Computers Today, June 1-15, 2000; Telecomment

June 1-15, 2000 TELECOM

Can Bandwidth be a Non-issue?

Is Your Business E-compatible?

T.H. Chowdary

What would a full information society require by way of bits of information as the world population increases and all of them freely communicate with one another? According to an estimate, for a 6 billion population, the bits required are 1018. They vary from as few as 9.6 Kbps for E-mail and mere voice communication to 6 Mbps for full motion TV-quality video. How do we get this much transmission capacity in the world?

In the Nordic countries, North America, Japan and some countries in the European Union, a tremendous amount of bandwidth is being created by diverse enterprises like railways and water carriers, besides telcos. Across the oceans, private non-telecom companies are constructing submarine cable systems which promise capacities in the range of terabits and, very soon, petabits. The transmission capacity of various systems has also been increasing. Moreover, the cost of construction of under-ocean cables has been coming down spectacularly and so has been the cost per one minute of telephone conversation.

The Mobile Teledensity

People now want to talk not only from their telephone instruments in their homes and offices but from devices which are palm-held or pocket-kept-that is, while they are on the move. The fixed telephone densities in the developed countries have reached a plateau. They cannot increase far beyond the number of homes in a country. But if mobile communications are affordable and technically feasible, then every person above the age of 10 and below 85 years would want a mobile telephone. That means, while the fixed-wire teledensity may plateau off at about 55-60 per cent, the mobile teledensity can be as high as around 85 per cent. As the mobile teledensity increases, the revenue per mobile will go down if the uses remain limited to voice only. But if the Net becomes accessible, then the traffic will grow considerably because of applications like banking and conferencing

An abundance of bandwidth is required to enable every person access the Net on mobile phones. Optical fibres promise that by use of ultra-deep wave division multiplexing (UDWDM), wherein each fibre carries upwards of 40 laser beams, each of 10 Gbps. While optical fibres will provide the intra-city inter-node and inter-city transport of information, mobiles will use higher frequencies, in the 28-40 GHz bands, so that each person can avail of more than 2 Mbps.

Enabling the Enablers

The question is: how can we realise these benefits and exploit the technology's potential in our country? The answer is simple. We should encourage competition. There should be unlimited number of players. Most importantly, there should be no entrance fees, no licence fees and no revenue sharing. If for five years we allow such a regime, then we will also have an abundance of information services (IS) and the optical fibre transport infrastructure.

China is doing everything to ensure broadband bandwidth is available throughout the country. It is eager to join the WTO precisely to facilitate the flow of foreign investment and to make China a dominant player in international economic exchanges. The key, therefore, for policy makers in India is to make bandwidth available everywhere and not treat telecom and IS as generators of revenue but as enablers of human and economic development.

The writer is ex-chairman of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd

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