Best Place To Build

How IIT Professors created India's own 5G Tech | Prof. Radha Krishna Ganti, EE, IITM on BP2B S2 Ep.6

In this episode of The Best Place to Build Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Radha Krishna Ganti, Professor of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras and Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardee, to uncover the untold story behind India’s first 5G phone call using indigenous technology. From building base stations from scratch to powering India's digital future, this episode reveals how IIT professors, students, and researchers laid the foundation for India’s 5G revolution. And what comes next with 6G research? ✨ What you’ll learn in this episode: • The inside story of India’s first 5G call with homegrown tech • Why 5G networks, GSM architecture & wireless communication are critical for India’s digital growth • How Electrical Engineering, Electronics & Communication (EE, EEE, ECE) at IIT Madras drives telecom breakthroughs. Plus what’’s the difference between all 3 branches? • What’s beyond 5G—the roadmap to 6G innovation 🔔 Subscribe to the channel for more conversations with builders, professors, and entrepreneurs shaping India’s future! And if you’re looking for a specific part, jump to it from the directory here: 0:00 Introduction 0:40 Welcome to The Best Place to Build 1:15 Meet Dr. Radhakrishna Ganti: IIT Professor & Bhatnagar Awardee 2:45 How Does Wireless Communication Work? 5:20 What exactly is 5G & Why It Matters for India’s Digital Future 7:05 From GSM to 5G: The Evolution of Wireless Networks 9:00 Building Indigenous 5G Technology from Scratch 12:10 The Nerve-Wracking Moment of the First 5G Call 13:40 Challenges in Scaling 5G Networks Across India 14:20 4G v/s 5G v/s 6G 18:50 Use-Cases of 5G 20:00 Verticals of 5G Technology 21:05 Who defines a country’s 5G needs? 25:05 The Story Behind BSNL’s 4G Deployment 29:05 Why Should Youngsters Be Motivated to Join EE? 32:08 Why Do People Say Electrical Engineering is Hard? 34:35 Professor Bhaskar’s (Ex-Director of IIT Madras) Legacy in Wireless Communication in India 36:00 GSM to 2G to 5G 40:10 Professor Ganti’s Insti Story 42:55 The Shift From a Theoretical to a Practical View of Systems Studies 46:10 Is IIT Madras Too Obsessed With Theoretical Learning? 47:00 What is The Difference Between EE, EEE & ECE? 51:00 How is AI/ML Affecting the World of Electrical Engineering? 52:40 Closing Thoughts & Reflections #bestplacetobuild #iitmadras #electrical #5g #techpodcast #makeinindia

RGDr. Radha Krishna GantiguestUHUnknown Hosthost

Aug 29, 2025·54m·Watch on YouTube ↗

📖 CHAPTERS

1. 1

   Why IIT Madras is “the best place to build” + setting up the conversation

   The host frames the podcast’s theme—builders at IIT Madras—and introduces the episode’s focus on wireless communication and indigenous 5G. The conversation sets expectations: understanding fundamentals first, then moving into India’s 5G testbed story and what it takes to build real systems.

2. 2

   Meet Prof. Radhakrishna Ganti: wireless researcher and Bhatnagar awardee

   Prof. Ganti discusses winning the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, including the delayed announcement and surprise factor. The host positions his work in the broader IIT Madras communications lineage and India’s telecom ambitions.

3. 3

   Wireless communication basics: what it is and why it’s hard

   A clear primer on wireless: sending data reliably without wires amid noise, interference, and fast-changing channels. Prof. Ganti uses everyday analogies—parties, stadiums, trains—to explain why reliability and capacity are difficult at scale.

4. 4

   What 5G actually consists of: base stations, radios, and the core network

   Prof. Ganti breaks 5G into two big parts: the phone/device side and the network side. He details how base stations convert RF signals into digital packets and how the core network aggregates massive traffic, emphasizing the engineering complexity and global concentration of vendors.

5. 5

   Building indigenous 5G: the multi-institute testbed vision

   India’s lack of homegrown vendors motivates an ambitious academic consortium effort. Eight institutions split responsibilities, with IIT Madras leading radio development and final integration, aiming to recreate a deeply patented, end-to-end stack.

6. 6

   From “testbed” to near-product: TRL jump and real deployments

   Originally scoped as a lab-scale test platform, the project evolves toward something close to field-ready. The team adopts industry interfaces and practices, engages in customer discovery, and ends with deployable base stations and core—used on campus and by startups.

7. 7

   India’s first 5G call: the high-stakes demo moment

   Prof. Ganti recounts the first 5G phone call in India made on the homegrown setup during a ministerial visit. The event becomes tense due to crowding and signal blockage, requiring quick engineering judgment (raising transmit power) to complete the demo.

8. 8

   Why commercial rollout is hard: scaling, TRL limits, and industry handoff

   Despite technical success, production-grade nationwide deployments require companies to take the technology further with major capital and engineering investment. Prof. Ganti contrasts academic capability with productization needs and notes Indian entities beginning to bridge the gap.

9. 9

   4G vs 5G vs 6G: what “G” means and who sets the rules

   The episode explains “G” as a decade-scale generational cycle and introduces ITU’s role in spectrum harmonization and performance definitions. 5G is not a marketing label but a set of KPI targets around speed, latency, device density, and mobility.

10. 10

    5G use-cases and verticals: eMBB, massive IoT, and ultra-reliable low-latency

    Prof. Ganti maps 5G capabilities to distinct verticals: enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine-type communications, and ultra-reliable low-latency links. The conversation connects these to India-relevant examples like smart meters and industrial/factory reliability needs.

11. 11

    How countries shape global standards: India’s push for rural coverage (LMLC)

    The discussion turns to standardization politics: countries propose requirements and negotiate what becomes part of the global spec. Prof. Ganti describes India’s effort to insert “low mobility, large cell” coverage into ITU requirements to suit rural economics and geography.

12. 12

    BSNL’s 4G story: security, geopolitics, and building an Indian consortium stack

    Prof. Ganti explains why BSNL’s 4G rollout lagged and how a geopolitical inflection pushed a “homegrown only” mandate. The result is a consortium approach where multiple Indian entities jointly deliver radios and core infrastructure for a national deployment.

13. 13

    Why choose Electrical Engineering: the “information” discipline behind the digital world

    The episode pivots to careers, arguing EE is foundational to the information economy—communication, signal processing, storage, and computation. Prof. Ganti positions EE as the mathematical and conceptual base beneath modern AI/ML and digital systems.

14. 14

    Is EE “hard” and is IITM too theoretical? Bridging math to systems-building

    Prof. Ganti reframes EE difficulty as rigorous training rather than gatekeeping. He describes his own shift from theory-heavy learning to practical systems work (software-defined radio), arguing that tinkering and systems constraints deepen theoretical insight—and that IITM builds extensively today.

15. 15

    EE vs EEE vs ECE + interdisciplinarity + AI/ML in wireless (Shannon limits)

    The closing segment clarifies degree labels across institutions, emphasizing IITs’ broader EE umbrella and the inherently interdisciplinary nature of telecom hardware. It ends with how AI/ML is influencing wireless—useful as a tool but constrained by information-theoretic limits—followed by final reflections.