The past few months have been the toughest on personal front in life with some serious health issues to immediate family members and hence was completely out of sync. Trying to get back now 🙂
Earlier this week, the Government under attack for 2G Scam and for not taking the reforms process forward made some bold announcements under the National Telecom Policy 2011 – but doesn’t spell out how it is going to implement the same without Scams and Controversies. I’d like to analyze them in separate threads [Broadband, Telecom Services, Licensing & Spectrum, etc] starting with my favorite – Broadband.
Finally, 5 years after I re-named this blog as “GoBroadband” our Government has realized its importance. Here are the major proposals for enhancing Broadband Connections [Wired / Wireless] in India.
The broad strategy of National Telecom Policy – NTP 2011 is to move towards Unified License regime in order to exploit the attendant benefits of Convergence. The focus will be on promotion of Telephony and Broadband and not revenue generation.
I am very happy that NTP is strongly focused on improving broadband availability, given its potential to empower citizens and improve economic development. The policy envisages Broadband on Demand to any Indian. Minimum speed to be upgraded to 512 Kbps in the near future which will eventually scale to 2 Mbps by 2015.
It also emphasizes to povide high speed, high quality broadband access to all village panchayats through optical fibre by 2014 for e?panchayat, e?governance, ADHAAR [UIDAI], AAKASH initiatives etc. in key sectors like social, health, education, banking etc For this, the Government will open the OFC to all operators which will be laid using the Telecom Operators contributed Universal Service Obligation Fund.
The Government also want to encourage independent Infrastructure Providers (IPs) to lay Fiber To The Home [FTTH] for faster transformation of cities and towns into wired societies. Not very clear on how they want to achieve this.
NTP 2011 – Broadband Connections Target
175mn broadband subscribers by 2017 and 600mn by 2020, an ambitious plan given that there were just 12.5mn broadband subscribers at the end of July 2011 [TRAI Data]. In the past I have repeatedly requested TRAI to incorporate EVDO as Broadband Connections but in vain.
Broadband Subscriber Base in India:
12.5 Mn TRAI Data at the end of July-2011.
EVDO Connections – MTS MBlaze has 800,000 Connections at end of Sept-2011. The company has added 400,000 connections in the last 6 months.
Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ had 2 Mn in Jan-2011, which could have easily reached 3 Mn now going by the rate at which MBlaze has grown. Tata Photon+ keeps its subscriber base top secret for unknown reasons, but it could be the same or little higher than Reliance. Conservatively add another 1 Mn from BSNL EVDO, WiMax, etc. So in all their are around 7-7.5 Mn EVDO / Wireless based Broadband connections. So pure Broadband Data Connections / Subscribers in India [DSL, FTTH, Cable, EVDO, WiMax] is around 20 Mn.
3G Data Connections – Broadband or Not ?
Idea Cellular has 2 Mn 3G Subscribers. Assuming similar base for Airtel, Vodafone and others we have around 10 Mn 3G subscribers. I am reasonably sure that NTP 2011 assumes 3G as a broadband connection, i can’t think of a reason why it should not be so. Do you ?
Total Broadband Subscriber Base in India
Thus we have 12.5 Mn [Wired] + 7.5 Mn EVDO / Other Wireless broadband connections + 10 Mn 3G Data Subscribers = 30 Mn Broadband Subscribers.
3G Data Connections – Projections
By 2014, Airtel’s 3G Subscriber base is expected to reach 25 Mn. Similar projections for Vodafone and Idea Cellular. RCom expected to lag at 18 Mn so should others be. Even if BSNL, Tata and Aircel add similar numbers, we will have around 140 Mn 3G Data Connections.
A target of 175 Mn broadband connections by 2017 is reasonable and achievable as operators will roll out yet another kind of broadband / data service – LTE / 4G for which spectrum has already been auctioned and allocated.
Stay tuned for the next thread – Telecom Services in NTP 2011.
Based on http://convergence.in/blog/2011/10/25/idea-cellular-to-launch-android-smartphone-justifies-3g-roaming-as-legal/
3G Active Data Users are just 30%. Thus total broadband subscriber base will be 23 Mn in the above post and not 30 Mn.
Target of 175 Mn within the next 6 years is still doable.