Welcome to PC's Telecom Blog!

Welcome to PC’s Telecom Blog (http://pctelecoms.blogspot.com)!

Hi friends, I’ve been thinking about adding a telecom blog to my network for a very long time! The reason being, I started my career in electronics and telecom back in 1989.

I had the privilege of being part of Asian Sources Telecom Products — a site, which I managed and built, with the help of my team and colleagues at Asian Sources Media, and later, Global Sources. Later, I moved on to Wireless Week, USA, as Asia Pacific Editor for the Asian Edition.

Back in India, I managed Convergence Plus for a short while, before launching four sites for CIOL in 2004 — Mobility, Networking, Storage and Security.

Given this background in telecommunications, it is apt for me to start a blog on this subject as well. Telecom has been my forte, and well, it is a subject that has also won me four awards in technology journalism, while at Global Sources.

Again, this blog has been spun out off my award winning blog! That blog remains unchanged, and will continue to carry top-quality, world class content!

This blogs will now include specific blog posts related to telecommunications, as well as press releases, industry updates, new products, features, statistics, etc. It will cover wireless, wireline, broadband, networking, optical networking, Test & Measurement, etc.

Thanks for your kind support as always. Suggestions for improvements are always welcome! 🙂

Broadband hasn't grown as expected in India

Yes, I believe so! The numbers, if one were to contend with those alone, DO NOT meet the expectations. Broadband was and is considered to be the new paradigm of India. However, are we anywhere near whatever growth we have been expecting? Let’s see the stats for the various telecom segments.

According to the statistics made available by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the total number of telephone subscribers was 232.87 million at the end of July 2007, and the overall teledensity had increased to 20.52!

In the wireless segment, 8.06 million subscribers were added in July 2007 and the total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and WLL (F)) base was 192.98 million. The wireline segment subscriber base stood at 39.89 million, with a decline of 0.20 million in July 2007.

And what about broadband? For broadband (≥256Kbps downloads), the total broadband connections in the country had reached only 2.47 million by the end of July 2007. In fact, during July 2007 there was an addition of 0.05 million connections!

Let’s go back a few months! Venkat Kedalya of Convergent Communications had pointed out in an article to CIOL that India was nowhere on course to reach a target of 9 million broadband subscribers by this year! India has a target of achieving 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010, which now seems to be highly ambitious and well, unachievable!

Allocation of frequencies for BWA (broadband wireless access) is the immediate need of the moment. There is a need to look at WiMax and broadband over powerline (BPL) as far as technology is concerned. Some folks have entered the IPTV domain, so hopefully, we will get to see some content over broadband.

Even TRAI has urged the government to boost broadband growth. One of its suggestions has been to ask BSNL and MTNL to adopt a franchisee model so that local players may use their copper cables and offer high-speed Internet services. Decisions need to be taken for allocating spectrum for WiMax as well as making the National Internet Exchange of India more effective.

TRAI said: “Only 0.47 million broadband subscribers have been added in first six months of 2007, which is far below the growth trend required to achieve broadband policy targets. This necessitated an analysis of regulatory and policy frameworks, and to formulate new approach necessary for rapid roll-out of broadband in the country.”

TRAI also accepts that while the growth of Internet subscribers was satisfactory, we are seriously lagging behind as far as broadband is concerned. It adds: “The government should ensure availability of more number of Ku-band transponders to roll out broadband services through DTH platform and utilize Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund to provide subsidy for providing broadband services through satellite in remote and hilly areas.”

I’m not really sure how all of this will help. You do need at least a PC to access the Internet services. Am not sure how many folks are still willing to invest in home PCs and broadband, given that watching TV is a favorite pastime. Broadband over cable TV has not been a success either. What are we doing about this?

Low-cost mobile broadband access for all

Today, the cell phone has become a commodity, a comman man’s device. In India, especially in the metros, it is hard to find someone not carrying a cell phone. It has become so convenient to use one.

Imagine what it used to be a decade back. Cell phone prices were very high as were the call charges. Today, the story has reversed. It has been well established that Wireless is the most cost-effective way to bridge the digital divide.

Higher prices of handsets were posing a barrier to growth in developing countries. This has changed considerably since. Lowering of handset prices has ensured that the maximum growth has been in the developing countries.

However, more needs to be done as the rural-urban ‘digital’ divide is still significant. We first heard of ultra low-cost US $40 handsets a couple of years back. These were developed to lower the entry barrier in developing countries and to connect the unconnected.

We also saw US $30 handsets come into the fray. And now, low-cost 3G handsets are starting to do the rounds.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the operators, the handset vendors and their partners — all need to be congratulated for having done such commendable work.

However, more needs to be done to truly make low-cost access available to all. ITU has recommended in its paper that low-cost 3G handsets “would create economies of scale for handset makers and their component suppliers. It would also make third-generation mobile services accessible to a much wider user base. The handsets will be available at a wholesale price about 30 percent less than the typical entry-level 3G phone and fully-competitive with the multimedia second-generation handsets on sale today.”

This will happen eventually. And, when it does, these low-cost 3G handsets would become affordable mobile broadband devices for the masses. This would be the first step toward providing true mobile broadband low-cost access for all!