India’s Bharat 6G vision, if aligned with global telecom and maritime standards, can be a game-changer in enabling autonomous, connected ships and securing India’s leadership in the oceanic digital future
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This article is part of the essay series: Sagarmanthan Edit 2025
Telecommunications networks are integral to modern maritime operations, aiding safety, security, sustainability and efficiency. In deep oceans, connectivity for ships has been made possible through satellite-based telecommunications operating in the Ka-, Ku-, C-, L-, S-, and X-bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, some of these bands are limited in terms of data transmissions, some are expensive, while some are susceptible to the environment, particularly to rainy weather conditions and cloud cover. Independent of the highly comprehensive Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 and the Maritime India Vision 2030, India’s newly energised shipping ambitions are yet to coalesce several non-shipping yet significant technologies that would help the vision’s broader lattice. One such is the use of sixth-generation and further (6G+) satellite communication technologies that would, for the first time, aid autonomous shipping. This convergence would be a significant development as inexpensive, low-latency, data-dense and seamless telecom connectivity offered over blue oceans by 6G+ satellites would ensure that ships have the full suite of sensors and devices, aiding ships with onboard intelligence and networks to operate without mariners’ intervention.
6G telecom technology is currently in advanced stages of standardisation, development and deployment. In 2023, the main organisation for commercial mobile network standards, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), started developing standards for 6G wireless technology.
One major undercurrent of the continuing reforms absorbed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is the greater integration of new and emerging technology in the maritime regulatory framework - an effort that the IMO calls its Strategic Directions (SD). Green shipping initiatives are in line with IMO’s SD 3 aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. Similarly, with SD 5, IMO intends to enhance global facilitation, resilience of supply chains and the security of global trade. The strategic directions, SD 2, 5, and 6, are geared towards regulatory and operational effectiveness of international shipping by integrating new and emerging technologies. With respect to autonomous ships, the fundamental technological element to achieve these three strategic directions for the IMO is telecommunications and 6G+ acquires a greater role in IMO’s SDs.
6G telecom technology is currently in advanced stages of standardisation, development and deployment. In 2023, the main organisation for commercial mobile network standards, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), started developing standards for 6G wireless technology. At the same time, on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) level, the ITU Radio Communication Sector has started developing the IMT-2030 standard for 6G networks, services, and devices. Just as 3GPP and ITU worked in parallel on 4G and IMT-Advanced, as well as 5G and IMT-2020, respectively, they are now working together on 6G. What primarily matters for the development of technologies and sensors aiding autonomous ships is the ITU-led IMT 2030 standards.
In November 2023, the IMT 2030 Framework came up with an important recommendation to introduce three enhanced usage scenarios of 6G, superior to existing 5G standards, which include ubiquitous connectivity, integrated sensing and communication, as well as AI and communication. Around the same time, the International Organisation for Marine Aids to Navigation (IALA) had peculiarly pointed to IMT 2030 to create a user requirement specifically directed towards the maritime industry’s marine aid-to-navigation, by making necessary augmentation to the under-construction 3GPP’s 6G standard. This new use case triggered an unprecedented collaboration between the IMO, the ITU and the 3GPP.
In March 2023, India released its Bharat 6G Vision Statement, where India’s contribution to global 6G standards setting is through technologies that provide “ubiquitous, intelligent and secure connectivity”. The Telecom Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI), has already done wonders with its launch of the indigenously developed 5Gi, which has now been merged into the global 5G standard, and has also enhanced rural connectivity.
The single-window reporting and similar digital maritime services, the vessel traffic management services, the positioning, navigating, timing services, unmanned autonomous marine vehicles, and the maritime buoys systems are the main technology platforms the new 6G-based aid-to-navigation would be fitted with. As a result, the IMO’s regulations, which were independent of telecom standards earlier, would now find important mention in IMT 2030 Standardisation, which is now known as 3GPP’s ambition for ‘Connected Oceans’. One of the great upgrades of the 6G is its ability to provide space-air-ground integrated (SAGIN) networks, which are central to connectivity over vast regions of the earth where terrestrial telecom networks have never reached. Add to that the enormous ability of 6G to connect Things, which are vehicles, sensors and machines. This is how the notional autonomous ships - connected ships - would be realised as soon as 6G is rolled out by 2030 or even earlier.
In March 2023, India released its Bharat 6G Vision Statement, where India’s contribution to global 6G standards setting is through technologies that provide “ubiquitous, intelligent and secure connectivity”. The Telecom Standards Development Society of India (TSDSI), has already done wonders with its launch of the indigenously developed 5Gi, which has now been merged into the global 5G standard, and has also enhanced rural connectivity. Today, India is the world’s densest large economy with 5G networks, owing to the rapid and strong forays made in telecom standardisation in the country.
Similarly, if ITU’s ‘Connected Oceans’ and Bharat’s 6G Vision are to be achieved, the TSDSI and Bharat 6G Alliance (the multistakeholder platform) should further converge their IMT-2030 related efforts towards ubiquitous, intelligent and secure connectivity over oceans. India’s 6G must go oceanic. If India is entering the ship-building arena, let it be in the domain of connected ships. A low-hanging industrial potential for India would be to become a part of the manufacturing of connected buoys and other 6G aid-to-navigation technologies, which are essential for autonomous navigation. India’s 6G+ telecom standard-setting efforts need to be integrated with the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047. This would be a cohesive win-win for the space, digital, and blue-economy ambitions of India.
Chaitanya Giri is a Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology, Observer Research Foundation.
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Dr. Chaitanya Giri is a Fellow at ORF’s Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology. His work focuses on India’s space ecosystem and its interlinkages with ...
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