Tejas Networks and Qualcomm have jointly demonstrated 6G Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) technology at India Mobile Congress 2026, marking one of the first public showings of the technique by an Indian vendor alongside a major silicon supplier.

ISAC is a candidate foundation technology for 6G. It folds radar-style sensing into the radio access network itself, so a base station does not only carry traffic but also detects and tracks objects — vehicles, drones, people — using the same spectrum and antennas. Demonstrations of this kind at large industry events typically show controlled over-the-air or lab setups rather than commercial deployments, and the partners have not announced operator trials or product timelines.

Why pair an Indian vendor with Qualcomm?

Tejas Networks, the Tata Group-owned telecom equipment maker, supplies optical and wireless gear to Indian carriers including state-run BSNL, and has been positioning itself as a domestic alternative to the European and Chinese vendors that dominate RAN globally. Qualcomm brings the modem and RF chippery that any practical ISAC implementation would need at the device edge.

A joint demonstration signals intent on both sides: Tejas gets access to cutting-edge radio research as it looks beyond 4G and 5G RAN, while Qualcomm secures an early anchor in India's 6G standardisation push, a market where the government has made indigenous telecom technology a policy priority.

What does ISAC actually promise?

The technical appeal is straightforward. Mobile networks already deploy dense grids of radio sites. If those sites can sense their surroundings as well as transmit, operators could in theory offer services from traffic monitoring and drone detection to industrial safety without building separate sensor networks.

That promise remains largely on paper. 6G standards work in 3GPP has yet to begin in earnest — the first 6G study releases are expected in the 2028–2030 window — and ISAC is one of several competing research tracks alongside AI-native air interfaces, new spectrum approaches above 100 GHz, and extreme low-latency designs. No commercial 6G deployments are expected before the early 2030s.

The India Mobile Congress showing therefore belongs to the pre-standards demonstration phase, where vendors test candidate technologies and lobby for their inclusion in eventual specifications.

The Indian context

India's government has tied its 6G ambitions to the Bharat 6G Vision, a policy roadmap that targets 6G leadership within the decade and funds domestic research through bodies such as the Telecom Standards Development Society, India. A home-grown equipment maker demonstrating candidate 6G technology on a national stage fits that agenda directly, and follows India's earlier push to develop homegrown 5G non-standalone and 4G stacks for BSNL.

For Tejas, the demonstration extends a record of pairing with global technology partners rather than building every layer alone. For Qualcomm, it keeps the company visible in a market where it already supplies chips for the bulk of 4G and 5G smartphones.

Commercial reality check

Neither company has disclosed commercial terms, trial commitments from operators, or performance figures from the demonstration. Event demonstrations of pre-standard technology serve primarily to establish vendor positioning ahead of standardisation — a pattern familiar from the 5G demo cycle of 2016–2018, when similar showcase events preceded the first 3GPP 5G NR releases by roughly two years.

The demonstration at India Mobile Congress 2026 places Tejas Networks and Qualcomm among the early movers in ISAC, but the technology's commercial fate will be decided in standards bodies and operator labs over the next several years, with the first 6G specifications and deployments not expected before the end of the decade.