the country’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Quality of service (QoS) standards are to be harmonised with international benchmarks for both indoor and outdoor environments; there will also be greater transparency regarding telecom coverage and signal strength.

The most ambitious part of the policy, perhaps, may be a vision to establish India as one of the top ten global hubs for innovation and research in emerging technologies, targeting a 10% global share in 6G-related intellectual property rights, massive boosts to both domestic telecom manufacturing output and import substitution of telecom products, and the establishment of a dedicated Telecom Manufacturing Zone (TMZ) in the country.

Industry will no doubt welcome plans to reduce the compliance burden on both retail and enterprise telecom businesses and to halve the time required for granting authorisations and assigning spectrum. Spectrum will also be made available with minimal compliance burdens to support research and development.

Overall the policy also aims to double the telecom sector’s contribution to India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and attract an annual investment equivalent to approximately US$11.5 billion.

Except that the policy is a long way from becoming law just yet. We can expect to find out how much support these proposals have some time in mid-August.