At IMC 2025, Niloy from The Volt Post interviewed Monojit Samaddar, Country Director of VIAVI India. Monojit highlighted VIAVI’s key innovations showcased at the event, including advanced MU-MIMO and O-RAN testing, 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks, and AI-powered network assurance. He emphasized the importance of IMC 2025 as a platform to demonstrate how VIAVI India supports flexible, secure, and high-speed network infrastructures with cutting-edge solutions, driving next-generation telecom advancements across India and beyond.
Monojit Samaddar also highlights how VIAVI empowers network operators, equipment manufacturers, enterprises, government, aerospace, and railways with intuitive instruments, intelligence, and insights.
In this Volt-Age interview, he also talks about 6G, NTN, quantum-safe and open networks to innovations in critical communications and how VIAVI India is playing a leading role in enabling next-generation mission-critical networks. Edited Volt-Full Excerpts Below.
What brings VIAVI India every year to IMC, how important is the show and the key innovation and demos lined up?
VIAVI’s deep expertise brings unparalleled efficiency in developing, enabling, assuring and optimizing networks with speed and success in both the lab and the field.
From 6G, SatComms and High-Speed Network Test to AIOps, O-RAN and Quantum Security Testing, VIAVI India is demonstrating its latest innovations at IMC 2025:
MU-MIMO and O-RAN Lab Test: To meet the unique challenges of radio unit and fronthaul testing for disaggregated O-RAN networks, VIAVI TM500 network tester provides an ideal platform for advanced multi-carrier MU-MIMO testing and validation, with dynamic digital channel modeling and fully integrated UE emulation.
NTN: TM500 network tester to test the performance of 5G NTN, which includes both satellite and High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS).
6G: VIAVI’s 6G Forward program is leading the way in 6G innovation. The 6G Forward research is focused on: Energy efficient neuromorphic receivers, AI beam management technology, Semantic communications for Extended Reality (XR), Near-time Ray Tracing for network digital twin, Joint Communications and Sensing (JCAS) and AI Testing AI.
Quantum-Safe: TeraVM security test for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) system validation and MAP-300 Multiple Application Platform for quantum key distribution (QKD) testing.
Fiber and Transport Field Test Solutions: Comprehensive portfolio of field test solutions for fiber construction and remote fiber test and monitoring. INX 660 and INX 760 Probe Microscope, MTS-4000 optical test platform, 400G Transport Module for up to 400Gbps testing and solutions that guarantee and protect DCI, including the FiberComplete PRO, Test Process Automation (TPA) and VIAVI ONMSi solution – FTH-5000 fiber test head.
RF Field Test and Resilience: OneAdvisor 800 wireless platform – an all-in-one cell site tool designed for RAN field testing and service assurance, particularly for 5G and Open RAN deployments and SecurePNT for critical infrastructure and high-speed network applications. CX300 – capable of testing everything from portable radios, to complex infrastructure and broadband networks and CX200 for mission-critical radio infrastructure field testing.
Service Assurance: Geolocation AIOps, based on NITRO Location Intelligence platform that generates subscriber-centric insights for network automation, optimization and monetization.
High-Speed Ethernet Test: ONE LabPro 800G – Ethernet network performance test system that accelerates high-speed Ethernet tests in labs and live test bed environments.
How has been VIAVI supporting to develop robust and flexible network infrastructures?
As networks become more layered, disaggregated and complex, there is a critical need for businesses to effectively manage and optimise the performance of their networks. VIAVI empowers network operators, equipment manufacturers, enterprises, governments, aerospace and railways with intuitive instruments, intelligence and insights.
The company is committed to supporting all ecosystem players in their efforts to develop more robust and flexible network infrastructures that meet the current and future demands of the digital economy.
Digital transformation has set the industry on a journey to realise a new operational model that leverages AI, machine learning (ML), and network orchestration and automation.
To address the challenges of maximising development, productivity and speed-to-market, VIAVI offers the most comprehensive portfolio of end-to-end test and assurance solutions for lab validation, network implementation and optimisation across 5G, fibre and cloud.
The VIAVI NITRO Wireless test suite offers products, solutions and services to enable all participants in the ecosystem – network equipment manufacturers (NEMs), communications service providers (CSPs), semiconductor companies, software developers and system integrators – to accelerate technology development by validating performance at each stage in intelligent, intuitive and automated ways.
NITRO Wireless brings together proven performance and interoperability test platforms used throughout the industry for 3GPP and O-RAN with cloud, intelligence, automation and digital twin technology.
AI is enabling the automation, orchestration and optimisation of networks and services – how is VIAVI enhancing network performance, security and efficiency with the power of AI?
New architectures, growing network complexity, frequent software updates and managing cybersecurity are just some of the challenges that operators need to manage.
By leveraging AI and real-world field data, CSPs can simulate the RAN environment, devices, and scenarios, facilitating effective training, testing, and refinement of their network—RAN to Core—without disrupting live operations.
Applying AI and machine-learning algorithms to RF propagation facilitates better large-scale digital twin network simulations, which will be vital in the shift to 6G networks, and enables them to dynamically adapt to changing environments and conditions.
AI’s predictive and generative powers enable users across the network ecosystem to streamline operations, enhance network security, reduce costs, minimise service issues and improve the delivery of services to end customers.
VIAVI is committed to enhancing network performance, security and efficiency by integrating AI into its solutions. VIAVI’s AI-powered “Digital Twin” technology enables new predictive capabilities that help fortify networks. By creating a virtual model of a network in the lab, service providers can manage network behaviours and disruptions more quickly and effectively.
These digital twins play a pivotal role in advancing network design, reliability and performance. VIAVI India AI models help operators understand potential outcomes and equip them to optimise the network and respond to different scenarios.
The VIAVI NITRO AIOps platform revolutionises network performance monitoring and troubleshooting by offering real-time insights and predictive intelligence for optimising cloud-based telecommunications networks.
The solution offers true end-to-end and vendor-agnostic topology, cloud-native inventory, AI-driven assurance, workflow automation and more, empowering service providers to evolve their legacy network operations centre and achieve end-to-end network visibility across multiple technology domains.
Data Centers are becoming critically pivotal market in India with the fusion with the adoption hyperscale architecture. VIAVI India’s leadership in this domain?
Hyperscale data centers continue to grow in size and complexity, even as 5G and the IoT drive network disaggregation and push intelligence to the edge. As data-intensive applications such as; AI/ML, high performance computing (HPC) and big data analytics enter the mainstream, the hyperscale and data center ecosystem must meet the insatiable demand for memory, bandwidth, computing power, storage and speed.
Traditional networking infrastructure struggles to keep pace with the performance, speed and capacity requirements of AI/ML applications.
To address this, there has been a push towards higher-speed 800G optical transceivers and the emergence of 1.6Tb/s, alongside other enabling technologies throughout the network. In addition, data center operators need to dramatically increase the amount of fiber interconnects and new multi-fiber connectivity.
VIAVI India helps operators and providers to get the most from the hyperscale ecosystem and the services it carries so they can turn up infrastructure, successfully scale, and profitably innovate—today and tomorrow.
With an unmatched breadth and depth of interoperable test products and expertise, VIAVI ensures levels of service and reliability that meet the high standards of hyperscale data center operators and service providers.
VIAVI India test solutions optimize optical hardware, fiber, and network performance over the lifecycle of the hyperscale data center, from lab to turn-up to monitoring.
VIAVI’s smart test devices and software solutions for DCI environments are engineered with built-in automation and efficiency, boosting the deployment of DCI links by at least 60% while reducing project management complexity and cost.
Automated fiber certification, MPO connector inspection, high-speed 400G / 800G throughput testing, and virtual service activation and monitoring are among the advanced test capabilities designed to keep up with unceasing hyperscale data center growth.
How do VIAVI India test solutions simplify and accelerate high-speed network test in lab and production?
AI, ML, high-performance computing (HPC), virtualization and quantum computing are driving bandwidth and scale at an accelerating rate, creating increasingly difficult challenges for manufacturers of chips, pluggables and network equipment’s.
The need for high data rates in data centers, essential for providing low-latency and high-throughput services, IoT, rapid expansion of cloud services, AI-driven infrastructure and many such applications are pushing higher optical networks to 1.6Tb/s and beyond.
To address this, architects and developers need modern, sophisticated instrumentation to test at these higher speeds while maintaining accuracy, deployment and testing efficiency, and overall cost effectiveness.
As AI networks continue to fuel ethernet demand, advanced, next-gen testing platform designed for challenges of speed and scale is essential for testing RoCEv2 (RMDA over Converged Ethernet networks v2) traffic and validate the performance and reliability of AI network fabrics.
Perfect for high-speed module suppliers, ICPs, NEMs and service providers who work on high-speed Ethernet projects, ONE LabPro ONE-1600 supports manufacturers of Integrated Circuits (ICs), transceivers, and switching systems operating up to 1.6Tb/s with R&D, system verification testing (SVT), and live production and manufacturing testing.
The ONE LabPro ONE-1600 provides a highly advanced test platform for physical layer silicon fully aligned with emerging standards, the ability to test framed and unframed traffic, and enables support for high-bandwidth network switching devices at the heart of Ethernet fabric for AI at scale.
Featuring the highest levels of port density and scalability in the market, ONE LabPro scales to 102Tb/s of test bandwidth such as 64 x 1.6Tb/s test ports using ONE-1600 modules or 128 x 800Gb/s test ports using HSE-800 modules, orchestrated by a single controller.
Key emerging trends that will shape the telecom infrastructure space? what are VIAVI India’s future growth strategies?
As digital technologies advance and consumer demands shift, the telecommunications industry is rapidly changing, requiring faster networks and lower latencies to support emerging applications such as; IoT, AI, cloud computing and seamless automation.
In this dynamic landscape, network testing and optimization is becoming even more critical and VIAVI India is proud to support its partners in the delivery of these advances and enable customers to accelerate technology development while reducing TCO and time to market.
India is playing a significant role in the advancement of 6G technologies and the government is strengthening the sector by boosting domestic manufacturing, simplifying regulations and investments in infrastructure. With rapid AI adoption, extensive fiber roll-out and expanding role of data centers in the digital ecosystem, network operators are setting the stage for long-term growth and resilience.
Working closely with NEMs and CSPs VIAVI is helping them streamline the complex process of validating new technologies in the lab and in the field. We are actively engaging in aerospace and defence networks, satellite communications, 5G/6G, AI, cyber security, data centers and enterprise solutions.
VIAVI continues to be at the forefront of testing to validate equipment performance, providing manufacturers and service providers with confidence to deploy networks at scale.
