The Broadband India Forum (BIF) conducted a conference on the balanced availability of different key elements of digital infrastructure including, optic fibre, mobile towers, licensed spectrum, data centres and Wi-Fi, content delivery networks (CDNs), undersea cables, etc. to highlight the growing importance of multi-gigabit availability for every household to the digital requirements of the modern era. The conference particularly stressed the paramount need for a much higher availability of optic fibre to cater to the exponentially increasing quantum of data.
Dr. R S Sharma, former chief executive officer (CEO), National Health Authority, and former chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) and a key architect of Aadhaar as well as Digital India delivered the inaugural address as the chief guest of the event. Other eminent speakers in the inaugural session included C B Velayuthan, CEO, Digital Connexion; Prashant Singhal, EY emerging markets, technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) sector leader; Ashwani Rana, vice president, BIF and chief public policy officer, Zupee.
In addition, Neeraj Kumar, India Telecommunication Service (ITS), mission director (National Broadband Mission), Department of Telecommunications (DoT), delivered a special keynote address as the guest of honour in the session. In addition, T V Ramachandran, president, BIF delivered a substantive data based introductory address, setting the context for the theme of the entire conference.
While India is the numero uno when it comes to data consumption on mobile broadband and is the fastest growing mobile broadband market in the world, India lags in fixed or wired broadband as compared to developed nations. Data shows that there is average data consumption of 187 GB/month in India which though 10 times higher than mobile data consumption, is still significantly lower than the US data consumption of 641 GB/month. Furthermore, fixed broadband subscriptions in India are a mere 2.85 per 100 persons and it is almost 1/4th of the global average.
The conference was aimed to discuss the challenges and possible strategies before the nation to achieve widespread optical fibre deployment in India with a goal to reach gigabit connectivity to all the households or at least 100-110 million households by 2030. Discussions also explored building a robust and resilient core digital infrastructure, including data centres, CDNs, internet exchanges, and submarine cable capacity. These infrastructure elements are crucial for providing better user experience through low-latency in internet access. The conference also sought to look at various aspects needed to make multi-gigabit connectivity a reality for every Indian household by 2030.
Given this backdrop, the conference was divided into three-panel discussions, the first on “Empowering India’s Digital Future: Mobilising A Collective Force for Ubiquitous Wireline Connectivity” where Neeraj Kumar was the session chair. Several eminent subject matter experts formed a part of an engaging panel discussion.
The second-panel discussion was on “Fostering Growth in India’s Data, Content, and Internet Ecosystem” where Sanjeev Banzal, director general, ERNET India, was the session chair and gave the keynote address. This was followed by an engaging panel discussion consisting of eminent panelists. This panel discussion was moderated by Amrita Choudhury, director, CCAOI.
The final panel discussion was on “Drivers of Digital Transformation in India” where Rakesh Maheshwari, former scientist, group coordinator was the session chairman and he moderated a panel discussion on the topic with subject matter experts.
During the introductory special keynote address, Dr R S Sharma, said, “Today, India needs to aggressively work for creating massive and inclusive optical fibre infrastructure to bring our country at par with China, US, and Europe in fibre broadband to provide multi -gigabit connectivity to every household by 2030. We also need to create millions of Wi-FI hotspots in the country which ensures affordable broadband availability to our people in rural and semi-urban areas. Simultaneously we need to invest heavily into associated infrastructure like data centres, CDNs, and internet exchanges to make the multi-gigabit broadband meaningful, democratic, and affordable.”
Meanwhile, T V Ramachandran, said, “India’s current fixed broadband deployment cannot keep pace with exploding data consumption. With fixed broadband data usage reaching 10-20 times mobile data consumption per capita, we need a minimum 20 per cent annual growth rate in fixed broadband subscriptions over the next six years to reach just 100 million additional fibre connections. To achieve this ambitious target, leveraging the mighty force of the vast army of over 80,000 local cable operators (LCOs), over 5500 public data office aggregators (PDOAs) and public data offices (PDOs) and over 1000 smaller 1000 internet service providers (ISPs) is essential.”
