T.V. Ramachandran, president, Broadband India Forum (BIF)
The Indian broadband market has failed to replicate the success of the wireless telephony segment. However, the scenario is set to change with the introduction of high speed 3G/4G technologies, growing smartphone affordability and the increasing development of relevant content. Government projects like BharatNet and Digital India will also be instrumental in shaping the roadmap for broadband growth in India. T.V. Ramachandran, president, Broadband India Forum (BIF), shares his views on the evolving broadband landscape and the way forward…
What are your views on the status of broadband adoption in the country? How do you see the scenario changing in the coming years?
Although the National Telecom Policy, 2012 emphasised broadband-on-demand, the progress in this regard has been quite inadequate over the past three years. Against a target of 175 million broadband connections by 2017, we had achieved only 120 million as of December 2015, that too with a current download speed of 512 kbps, which is way below the norm in comparable countries. According to the State of Broadband Report 2015 by the United Nations, India’s broadband penetration ranking has fallen to 155 from 113.
Despite this, we at BIF are upbeat about the broadband opportunity in the country. With Digital India (which has all its nine pillars resting on broadband and information and communications technologies) starting to take off, we believe the broadband scenario is set to change sharply with technologies like fixed, mobile, satellite, Wi-Fi and cable playing a powerful role. At BIF, we are totally technology-agnostic. In addition, we want to facilitate the entire ecosystem of players in content, devices, transmission, infrastructure, etc. As regards the future, India has a great chance of success on the broadband front. The demographic dividend of a large, vibrant, young and working population, coupled with programmes like Digital India, Make in India and Startup India, is likely to result in increased broadband penetration.
What have been the key challenges that have hampered broadband growth over the years? Which of them are yet to be addressed?
Two of the foremost challenges to broadband growth are inadequate spectrum and difficulties in rolling out essential infrastructure like optical fibre and towers.
To ensure service quality and the delivery of high-bandwidth services, a strong backbone and backhaul infrastructure is essential. Conventional microwave cannot meet this requirement. For the price- sensitive Indian market, it is also essential that such infrastructure is scalable at low capex and low opex.
Unfortunately, in most parts of India, local bodies, municipalities and state governments follow policies that make getting right of way (RoW) a Himalayan challenge and involve exorbitant charges. The same is the case for tower installations. It should be noted that these are both part of the telecom sector, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Communications and IT, which has clear and progressive guidelines on the subject. However, since these guidelines have not yet been gazette-notified, local bodies, municipalities and state governments do not think it is mandatory for them to follow them.
As regards the second biggest challenge of inadequate spectrum, some progress was made through the previous auction and the announcement of spectrum sharing and trading. The country’s biggest ever spectrum auction of over 2000 MHz of spectrum across seven or eight bands is scheduled for mid-2016. Even with the above-mentioned actions, the total spectrum per operator in India would be at least 30-40 per cent less than comparable countries. Hence, we will continue to be disadvantaged in this key resource for broadband. Importantly, our spectrum is extremely high priced in comparison with most other comparable countries and this will remain a big challenge in achieving affordability in the price-sensitive Indian market.
The third key factor is increased public awareness and the ability to use broadband services. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has stressed a highly local approach to content, applications, skills and affordable access, such as the shared use model. Regional and local content development needs to be strongly incentivised. The availability of grid power is a challenge in many rural areas, which might drive the need to adopt renewable energy technologies.
To what extent have the current policies and regulations been successful in supporting broadband growth in the country? What are your expectations from the government for improving uptake?
The government has provided operators with broadband wireless access and 3G spectrum to help usher in true mobile broadband. It has tried to promote the growth of smartphones by reducing taxes and levies and has also kick-started domestic manufacturing in handsets and devices through the Make in India initiative. It has set up several projects for developing appropriate and relevant content and enhancing skill levels and digital literacy. The government can further drive broadband uptake by creating awareness about its benefits, extensively using broadband in governance, and providing fiscal incentives for its use.
What are your views on the Digital India initiative? What role can it play in pushing broadband growth?
The Digital India vision and its mission to digitally empower all 1.3 billion citizens has become the single most important
driver to provide broadband to all by 2020. With this policy and vision document as the bedrock of Digital India, the government has addressed the fundamental challenge of laying the optical fibre cable backbone infrastructure in rural areas by kick-starting the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) project, which has now been renamed BharatNet. Thus, the job of connecting the last mile has been left to the service or applications provider with the technology of their choice.
How are the growth drivers for broadband services in rural areas different from those in urban areas? What initiatives should be taken to enhance broadband reach and usage in rural areas?
Mobile broadband will be one of the major drivers for the proliferation of broadband in India. This will be more evident in rural areas than in urban areas. While there would be a new breed of services that will act as growth drivers in urban areas, such as converged services, machine to machine, cloud, over-the-top services, intellectual property rights opportunities for manufacturing, there will be different growth drivers in rural areas. These include mobile banking services, telemedicine and tele-education, besides local language content. To enhance broadband penetration in rural areas, operators need to be given adequate globally harmonised and contiguous spectrum at reasonable prices. They also need to be given unconditional, free and timely RoW clearances, along with incentives like reduced spectrum charges and licence fees and non-discriminatory access to government land.
What are your views on the progress of the BharatNet project? What are the reasons for recurring delays in implementation and how can they be addressed?
The government had sanctioned the NOFN project and a budget of Rs 200 billion for it in 2011. However, the projects was plagued by ineffective design and poor implementation right from the start. After over four years of little progress against repeatedly extended deadlines, instead of burying the basic fibre in the ground, the project itself was ironically given a quiet burial around mid-2015. This was preceded by an excellent set of TRAI recommendations in April 2015 for “Delivering Broadband Quickly” through a revamped, more holistic approach.
TRAI released its recommendations for revamping the BharatNet project’s implementation on February 1, 2016. It is rare that regulatory recommendations are equally acceptable to all stakeholders. However, this time, there is all-round acceptance that the measures suggested by TRAI will give BharatNet a big boost and help achieve Broadband India most expeditiously. The key to the success of these new recommendations will be the TRAI-
recommended build-own-operate-transfer model with the involvement of the private sector for deployment and operations. However, experts are of the view that, for strategic reasons, the ownership/funding must remain predominantly with the government. Such an ownership structure is essential to ensure open, non-discriminatory access to all operators. Moreover, given the size and complexity of the project, and its associated capital risks, it may not be prudent to consider handing over ownership to the private sector. TRAI has rightly stressed that RoW must be provided free of cost by all states to the executing agency.
What role can private operators play in enhancing broadband uptake?
Based on TRAI data as of September 2015, there were 120 million broadband subscribers. Of these, 16 million were fixed broadband and the remaining, mobile broadband. It is evident that mobile broadband is likely to dominate broadband penetration in the future as well. Of the 104 million mobile broadband subscribers, more than 90 per cent are served by private operators.
To achieve the broadband targets of the National Telecom Policy, 2012 (170 million by 2017 and 600 million by 2020), the private sector will have to play an important role and accelerate the growth of mobile broadband through the uptake of 3G and 4G services. For this, operators will require a stable and pragmatic policy and regulatory regime with regard to spectrum, adequate release of a good quantum of spectrum in the short and long terms, attractive and realistic pricing of spectrum, protection of existing investments and a spectrum roadmap.
What is the use case for TV White Spectrum in delivering broadband?
As India takes steps to achieve its digital dream and the focus shifts to the growth of data services, the facilitation of a greater quantity of globally harmonised spectrum is required. Due to legacy issues, limited spectrum is available for providing commercial mobile services in conventional bands (800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz). Limited spectrum and the rising demand for data services prioritise the need to make available spectrum in other bands. We at BIF applaud the government’s announcement at the recently concluded World Radio Communication Conference 2015 to declare the TV UHF band as 470-698 MHz for mobile services. This band has excellent propagation characteristics for providing broadband connectivity to vast areas. In urban and suburban India, this 470-698 MHz band will be of tremendous use in compensating for the poor in-building penetration characteristics of 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2300 MHz spectrum. It will help provide ubiquitous broadband and good voice quality coverage.
