India Mobile Congress 2018: Mukesh Ambani says India will be fully 4G country by 2020; 'We are no longer behind any other country' says Sunil Mittal

India Mobile Congress 2018: IMC brought together mobile, internet and technology companies on one platform.

India Mobile Congress 2018: The inaugural session of the second edition of IMC 2018 was held today on Thursday in New Delhi.

India Mobile Congress 2018: The India Mobile Congress is India's premier mobile technology conference. The inaugural session of the second edition of IMC 2018 was held today on Thursday in New Delhi. IMC brings together mobile, internet and technology companies on one platform. The 3-day conference that kicked off today will be conducted till 27 October in the national capital. Major foreign tech giants such as Samsung, Huawei, Qualcomm, Facebook, Nokia, Intel, Ericsson and more are present at the conference. On Day One of IMC 2018, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, Bharti Airtel founder Sunil Mittal, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad; Youngky Kim, President and head of Samsung networks; Kumar Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, were among others who gave keynote speeches. Ravi Shankar Prasad Speaking at the inaugural session of India Mobile Congress 2018, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad highlighted the exponential growth in mobile manufacturing in the country, backed by the rising base of smartphone users and internet penetration. He said, India is in the process of finalising data protection law and supports digitisation without any compromise on data integrity.

"India’s digital story is all about development and empowerment. Right to access in non-negotiable. There needs to be a healthy balance between data sovereignty, data security and data privacy."
~ @rsprasad at #IMC2018#indiamobilecongress pic.twitter.com/j2w5YqIgEN

— IMC 2018 (@exploreIMC) October 25, 2018

The minister futher added by saying that the Indian market represented a large footfall for social media companies like Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter. Stating that Indians have appetite for content in local languages, Prasad said that more and more solutions need to be focused on regional languages. He emphasised that India needs technology that "finds a connect with the common man." Mukesh Ambani RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said that India has an immensely exciting future in terms of telecom due to the prime massive working force the country has. India's entrepreneurs are contributing to India's explosive growth in the mobile sector. Jio is the prime reason for why India is now the country with the highest amount of mobile data usage in the world. Soon India will be having a 100 percent 4G population. "India will be fully 4G country by 2020; every phone will have 4G connectivity," he said. "Today we are living in an India of unprecented hope and promise. We are no longer a poor country. By 2021 only 3 percent will live under the poverty line," Ambani said at IMC 2018.

"Today we are living in an India of unprecented hope and promise. We are no longer a poor country. By 2021 only 3 percent will live under the poverty line." ~ Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited speaking at #IMC2018 pic.twitter.com/11yERt8h5t

— IMC 2018 (@exploreIMC) October 25, 2018

He further said that India has become Number 1 in the mobile data consumption and India will be ready for 5G before the world. "At Jio, we are committed to connecting everyone, everything, everywhere at the highest quality," Ambani said. According to him, the Mobile Industry will be catalyst for India for a bright future. Data is the key resource in the future and Indian are generating large data. "The 4th(digital) revolution can realise the dream of doubling farmers' income. India will become the world 's largest digital market," Ambanu said at the conference. Kumar Mangalam Birla Kumar M. Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group said in address, "We are steadily moving towards achieving the government's digital India dream. Wireless boradband will help industrial application and give new impetus to the digital India program."

"The telecom industry is working to build a strong broadband infrastucture. I'm excited about the possibilities " ~ Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman @AdityaBirlaGrp pic.twitter.com/nGSKeKwMzz

— IMC 2018 (@exploreIMC) October 25, 2018

Sunil Mittal In his address, Bharti Airtel's Sunil Mittal said that the Telecom industry in India has reached the consolidation where one state operator and three private operators are providing service to more than a billion customers. He acknowledged that India is no longer behind any other country in terms of technology adoption and that today we have more than 450 million mobile internet users, and a billion users of mobile phones. "The world is moving towards 2-3 operators in a country. We (India) are in the right industry structure right now. No need of too many operators in a capital-intensive industry," he said.

"Fibre is now a national asset." ~ Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Founder & Chairman of Bharti Enterprises at #IMC2018#FibreIsBeautiful #IndiaMobileCongress @Airtel_Presence pic.twitter.com/peS5FpAPih

— IMC 2018 (@exploreIMC) October 25, 2018

Speaking at the inaugural session of India Mobile Congress 2018, Mittal said the National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP), like the previous telecom policy, clearly acknowledges that revenue maximisation is not the objective. "There is also one overarching objective of previous policy and also enshrined in NDCP that revenue maximisation is not the objective...Then why operators and Department of Telecom are under litigation for revenue maximisation," Mittal said. The industry, he noted, is being taxed "like tobacco industries" and emphasised that the issue needs to be resolved.