India had 238.71 million internet
subscribers at the end of December
2013,which now takes the country
to third position after China and
the USA.The number of broadband
subscribers(those able to access
the internet at a minimum speed of 512 kbps)is 55.20 million, therefore taking the number
of 'narrowband subscribers' to 183.51 million
at the end of December 2013. Sometime in
2011, in an effort to improve India's
teledensity and enable ubiquitious access to
the internet for rural India, the government
rolled out the ambitious National Optical Fibre
Network (NOFN) to provide Broadband
connectivity to 2.5 lakh village Panchayats.
This was expected to be completed in 2014 but
till earlier this year, only pilot projects in
Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura had
been completed. New dates were shared for
NOFN's completion: phase one completion of
1,00,000 villages by December 2014, 1,00,000
additional villages by December 2015 in phase
two and 50,000 villages by March 2016 in
phase three.
However, it's anybody's guess whether these
targets will be met. An important reason for
this delay (and perhaps largely over-looked by
mainstream media) was the alleged inability of
the government to create a sustainable
business model for rural broadband. Elsewhere
however, a few state government's adopted a
different model to connect gram panchayats.
The state governments of Gujarat and
Chattisgarh were early movers when it came to
introducing ubiquitious internet connectivity at
the gram panchayat level using a VSAT model
to ensure reliability and keep costs low. The
VSAT model enabled video, voice and data
offerings in the areas of e-governance,
distance education, telemedicine, agriculture
and interactive advisory and counselling
services. Each panchayat had its own email
address and over 13,000 of them have been
hosted on the state-owned data centre.
Unfortunately this successful, time-bound and
cost-effective model was not considered for
the rest of the country.
A VSAT model uses a satellite in a geo-
synchronous orbit to provide internet/
broadband connectivity; in India this is
typically done using the Ku - Band but globally
it's through the more preferred KA - band,
better in terms of both, coverage and
throughput. The VSAT model used by Gujarat
and a few other states worked because of two
very important reasons - the model was low
cost - set up at a cost of only Rs. 200-300
crores per state and the second, equally
important reason; deployment and roll-out was
extremely quick as there is no digging or laying
of fiber optics or towers required. This doesn't
even merit a comparison with a terrestrial
broadband network such as the NOFN project,
which is pegged at Rs 21,000 crores and
growing (and already facing a shortfall of Rs.
4763 crores for the first phase of roll-out). So
even if we were to extrapolate this into a
national rollout - 29 states at Rs. 300 crores
each, a satellite enabled broadband umbrella
covering the entire subcontinent would
perhaps be somewhere in the range of
approximately Rs. 8,700 crores. And the time
taken for deployment would be a few months
compared to several years. And given that it is
satellite linked, connectivity would not be
affected by extremes of weather or man-made
disruptions (including extremist actions in
Maoist affected or other regions for example).
The previous government, for reasons best
known to itself, chose to not to adopt this
tried and tested model (its widely used across
all continents - from Africa to North America,
Lat Am, China and the Middle East).
In addition to the satellite enabled VSAT model
highlighted above, the other issue that we need
to consider is how we define broadband. It is
unfortunate that India defines 'broadband' as
512 Kbps while the global average is 3 Mbps
(and growing) and countries like Korea,
currently at 14 Mbps now considering an
increase to 100 Mbps. Another distressing
statistic - most new internet users are coming
through narrowband networks and on mobile
primarily through 2G networks. Consequently
an ubiquitous, always on, pan-India
'broadband' network just does not exist.
Is there a way out? I believe the solution lies
in the government introducing an Open Sky
policy. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI) had earlier proposed this to
benefit the Indian DTH and VSAT operators and
had asked for a revision of the 14 year old
Indian satellite communications policy. The
new government's first budget needs to allow
private investment in satellite services as per
the existing policy to reduce dependence on
the sole provider of satellite bandwidth.
Despite the monopoly of ISRO a majority of
the current satellite demand is met by capacity
hired from foreign satellite operators. It's
interesting to note that most country across
the world, from the US to those in Europe and
even China permit private participation and
investments in satellite services. An Open Sky
policy would allow private satellite and VSAT
operators to place (leased or owned) satellites
in geosynchronous orbits above the Indian
subcontinent to provide a steady 24x7
broadband umbrella. A single powerful, high
throughput KA band satellite (100 times more
powerful that the exiting INSAT satellites
offering these services) would allow every
single village to embrace the internet. http://www.businessworld.in/news/economy/india/will-budget-help-india-to-realise-the-broadband-dream/1439659/page-1.html
subscribers at the end of December
2013,which now takes the country
to third position after China and
the USA.The number of broadband
subscribers(those able to access
the internet at a minimum speed of 512 kbps)is 55.20 million, therefore taking the number
of 'narrowband subscribers' to 183.51 million
at the end of December 2013. Sometime in
2011, in an effort to improve India's
teledensity and enable ubiquitious access to
the internet for rural India, the government
rolled out the ambitious National Optical Fibre
Network (NOFN) to provide Broadband
connectivity to 2.5 lakh village Panchayats.
This was expected to be completed in 2014 but
till earlier this year, only pilot projects in
Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura had
been completed. New dates were shared for
NOFN's completion: phase one completion of
1,00,000 villages by December 2014, 1,00,000
additional villages by December 2015 in phase
two and 50,000 villages by March 2016 in
phase three.
However, it's anybody's guess whether these
targets will be met. An important reason for
this delay (and perhaps largely over-looked by
mainstream media) was the alleged inability of
the government to create a sustainable
business model for rural broadband. Elsewhere
however, a few state government's adopted a
different model to connect gram panchayats.
The state governments of Gujarat and
Chattisgarh were early movers when it came to
introducing ubiquitious internet connectivity at
the gram panchayat level using a VSAT model
to ensure reliability and keep costs low. The
VSAT model enabled video, voice and data
offerings in the areas of e-governance,
distance education, telemedicine, agriculture
and interactive advisory and counselling
services. Each panchayat had its own email
address and over 13,000 of them have been
hosted on the state-owned data centre.
Unfortunately this successful, time-bound and
cost-effective model was not considered for
the rest of the country.
A VSAT model uses a satellite in a geo-
synchronous orbit to provide internet/
broadband connectivity; in India this is
typically done using the Ku - Band but globally
it's through the more preferred KA - band,
better in terms of both, coverage and
throughput. The VSAT model used by Gujarat
and a few other states worked because of two
very important reasons - the model was low
cost - set up at a cost of only Rs. 200-300
crores per state and the second, equally
important reason; deployment and roll-out was
extremely quick as there is no digging or laying
of fiber optics or towers required. This doesn't
even merit a comparison with a terrestrial
broadband network such as the NOFN project,
which is pegged at Rs 21,000 crores and
growing (and already facing a shortfall of Rs.
4763 crores for the first phase of roll-out). So
even if we were to extrapolate this into a
national rollout - 29 states at Rs. 300 crores
each, a satellite enabled broadband umbrella
covering the entire subcontinent would
perhaps be somewhere in the range of
approximately Rs. 8,700 crores. And the time
taken for deployment would be a few months
compared to several years. And given that it is
satellite linked, connectivity would not be
affected by extremes of weather or man-made
disruptions (including extremist actions in
Maoist affected or other regions for example).
The previous government, for reasons best
known to itself, chose to not to adopt this
tried and tested model (its widely used across
all continents - from Africa to North America,
Lat Am, China and the Middle East).
In addition to the satellite enabled VSAT model
highlighted above, the other issue that we need
to consider is how we define broadband. It is
unfortunate that India defines 'broadband' as
512 Kbps while the global average is 3 Mbps
(and growing) and countries like Korea,
currently at 14 Mbps now considering an
increase to 100 Mbps. Another distressing
statistic - most new internet users are coming
through narrowband networks and on mobile
primarily through 2G networks. Consequently
an ubiquitous, always on, pan-India
'broadband' network just does not exist.
Is there a way out? I believe the solution lies
in the government introducing an Open Sky
policy. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of
India (TRAI) had earlier proposed this to
benefit the Indian DTH and VSAT operators and
had asked for a revision of the 14 year old
Indian satellite communications policy. The
new government's first budget needs to allow
private investment in satellite services as per
the existing policy to reduce dependence on
the sole provider of satellite bandwidth.
Despite the monopoly of ISRO a majority of
the current satellite demand is met by capacity
hired from foreign satellite operators. It's
interesting to note that most country across
the world, from the US to those in Europe and
even China permit private participation and
investments in satellite services. An Open Sky
policy would allow private satellite and VSAT
operators to place (leased or owned) satellites
in geosynchronous orbits above the Indian
subcontinent to provide a steady 24x7
broadband umbrella. A single powerful, high
throughput KA band satellite (100 times more
powerful that the exiting INSAT satellites
offering these services) would allow every
single village to embrace the internet. http://www.businessworld.in/news/economy/india/will-budget-help-india-to-realise-the-broadband-dream/1439659/page-1.html
