There has been undeniable growth in the broadband segment in the past year and a half. From barely 50,000 users in October 2004, when the broadband policy was announced, today there are 1.4 million broadband subscribers.

To speed up the process ?? given that the subscriber figure is still well below the broadband policy target of 9 million users by 2007 ?? the government has made this a major thrust area. Along with increasing the number of broadband connections, there is growing realisation about the need to improve the quality of service (QoS), especially in light of the growing number of consumer complaints in recent months.

To address broadband QoS concerns, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has brought out a consultation paper highlighting the key issues and suggesting service standards.

Parameters for QoS measurement
According to the regulator, the major parameters affecting the quality of broadband service for end-users are:

  • Network latency ?? the transmission of broadband traffic involves the handing over of data packets over different operators’ networks. Latency is the measure of duration of a round trip for a data packet between specific source and destination CPEs.
  • Packet loss ?? the percentage of packets lost to the total packets transmitted between two designated points.
  • Bandwidth utilisation/throughput ?? there are three bandwidth segments involved in the broadband network. The first is from the customer premises to the ISP node, known as access segment. The second segment is from the ISP node to the independent gateway service provider’s (IGSP) international gateway to the overseas network access point from where it connects to the public internet cloud. While the first and the second segments comprise the national portion of broadband connectivity, the third segment comprises the international section. The first segment is completely managed and operated by the ISP; this could be through DSL, cable, TV, OFC, wireless or VSAT. The second segment is usually taken on lease from NLDOs, UASPs or IP-IIs. The third segment is provided by an ILDO in the form of international private leased circuit.
  • Service provision/activation time ?? the time taken from the date of receipt of the valid application to the date when the service is activated.
  • Service availability/uptime ?? the total operational hours of the service less the total transmission downtime or disruption to the service due to service failure divided by the total operation hours over the period of the monitoring cycle.
  • Fault repair/restoration time ?? the time taken to restore service from the time the fault was reported by the customer

    • Service benchmarks
    In developed countries, QoS issues are generally taken care of by competition. Most countries do not regulate broadband QoS and leave it to market forces. Only Singapore and Malaysia regulate the quality of service for broadband internet access in the Asia-Pacific region (see table).

    In India, considering the inadequate competition in this segment, TRAI believes it is necessary to put in place certain benchmarks. In doing so, TRAI has kept in mind international best practices, especially in developing countries in the region, and has proposed the following benchmarks:

  • Network latency within the local network should be less than 90 milliseconds (msec). For the international segment, network latency should be less than 300 msec for OFC-based connections and less than 800 msec for satellite-based connections.
  • Bandwidth utilisation between the user and the nearest serving ISP node during download should not be less than 70 per cent of the subscribed level for 95 per cent of the time. To ensure this, the service provider has to provide enough bandwidth for upstream connectivity by having service level agreements with the domestic service providers and IGSPs/ILDOs.
  • Packet loss should not be more than 1 per cent over a period of one month.
  • Restoration of services must have the following time limits:
  • 80 per cent of all service restoration requests should be attended to and restored within 24 hours of report of fault.
  • 90 per cent of all service restoration requests should be attended to and restored within 48 hours of fault reporting.
  • 100 per cent of all service restoration requests should be attended to and restored within 72 hours of fault reporting.
  • At least one static IP address must be allocated on demand on payment basis.
  • Billing complaints not to exceed 2 per cent of the bills issued during the billing cycle and billing complaints should be resolved within the following time-frame ?? 95 per cent within 15 working days of complaint and 100 per cent within 30 working days of receipt of the complaint.

    • With these benchmarks, the regulator expects broadband services to improve and more end-users to take up the service.