Strengthening Network Architecture: Challenges and opportunities in fibre deployment

The optical fibre cable (OFC) landscape in India is evolving to meet the growing demands of the 5G ecosystem. Over the years, the country has witnessed the scaling up of tower fiberisation, OFC networks as well as fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) connectivity. While a lot has been done on the right of way (RoW) front, discrepancies between state and central policies remain. Moreover, the issue of fibre cuts still persists. At tele.net’s recent conference on “OFC Networks in India”, leading industry stakeholders discussed the importance of fibre in the ever-evolving telecom landscape, challenges faced and new initiatives required to address them.  Key takeaways from the discussion…

Kunal Bajaj

The expansion OFC connectivity has fuelled the success of the telecom industry, boosting the economic growth of the nation. In the next five years, there will be significant emphasis on three key areas within this space.

One, tower fiberisation is one of the largest drivers for high-speed backhaul connectivity to support the growing number of telecom towers and 5G deployment. As per industry estimates, over 200,000 towers need to be fiberised over the next five years.Two, data centre connectivity will be another key driver of the fibre market due to the increasing number of data centres needing high-speed and reliable interconnections. As new data centres emerge, they require extensive fibre networks within cities and across regions. Around 50 new data centres are expected in the next two years, each requiring multiple geographically independent interconnections.

Three, the fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) segment also holds significant potential for facilitating the growth of the fibre market. Given the 35 million odd fixed-line home broadband users as compared to 900 million mobile broadband users, the size of the opportunity is clear. This is where we, at CloudExtel, continue to focus. Today, CloudExtel has about 7,000 km of fibre in over 50 cities across the country. From an FTTH perspective, we stand at over 700,000 homes passed on a passive, shareable infrastructure.

Leveraging a neutral host shareable infrastructure presents a strategic and technically efficient solution for capitalising on the burgeoning OFC market. This will enable faster roll-outs, improved asset utilisation, and significantly reduced total cost of ownership for mobile network operators.

Girish Bhatia

Fibre is the essence of any telecommunication network. We run a national long distance (NLD) network across the country in partnership with various telecom service providers (TSPs). We ensure that the TSP gets maximum scalability, resiliency and efficiency.

The biggest requirement across the industry remains the capacity that we can deliver over fibre. Our recent innovation, which will be available by end 2024, ensures that we will be able to deliver 1.6 terabits of capacity per channel at 50 per cent better power efficiency than the previous generations.

There has been a lot of talk around the convergence of optical and internet protocol (IP) layers. This is where we are initiating innovation.

In terms of challenges, scalability is the biggest issue. Further, ensuring efficiency and sustainability in some older networks remains a challenge. We can provide that perfect solution by migrating these networks to more than 10 times the capacity with less than half the power footprints. The third challenge is resiliency. For instance, if the cost of a network to be laid in the NLD is X globally, in India, it is actually three times the amount due to the resiliency that TSPs need to build additional capacity.

Pankaj Chaudhary

There is significant scope and need for laying optical fibre in the coming years. Jio is performing well in terms of fibre laying and approximately 65 per cent of Jio’s towers are fiberised. Further, the company has laid  around 450,000 km of fibre already. During the next two years, it has set a target of connecting 85 per cent of towers on fibre. FTTH outreach has also improved across the metros and in rural areas.

In terms of limitations and hurdles in optical fibre deployment, RoW is the biggest issue. Further, other utilities such as those in the sewerage industry are least concerned about optical fibre and often end up damaging it while digging.

The integration of fibre network needs to be increased and fibre sharing should be encouraged. At Jio, we have partnered with Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (Powergrid), RailTel Corporation of India Limited and other third-party operators for fibre sharing in certain areas. However, it is still at a nascent stage. We are also partnering with STL for sharing local network at an excess level. We are open to more such collaboration opportunities.

Since the capex involved in fibre laying is huge, sharing fibre will benefit each partner. However, the main hurdles in this model are the operational aspects and the health of the fibre. Further, there is a lack of awareness among concerned parties, which leads to challenges in integrating fibre. Additionally, the data regarding laid fibre is not updated.

Alok Mahapatra

The deployment of fibre is an issue in India because of the damages that occur due to large-scale road expansion works. Further, fibre network development in urban areas requires a sharing model. This is because the deployment of fibre in urban areas continues to face challenges despite support from the centre in terms of RoW. Thirdly, the network being deployed under the BharatNet project requires a robust mechanism for the operations and maintenance (O&M) of those assets. There should also be a revenue model to generate income from the assets that have already been deployed.

Overall, the amount of fibre that we have already deployed in India is quite good. We may not have reached every nook and corner, but we have touched all the demand centres in terms of densification. However, the utilisation of these networks through some kind of a sharing model is something that we need to think about.

The smart city concept was an excellent concept. If we could have successfully executed this model, the entire digital backbone for the top 100 cities in India would have been ready by now. The biggest challenge was that the project was being implemented by an authority that had never handled such kind of a network. They never understood the importance of building a robust fibre network within the city.

Dharmender Khajuria

For the country to progress and realise the dream of Digital India, fibre is of utmost importance. When the RoW rules came out in 2016, the charges were Re 1 per meter. However, most of the states did not adopt it.

Currently, the policy has been adopted by 24 states and union territories. Some of the key states that have not adopted the policy are Karnataka and Kerala.

I think there is an urgent need for all the urban local bodies and the state governments to realise that RoW is not a revenue making model. There are a lot of challenges in urban India as well. Firstly, only around 40 per cent of the towers are fiberised. We need to reach around 70 per cent. As TSPs, we are ready to invest, provided we get government support in terms of regulations, O&M, etc.

Public sector undertakings (PSUs) such as GailTel, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Powergrid and Oil India Limited have large amounts of fibre. We can collaborate with these PSUs to share fibre instead of laying down fibre along the same routes. For instance, we are working very closely with the National Highways Authority of India, laying fibre across 1,357 km from Delhi to Mumbai.

About 20 years ago, we were laying copper networks. Now, we are replacing that copper with fibre. We are working with Powergrid, RailTel and GailTel to utilise fibre wherever it is available. We are also looking at working with new technologies. For example, in Ladakh, we are working with some companies to provide broadband through light or connect towers through light technology.

In terms of tower fiberisation, Airtel has different levels depending on urban and rural areas. In urban areas, the fiberisation level varies from metro to metro, with some areas reaching 50 per while others exceed 50 per cent. However, in rural areas, it is around 38 per cent.

In the FTTH space, we are working under a very different model. We are working with local cable operators in Tier II, III and IV cities to expand connectivity. However, they lack in maintaining the fibre and providing customer satisfaction in terms of execution or installation. Hence, these services are undertaken by us.

The smart city project should have been led by the smart city authority and should have been leased out to providers offering services. Unfortunately, this became a revenue model. Typically, tenders were awarded to third parties who charged 10 or 20 times the normal rates, which was an issue.