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3. Most Telecom Products Fail in India Because of
3. Most Telecom Products Fail in India Because of
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eikomp
1 post
Dec 22, 2025
3:12 AM
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I still remember a conversation from a few years ago with a distributor sitting across a scratched wooden table in a small office near Nehru Place. He had just shipped a container of telecom devices into India. Routers. Access points. Nothing exotic. Products that were already selling smoothly in Southeast Asia and parts of Europe. He looked confident when the shipment left port. By the time it reached Indian customs, that confidence had evaporated.
The reason was not quality. Not pricing. Not even paperwork in the usual sense.
One missing MTCTE certificate.
That single absence quietly turned months of planning into weeks of delays and finally into financial loss.
This story is not rare. It repeats itself more often than most people in the telecom supply chain want to admit.
Most telecom products do not fail in India because they are bad products. They fail because the companies behind them misunderstand one gatekeeper that India takes very seriously. MTCTE certification.
Let us talk about why this happens.
India has one of the largest telecom markets in the world. Over a billion connections. Rural expansion still ongoing. Aggressive rollout of fiber. Private networks. 5G densification. On paper, it looks like opportunity everywhere. But India is also a country that learned hard lessons from years of unregulated imports. Substandard equipment. Security concerns. Network instability. Compatibility issues that only show up at scale.
MTCTE exists because of those lessons.
MTCTE stands for Mandatory Testing and Certification of Telecom Equipment. It is governed by TEC under the Department of Telecommunications. The name sounds bureaucratic. The impact is very real.
Any telecom product that connects directly or indirectly to a public network must comply. That includes routers. switches. modems. base stations. customer premises equipment. IoT gateways. Even certain smart devices that manufacturers assume are harmless.
This is where the first mistake happens.
Many companies assume MTCTE applies only to big infrastructure gear. Core network equipment. Towers. Radios. They look at their compact device and think it will slide through unnoticed.
It does not.
Indian customs has become increasingly aligned with TEC databases. If a product category is notified under MTCTE and there is no valid certificate attached to that model. The shipment gets flagged. Sometimes immediately. Sometimes after a few days when documentation is reviewed more carefully.
At that point. Arguments do not help.
I have seen engineers try to explain technical equivalence. Sales heads try to argue market urgency. None of that matters. MTCTE is not a recommendation. It is a mandate.
Another reason products fail is timing. MTCTE certification is not something that can be rushed at the last minute. Testing is conducted in TEC designated laboratories. Parameters include safety. EMI and EMC. protocol compliance. environmental performance. Depending on the product. testing alone can take weeks. Sometimes longer if there are non conformities.
Yet companies often apply only after manufacturing is complete. Or worse. after the shipment is already on the water.
That is like applying for a visa after boarding the plane.
Then there is the assumption that international certificates will be enough. CE. FCC. CB reports. These are respected globally. They are useful. But MTCTE does not automatically accept them as substitutes. Some test data may be reused. But the certification itself must be issued under Indian rules.
This surprises many experienced global manufacturers. They have done everything right in other markets. Still India says no.
India is not trying to be difficult. It is trying to be specific.
Security is another layer that people underestimate. Telecom networks are considered critical infrastructure. India has tightened scrutiny around network entry points. Firmware behavior. remote access capabilities. undocumented radio features. MTCTE testing helps surface issues that paper compliance often misses.
When a product fails here. It often fails silently. No press release. No public announcement. Just stalled inventory. Warehousing costs. Missed launch windows. Strained distributor relationships.
By the time senior leadership notices. the damage is already done.
There is also a human cost that never shows up in spreadsheets. Teams who worked nights to meet production deadlines. Local partners who promised delivery dates to customers. Engineers who have to answer uncomfortable questions they never expected.
All because MTCTE was treated as an afterthought.
What experienced players do differently is simple. They treat MTCTE as part of product design. Not as a regulatory checkbox. They study notified product lists early. They align hardware and firmware with Indian requirements from the prototype stage. They budget time for testing and retesting. They respect the process even when it feels slow.
Those companies rarely talk about MTCTE publicly. But they quietly succeed in India while others keep wondering why their excellent product never gained traction here.
India rewards preparation. It punishes assumptions.
If there is one hard truth that the telecom industry keeps relearning in this market. It is this.
A missing MTCTE certificate does not just delay a product. It can quietly end its India story before it even begins.
And the most painful part is that this failure has nothing to do with innovation. Performance. Or ambition.
It fails at the gate. Long before users ever get a chance to decide whether the product deserved to succeed.
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FQ
2543 posts
Dec 22, 2025
3:20 AM
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