HFCL earmarks Rs 200 crore as Capex to tap into 5G market: Report

HFCL (formerly Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited) has earmarked Rs 200 crore as Capex for the current fiscal year which will be utilized towards the capacity expansion at its Hyderabad plant, and modernization of Goa and Chennai facilities as it prepares to tap into 5G market worth Rs 1 lakh crore in India and expand fibre capacity, according to a BusinessLine report.

To double down on its fifth-generation or 5G strategy, HFCL is building a portfolio of 5G products including 5G Radio Access Network (RAN) and 5G transport equipment for domestic as well as for foreign markets such as West Asia, South-East Asia, and Europe.

The 5G RAN portfolio will comprise products as Macro Radio Unit (RU), 5G indoor small cell, and 5G outdoor small cell along with 5G transport products such as fronthaul gateway, cell site router, and aggregation routers.

These 5G products will be based on Open RAN standards.

“The country is on the cusp of a 5G revolution, and commercial rollouts are expected next year following spectrum allocation, which is expected by the first quarter of next calendar year. About Rs 1.5-lakh crore is expected to be investment in India for 5G rollout, which includes spectrum charges,” HFCL Promoter and Managing Director Mahendra Nahata told the publication.

As for fibre and fibre optics expansion, Nahata further said that HFCL is planning to increase to fibre capacity by 25%, to 10 million fibre-kilometer per annum (fkm/pa), from the current 8 million fibre-kilometer per annum (fkm/pa) at its Hyderabad plant by the end of this fiscal year.

The company is also ramping up OFC capacity by 22% to 22.5 million fkm/pa by December 2021 from the present 18.5 million fkm/pa.

At the same time, it will increase FTTH production capacity by 20% to 7.2-lakh cable km/pa by September 2021. It works with leading Indian telcos like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel in this space.

The Delhi-based company is also looking to participate in the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom equipment manufacturing.