The government should open up the telecom sector by following the franchise model, rather than by auctioning the circles. This was the unanimous call at the Commsphere 2000 -Affordable Telecom and IT Solutions for Developing Countries. This was a four-day conference organised by IIT Madras, at Chennai recently.
Probably the call comes a bit late. But the central government can still consider it in the states for which bids are yet to be received from the private telecom service providers.
"The present method needs heavy investments, which ultimately works out costlier and is against consumer interest," declared Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a member of the IIT Madras faculty.
The chasm between the developed countries and the developing ones is widening fast, with the Internet ushering in a communication revolution. Given this situation, developing countries have to leapfrog in technologies and replicating what succeeded in the West may not be the best for providing affordable telecom and IT solutions for them.
Therefore, the need of the hour is a hybrid and radical approach -- technological as well as governmental policy -- to solve the telecom problem in the third world with cost-effective solutions.
The four-day conference, which saw the participation of industry captains, policy makers and academicians from within and without India, deliberated on issues that would keep the telecom infrastructure costs down and, at the same time, provide access to quality communication to a vast majority of people.
Commsphere 2000 also deliberated on evolving technologies such as Bluetooth, WLL, ADSL, VDSL, low cost communications, IT for education and health, Internet over cable TV networks, Net over railway communication/electricity lines, and other such issues.
Setting the tone of the conference, M.G.K. Menon, chairman, IT Task Force and former minister of state for science and technology, asked the policy makers not be complacent on seeing the IT stocks soaring on the bourses. "Telecom in India is still telephone-centric whereas there is convergence of Internet, media, telecom technologies, which should be taken note of," he said.
According to him, the entire telecom sector should be unbundled and efforts should be made to reduce the hardware costs. He also complained that the government is sitting tight on the three reports -- hardware, software and R&D sectors --submitted by the Task Force long back.
N.K. Sinha, member, Technology, Telecom Commission of India, remarked, "The Department of Telecommunications (DOT) will be adding 4.6 million lines this year and another five million lines next year." Plans are on to lay 1,000 route kms of optical fibre cables. The national Internet backbone will be ready by year-end to connect 400-500 Internet nodes spread throughout the country, he added.
Citing the New Telecom Policy-1999 (NTP), which proposes the addition of 50 million lines by 2005, Sinha said that the outlay needed is around $1.16 billion. The NTP also plans to increase the teledensity to seven per cent from the current level of 2.6 by 2005 and subsequently, hike it to 15 per cent by 2010.
"Grand plans aside, one should not lose sight of the bottlenecks -- technology, economics and government policy -- before the goal is attained," said Jhunjhunwala. And he ranks economics as the top issue to be resolved. He added, "The present telecom technologies are developed in the West as per their needs. A service charge of $30 per month is affordable by over 90 per cent of the population there." Such technologies cost at least $1,000 per connection, taking into account 35 per cent return on investment to cover finance and operational costs. "As a result, there is no incentive for the telecom hardware manufacturers of the West to cut costs," he pointed out. Citing the PC industry as an example where the cost of the PC hasn't changed over the years though technological innovations enabled higher memory, Jhunjhunwala argued that foreign manufacturers innovate to offer "additional frills and not to cut costs."
For developing countries, high cost is the major issue to be addressed first (see Telecom penetration in rural areas). In the telecom field, it is well known that the cost of imported hardware is inversely proportional to the technical expertise of the officials of the importing countries. Thanks to DoT and its exchanges, MNCs are not able to exploit India to a great extent.
"Today, at $30 per month, telecom and Internet service is affordable to a miniscule percentages of our population, say 1.5 per cent of Indian households. If that is to be expanded, the service charge needs to be reduced by $15 per month so that telecom facilities are affordable to the next 5 per cent of the households, and to less than $6 per month to cater to another 25 per cent households," Jhunjhunwala said.
According to him, to increase the teledensity in India to the above levels, the capex per line and the cost of access terminal should be around $300 and $100 respectively.
Cost problems in telecom and IT could be solved by the use of correct wire less in local loop (WLL) technology that enables simultaneous access to voice and Internet traffic. This technology was jointly developed by IIT Madras, Midas Communication Technologies Pvt. Ltd, Chennai, and the global $1.5 billion turnover semiconductor major, Analog Devices Inc., USA.
The corDECT technology, using Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) on copper, optic fibre and their combination, aims to reduce the cost per connection to $400 (approx. Rs 17,000), which is far cheaper than any other competing WLL system.
Samudra E. Haque, managing director, Pradeshta Ltd, Bangladesh, said, "The focus should be doing more with less." Haque has designed an innovative antenna called Micro Community Communication Node (MCN), for which he has applied for a patent in USA, India and Bangladesh.
On the issue of power cable as an access medium, C.N. Krishnan, MIT, Chennai said, "Power line carrier communication (PLCC) over HT line is an established practice. On the other hand, in the case of LT segment (110/220/440 volts) below the distribution transformer, though technology is available, problems like unpredictable frequency, impulse and background noise and their wide variability, limited bandwidth are to be addressed in India."
Added Peter O'Neill, editor, TWEE Third World: EEC, UK, "Net over power cable will enable downtrodden living in slums to leapfrog over others as it is they who work hardest." There are other benefits like planning of power distribution. "The Net over power lines allows power station to`talk' down the electricity lines to the fridges, air-conditioners, fans, and can turn them off selectively by remote control when needed," he said.
Though the much talked about Manchester Experiment of 2 Mbps Internet distribution over LT segment by NORWEB DPL Ltd -- a joint venture between Nortel and United Utilities -- pulled down their shutters late last year, Krishnan said that technology has been established and holds promise in those applications that are not broadband and high density.
While that is for the future, good work is being done within India by the railways in delivering Internet via its communication network.
New technologies aside, what seems to be an attractive option of wiring the millions to the Net is the cable TV networks, as the bandwidth of-dial up, telephone modem, ISDN and XDSL-systems are limited to 56 Kbps, 128 Kbps and 6 Mbps respectively. In India, there are about 35 million households wired by cable TV operators and their number is still growing.
According to professor Abhay Karandikar, IIT Bombay, "The cable TV network can provide more bandwidth compared to other media, and it is much cheaper." Cable operators such as Siti Cable have started offering net over TV cables. In Chennai, while Cyberwave, an ISP, has started offering the service, the two major cable TV operators, Sumangali Cable Vision (SC) and C Chennai (of the Rahejas) have drawn up plans.
Unlike other systems, traffic is not restricted by time, as one is connected to the web 24 hours a day. "There is also conservation of ports as cable operators need not have a separate ports for each subscriber," said Karandikar.
However the issues to be addressed to make cable TV a broadband access network, is making the channel communicate both ways with dual path amplifiers. The other issues to be answered in this connection are: unauthorised tapping from the overhead cables; return path problems; poor cable insulation; security aspects. According to Karandikar, investments on upgrading the existing cables, installing remote network management systems, amplifier maintenance, are the other business issues to be looked at.
also see : see
corDECT kept the foreigners connected
see
Internet to chug fast through railway network
see MCNs for
rapid networking of inaccessible terrain
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