tele.net?s conference on ?OFC Networks In India: Plans and Projects, Strategies and Solutions? was held today at The Imperial, New Delhi.
The conference was attended by over 150 delegates from different factions of the telecom industry. Corning Optical Fiber and Sterlite sponsored the event.
Key sessions of the conference include-Key Trends and outlook; Spotlight On National Optic Fibre Network Project; Infrastructure Providers: Plans and Perspectives; Focus On Fibre-To-The-Home; Telecom Operators: Needs and Requirements; State Initiatives: SWAN and Others; OFC Network Economics; New Products and Technologies; Global Scenario and Cable TV Opportunity.
In the session on Key Trends and outlook, Abhishek Chauhan, senior consultant, ICT and head, mobile & wireless, SAME, Frost & Sullivan said that in India, the cable industry is set to witness tremendous growth, since internet service providers are investing in fiber cables and the government is rolling out the national optic fiber plan.
In India, cables for broadband deployment are categorised into three types, copper cables, coaxial cables and optical fiber cables.
DSL, which is the most popular broadband technology, is deployed through copper loops. Currently, India has 40 million copper loops (16 million in rural areas and 24 in urban areas)and of these, 50 percent(nearly 20 million loops)are deemed fit for broadband connectivity.
However, he pointed out that ubiquitous broadband coverage is not possible through copper. In this context, therefore, copper-based technologies, such as DSL, have a limited role to play. Also, for scaling up the level of deployment and bandwidth, other technologies would have to be explored.
Thus, with the price of copper on the rise, OFC is emerging as the preferred connectivity medium.
According to Chauhan, OFCs offer several benefits, such as seemingly unlimited capacity, high degree of security and long-term economic gains. So, in the long term, OFCs are a much more viable option compared to other technologies. For example, in terms of capacity, while OFCs can offer bandwidth in tetrabits, copper is confined to 1.5-12 Mbps and microwave radio, up to 155 Mbps only.
Chauhan added that OFC deployment in the country will be driven by a number of factors. These include; the advent of next generation broadband technologies, increasing adoption of OFCs in backhaul and last mile access; availability of low-cost handsets and tablets and government initiatives to increase uptake of broadband services.
However, Chauhan pointed out that several challenges have to be addressed before OFCs can be deployed on a large scale. ?Factors such as the high cost of optical fiber; issues related to right-of-way; high total cost of ownership and limited availability are the major constraints,? he explains.
However, the technology has tremendous potential in India. According to Frost & Sullivan, the OFC market in the country has grown from $114.5 in 2010-2011 million to $127.5 million in 2011-2012, exhibiting a growth rate of 11.4 per cent.
Going forward, the OFC market is expected to be a $290.8 million one by 2018. The overall market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.5 percent between 2011 and 2018.
In sum, to ensure the technology is used to its full potential, Chauhan recommends that a one-window procedure be adopted for right of way issues across the country; dedicated ducts for OFCs be implemented and subsidies provided for rural deployment of fiber.
N. Ravi Shanker, administrator, Universal Services Obligation (USO) Fund made a presentation in the keynote address on Spotlight On National Optical Fiber Network Project. In his presentation, Shanker provided a background of the national optic fiber network (NOFN) project, as well as its current status.
Shanker said that the NOFN is aimed at connecting 2,50,000 gram panchayats. This project is expected to be completed by October 2013.
NOFN is expected to ensure that broadband connectivity of at least 100Mbps is available at each gram panchayat, and applications such as e-health, e-education, e-governance, e-commerce applications and video conferencing will be supported.
NOFN was approved by the government in October 2011 and is aimed at filling the gap between gram panchayats and blocks. This project will be implemented by Bharat Broadband Network Limited (BBNL).
This project has been envisaged as a joint effort by the state governments and the central government and the government is funding the project via the USO Fund. A tripartite memorandum of understanding is to be signed between the state and central government and BBNL. The sum of Rs 200 billion has been approved for the same
State governments are expected to contribute by not levying any right of way charges (including reinstatement charges), which are to be met by BSNL.
BBNL will function as the bandwidth provider in this project and will fill the existing gaps in the network. The NOFN will be used by operators, internet service providers and cable TV operators in a non-discriminatory manner and will be a B2B set up.
According to Shanker, currently, three pilot projects under the NOFN have been launched in Ajmer (connecting 30 gram panchayats), Visakhapatnam (connecting 17 gram panchayats) and North Tripura (connecting 11 gram panchayats) by BSNL, PGCIL and RailTel respectively. The technology used is GPON and the procedure of laying OFCs for these is expected to be completed by mid-October this year.
Going forward, tenders for NOFN are expected to be launched post October 2013. Meanwhile, the USO Fund is in talks with various state governments for RoW. Currently, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Daman & Diu have already given clearance; states like Rajasthan, UP and MP are in advanced stages
The keynote session on Telecom Operators: Needs and Requirements was a panel discussion between Anil Tandan, group chief technology officer, Idea Cellular, A.N. Rai, director, enterprise, BSNL and Jatinder Pal Sehdev, senior vice president, Bharti Airtel. Broadly, the panel concluded that data is likely to increase exponentially in the coming years. For instance, Tandan said that Idea Cellular launched its 3G services 15-18 months ago. Since then, while its 3G VLR is only 3 per cent of the total, it accounts for over 50 per cent of the company?s total data demand.
All three panelists agreed that OFC is the only solution to address the growing demand for data services. Also, they said that a single-window clearance for RoW is urgently required, which is so far the biggest concern for operators.
According to Bharti, only 50 per cent of the fibre networks that are sanctioned in a year actually get implemented. Idea, too, has been facing such problems wherein some projects have gotten delayed by three to four years.
Pointing out that OFC network maintenance has become a challenge, the panelists said that OFC networks need to become more resilient.
Currently, all operators have deployed 100 G and are testing 400 G; however, delivering this bandwidth to the last mile remains a challenge.
Alok Agnihotri, marketing manager, RailTel Corporation of India and Babu Varghese, general manager, networks, PowergGrid Corporation of India, made presentations in the keynote session on Infrastructure Providers: Plans and Perspectives.
According to the speakers, the roll-out of 3G and BWA networks in India has created huge bandwidth requirements in core and distribution networks. This, in turn, is expected to drive the demand for OFCs. In fact, the BTS access network is also likely to be on OFC.
Currently, OFC penetration in the country is low. Most of the service providers have extensive coverage of fibre backbone in metros and tier I cities, with extremely low coverage in other cities (with the exception of BSNL and RailTel). Rural areas have extremely poor coverage with mid-sized and small villages currently uncovered by any operator.
Also, lack of backbone infrastructure severely restricts deployment of broadband services. Significant investment in OFC infrastructure by the government is expected to play a key role in improving the overall broadband penetration.
Both companies also provided a snapshot of their OFC networks. RailTel currently has 45,000 RKm of OFC laid with 4,500 PoPs and 100 G capacity in a multiple ring architecture.
The company is the lead creator of the National Knowledge Network (NKN) and is implementing the USO Fund?s project for laying of OFC in the North East (approximately 18,383 km). Besides, it is partnering with BSNL and PGCIL to create the NOFN.
PowerTel, the telecom arm of Power Grid, has 25,039 km of existing fibre with 206 PoPs. It has planned to expansion this by 33,000 km, covering an additional 122 towns and cities.
It also has an MPLS-VPS network and provides overhead OFCs for NLD telecom networks. It is partnering with BSNL and RailTel to create the NOFN in a pilot project in Vizag.
It has already established connectivity to Bhutan and in the process of providing connectivity to Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
The session on Focus On Fiber To The Home had presentations by Anil Pande, director, FTTH Council, APAC and Vijay Jain, chief operating officer, Sterlite. The panelists concluded that globally, Asia is the leading market for OFCs, while Europe is progressing, in particular owing to Eastern countries. The also said that Japan remains the leading FTTH/B market in the world but it has reached maturity and is not growing very fast now.
In the session on New Products and Technologies, Shashin Patel, market development manager, Corning Optical Fiber said that high speed broadband and access capacity demand pose challenges for OFC transmission.
?The world is moving towards super connectivity, from current machine to user communication towards machine to machine communication,? Patel said.
He added that the growing capacity demand is driving the need for higher data rates; from the current 10G to 100G to 400G by 2015. This poses the OSNR challenge (where OSNR can be define as a direct function of effective area and an inverse function of fibre loss).
He said that at 100G, the OSNR level is about 10dB higher than that at 10G. This increases to about 16dB when moving towards 500G. So, advanced processes and systems can reduce the OSNR but while one needs to bear high costs in case of 100G, the reach becomes a challenge in 500G.
In this context, Patel said that a synergetic innovation of fibre and systems will play a key role in addressing future capacity needs. ?Advanced transmission technology (coherent detection and advanced modulation) and advanced low loss fibre technology will help in ensuring a smooth transition from present networks to future networks,? he concluded.
Kaustav Ghosh, advisor, consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers made a presentation in the session on OFC Network Economics. Ghosh said that there are a number of factors driving the deployment of OFCs in India. These include increasing bandwidth demand on access networks, the demand for services such as commercial leased lines, video streaming, real time surveillance etc,; high spectrum costs for wireless access network solutions and limited spectrum. ?Operators need much more spectrum to cater urban areas where demand for high speed data access is very high,? he explains.
With regard to the cost structure of OFCs, Ghosh broke up the components into deployment (46 per cent), CO actives (26 per cent), subscriber actives (16 per cent) and material (12 per cent). He added that the capex of OFCs included active and passive equipment (such as CPEs, optical fibre, protective ducts, etc) and deployment costs (hand holes, cabinets, etc).
The session on Applications on OFC had a presentation by Binu Nair, senior technical consultant, Cisco India. He said that customers are demanding sophisticated services and the demand for bandwidth is rising exponentially. Also, video is the most widely used application driving capacity demand and other bandwidth hungry applications on optical networks include high definition telepresence, tele-medicine and remote surgery, HD TV and IP TV, real time data, online gaming, connected communities and social media sites, like Facebook.
He added that key IP traffic drivers in India between 2011 and 2016 will be an increasing number of devices, faster broadband speeds and richer media content.
