NEW DELHI, October 12 — The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Ministry of Communications, on Monday operationalized state-of-the-art terahertz (THz) wireless testing beds across five premier research institutions—IIT Madras, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur, and IISc Bengaluru—marking a pivotal leap in executing the 'Bharat 6G Vision'.
According to telecom officials, the government sanctioned a dedicated R&D grant of ₹240 crore under the Bharat 6G Alliance (B6GA) to accelerate indigenous standard-essential patents (SEPs). The multi-institutional testbeds will focus on sub-terahertz radio transceivers spanning 100 GHz to 300 GHz frequencies, reconfigurable intelligent reflecting surfaces (IRS), integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), and quantum-safe physical layer security architectures.
The strategic imperative behind the B6GA testbeds is securing at least 10 percent of globally recognized 6G patents under the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) 'IMT-2030' technical framework. The infrastructure will demonstrate sub-millisecond latencies (under 0.1 milliseconds) and wireless peak throughputs reaching 1 Terabit per second (Tbps), laying foundational technological groundwork for holographic telepresence, industrial cobotics, and ubiquitous edge computing.
The Bharat 6G Vision Document (unveiled in 2023), architectural evolutions between 5G Standalone and 6G networks, terahertz atmospheric propagation physics, Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) under FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory) licensing, and the statutory role of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU, Geneva) are core subjects across UPSC Civil Services (GS-III: Science & Technology) and telecom recruitment examinations.