India's digital economy places unusual demands on communications networks. Operators serve a population of 1.4 billion while keeping connectivity affordable as data use continues to rise. For Vodafone Idea, scale goes beyond adding capacity. Each investment has to balance reach, performance and cost across a network that supports more of daily life each year.
Banking, commerce, digital services and India's UPI payment system rely on dependable network access, linking network resilience directly to economic activity. Infrastructure also needs room to grow without becoming harder or more expensive to manage. Scalable, upgradable architecture helps operators respond to changing traffic patterns and introduce new technologies while maintaining reliable service. Jagbir Singh describes Cisco as a strategic partner in planning, design and deployment, helping Vodafone Idea build secure, programmable networks that serve today’s needs and remain ready for tomorrow.
AI adds new opportunities as well as concerns around governance, data leakage and security. A resilient, cost-conscious network gives operators the flexibility to adopt those capabilities without losing sight of affordability. This approach creates a more adaptable foundation for future services and AI-driven innovation while keeping India's digital expansion on a sustainable path.
Narrator:
India's digital transformation has happened at scale. With more than a billion people and enormous demand for data, it's a market where connectivity has had to stay affordable enough to reach almost everyone. And that's the challenge for India's service providers: how do you achieve huge reach without huge cost?
Jagbir Singh:
The tariff in India is the lowest in the world. Even the smallest country will be more expensive than India. So always the focus has been how do we ensure that we are able to serve the masses 1.4 billion population at the lowest costs can be afforded by the Indians? And today, if you see maybe 10 years back, we used to be like 150th rating in terms of the internet access for our consumers in India. Today we would have been maybe top 10 or top 15. But at the same time, the data consumption per customer or per subscriber per month, the highest in the world. The ARPU would be maximum $2.50, $3, which is like one 10th of the US ARPU.
Narrator:
That mix of high traffic, low revenue per subscriber, and relentless growth has shaped how Indian networks are built. Each generation has made them bigger, denser, and more complex.
Jagbir Singh:
I've been CTO in the industry for 25 years. We started from '93, '94 in India when the telecom was privatized and we moved to 4G in 2011 and '12. And that was the time when I joined Gio, 250,000 plus pay station physical towers in four years. Scale, innovations, taking risk, giving the services at the very low cost, making affordable to the masses. Everyone in India should be able to get the access of the internet. That was the objective.
Narrator:
Today, connectivity is more than just voice traffic. It's part of the infrastructure of everyday life: banking, payments, commerce, digital services, and those services increasingly assume the network is just there.
UPI is India's digital payment system. It's how people pay for everything from a cup of tea to a month's rent, and it handles more than 20 billion transactions a month.
Jagbir Singh:
Providing access to the digital services to our consumers. That's very important for the development of the country where basically you do the online transfer, small amount from 510 rupees, which is like in terms of cents, maybe like a one cent or two cent. Everybody accept the UPI. Now, if you don't have the connectivity, the UPI will not work.
Narrator:
That dependency raises the bar for operators, which is why long-term partnerships matter. For Vodafone Idea, Cisco has been part of that journey for more than a decade.
Jagbir Singh:
Cisco I think is our strategy partner. So we are working for Cisco, at least personally I'm working for more than 20 years, but in my current company, Vodafone Idea, we are working with Cisco for maybe 10 years plus.
Narrator:
The challenge isn't just to deploy today's network, it's to build an architecture that can adapt to tomorrow's demand.
Jagbir Singh:
Whatever plan, design, deployment we do today, we want to ensure it's future protected, and we are able to serve the need of today and we'll be able to serve the need of tomorrow.
Narrator:
And tomorrow is already bringing another change.
Jagbir Singh:
After the AI coming in, I think it is becoming something which is not fully known to everyone, and everybody's trying to find out how to control the whole ecosystem, how to find the best use of the AI, which is helping the consumer; at the same time, having the affordable cost; at the same time, having the control over the AI so the data leakage or the security compromises are neither happening for the consumer nor for the enterprise nor for the country.
Narrator:
That makes the network even more important. Operators need infrastructure that can expand whilst remaining manageable, and security that evolves with the threats it faces.
Jagbir Singh:
Ensuring the security is one of the hardest part lately, and ensuring that networks are scalable, upgradable and at the same time able to control the cost.
Narrator:
Those requirements are at the heart of Cisco's work with India's service providers: networks that scale efficiently, evolve with technology, and stay resilient as more of the digital economy depends on them.