• Historical Perspective of Indian Telecomm.

• Indian Satellite Programs

• National Telecommunication policy 1994
• New Telecommunication policy 1999
• Telecommunication status in 2002
• Problems of Universal access affordability
• Possible solutions
• Summary
1
 Historical Perspective
Telecommunication Technology Development (Chronology)

• Telecommunication with Morse Code : 1845-1847

• First Telegraph office in India (Calcutta) : 1852
• ITU established with 20 European countries : 1865
• Trans-Atlantic cable US - France : 1866
• London - Bombay 1870
• Invention of Telephone by Bell : 1876
• First manual exchange in India (50 lines, Cal.) : 1882
• Indian Telegraph act : 1885
• J. C. Bose transmits wireless In lab. : 1895
• Marconi demonstrates wireless tx. UK-France : 1899
• Indian wireless act : 1933
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• Electronic Switching : 1955
• First artificial satellite (USSR Sputnik) : 1957
• STD started in India (Kanpur - Lucknow) : 1960
• First Indian artificial satellite for expt. (Aryabhatta) 1974
• Cellular telephony in Tokyo : 1979
• India decides to phase out Strowger excg. : 1984
• GSM in 13 European countries : 1988
• Tim Burner Lee (CERN) proposes www & html : 1990
• Commercial impact of www felt in world : 1992
• Indian Telecomm. Policy opens for pvt. Sector : 1994
• Internet service launched in India : 1995
• Telecom. Reg. Authority of India set-up : 1997
• Indian engg. Education opens for pvt. Institutions : 1998
• First private landline service in India (Indore) : 1998
3
• Long distance telephony opened for competition : 1999
• Lucent, Motorola, TI opens design offices in India : 1997-1999
• Information Technology Ministry set-up with IT bill : 2000
• Dept. of IT merged with Ministry of Comm. : 2001
• WLL makes presence in India : 2001
• VoIP permitted in India : April 2002
• WLL makes its wide spread impact in India : Jan 2003
• Price reduction and competition between
POTS, WLL and GSM : Feb. 2003

• India producing 300,000 Engineers in 2000 engg. colleges

(50 percent of them in Elx, Comp, Instru and IT) : 2001 -2003

4
 Indian Satellite Program : An overview

• Establishment of TERLS as sounding rockets launching station

at magnetic equator (Trivendrum - India) : 1963
• TERLS dedicated to UN : 1968
• ISRO established under DAE : 1969
• Dept. of Space established : 1972
• First Indian satellite (Aryabhatta) launched for radio astronomy and
remote sensing : 1975
• Satellite Instructional TV expt. (SITE) and Satellite Telecom.
Expt. Project (STEP) : 1975-1977
• First development model of Satellite launch vehicle SLV-3
launched with RS-D1 satellite : 1981
• Arian Passenger pay-load Expt. (APPLE) an expt’al GSO comm.
Satellite launched by ESA rocket from Kourou, French Guyana : 1981
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• Multi-purpose Indian Satellite (INSAT -1A) launched : 1982 (with
1B, 1C etc to follow and ASLV program)
• INSAT - 1D launched : : 1990
• INSAT - 2A, the first satellite of indigenously built II generation
INSAT series : : 1992 (with lot of learning experience
from 2B, 2C, 2D, PSLV, IRS etc)
• PSLV - DIII places IRS - D3 in sun-sync. Polar orbit : 1996
• INSAT 2E (last of multi-purpose INSAT 2 series launched
using Arian) : 1999
• PSLV-C2 launched with IRS-D4, Korean Kitsat-3 and Greman DLR-
TUBSAT : 1999
• INSAT - 3B launched using Arian : 2000
• GSLV tested with experimental satellite GSAT-1 :2001
• PSLV-C3 puts Belgium PROBA and German BIRD satellite in
polar orbit. : 2001
• INSAT - 3C launched (74 E) : 2002
6
• INSAT being largest domestic communication satellite system in
Asia-Pacific region with INSAT-2C, 2DT, 2E, 3B and 3C in operation
• The capacity to indigenously design, develop, and test GSO satellite
completely developed
• Antrix as a commercial out-let of ISRO in operation
• PSLV commercially available
• GSLV in final development state
• The complete program is for peaceful use and the whole of ISRO is
administered by civil (non-military) officials.

7
Transponder 2C 2DT 3E 3B 3C Total
payloads

C-band 12 25 12 - 24 73

Ext. C-Band 6 - 5 12 6 29

Ku-band3 - - 3 - 06

S-band 1 1 - - 2 4

S-MSS 1 - - 1 1 3

VHRR - - 1 - - 1

CCD - - 1 - - 1

Payloads on INSAT Satellites in service 8

 INSAT Services
1. Telecommunications
a. 550 telecom terminals of various sizes and capacity providing more
than 5000 2-way speech circuits
(140 fixed and captive, 20 transportable, 358 VSAT)
b. 800 micro terminals connecting all district HQ of India for National
Informatics Centre Network (NIC Net)
c. 260 VSATs for remote area business management network
d. 34 Mbps (2 Nos.) Digital Network between Metros

9
2. Mobile Satellite Services
a. Low bit rate, encoded voice, data and fax services (called INSAT mobile
telephony) using demand assigned SCPC channels with mobile terminals
( Emergency services )
b. One Way messaging system (INSAT reporting system) using shared
channels at low bit rate

3. Television
a. 33 TV channels operational through C-band transponders of INSAT for
national networking services (DD-1), Metro Service (DD-2) and Digital
Satellite news gathering, Regional language service etc
b. Educational TV (Gyandarshan) and syllabus based programmes for
students (IGNoU)

4. Radio Networking (RN-AIR) with 45 regional channels

5. Tele-medicine (VSAT), meteorology, satellite aided search and rescue (406

MHz), standard time and frequency transmission etc.
10
 INSAT System Satellite Parameters

C and Ext-C band

EIRP > 38 dBW
G/T better than -5 dB/deg K
Coverage India and wide

Ku band
EIRP > 46 dBW
G/T better than -2 dB/deg K
Coverage India

S-Band
EIRP > 42 dBW
G/T better than -5 dB/deg K
Coverage India and neighbouring countries

11
 New INSAT Services (Plans)

1. Development of Communication Services

Educational TV Services
Tele-medicine Experiments
Social Development Services

2. Engineering Services
Multimedia and Broadband Services
ISP Connectivity
Satellite Navigation Services

12
Expected Growth of Transponders and VSATs in INSAT

Year No. Of Transponders No. of VSATs

2001 77 16,000

2004 195 20,000

2007 251 30,000 (17,000 for VPT)

Only Government can invest money in such long term programmes

13
 INSAT Services

1. All Telecom services of BSNL/DOT including VPT

( “Dakiya Phone Laya” i.e. postman brings cell phone to village )
2. All TV channels of DD
3. Digital RN carriers of AIR
4. VSAT Services

Data Relay Transponder Service of INSAT

1. Meteorological Data collection (Temperature, Humidity etc.)
(Balloon launching data collection platform)
2. Rainfall Data collections
3. 406 MHz Transponder for search and rescue beacons

14
 National Telecom Policy 1994
Need Analysis
• New Economic Policy of GoI aims at Improving
India’s Competitiveness in global market to
promote exports.
• Attract direct foreign investments and stimulate
domestic investments in the field of
telecommunication
• Highest priority in developing telecom services in
the country

15
Objectives of NTP 1994

• Telecom within reach to all and phones on demand

as fast as possible
• Basic Telecom services to all villages as early as
possible at reasonable price
• To provide telecom service of world standard, fast
settlement of complaints and dispute resolution
• Setup major manufacturing base and export of
telecom equipment
• Protect Security interests of India

16
Status of Indian Telecommunication - 1994

• Tele-density 0.8 per 100

(World average 10 per 100)
• 8 Million fixed telephone lines with 2.5 Million in
waiting
• Out of 600,000 villages only 140,000 have phones
• 100,000 STD-PCOs in country
(i.e. 1 per 2000, mostly in urban area)

17
Targets of NTP - 1994

• Telephone on demand by 1997

• All villages to be covered by 1997
• PCO for every 500 people in urban area by 1997
(share and care concept)
• value added services by 1996
(E-mail, voice mail, radio paging, cellular phone etc.)

18
Criteria for selection of Private Company
• 10 years track record of the company
• Compatibility of technology
• Usefulness of Technology for future development
• Protection of National Security Interest
• Ability to Give best QoS at competitive cost
• Attractiveness of commercial terms to DOT
(license fee)
• Balance of coverage between urban and rural areas
• Based on beauty contest criterion (presentation)
19
Telecom Expansion Status - last 10 Years

1992 7.0 Million Fixed Phones

1994 10.05 Million

1997 15.8 Million

2002 40 Million

20
 New Telecom Policy 1999
Need Analysis
• GoI recognizes the need of world class telecommunication
infrastructure and information as key for
– Rapid economic and social development of the country
– Wide spread advantage spreading of this growth throughout the
nation
– Major part of the GDP of the country in future to be contributed
by and depends on the telecommunication

Telecommunication is not a luxury but basic need of Indian

Economy

21
Review of NTP 1994 in 1999

Targets of NTP-1994 Status in 1999

1 PCO per 500 in city 1 PCO per 522

Coverage to 0.6 M villages coverage to 0.3 M villages
7.5 M telephone lines 8.7 M telephone lines

22
Learning lessons of NTP-1994 Review

• Government alone cannot provide resources to

meet the targets set
• Investment and involvement of private sector is
needed to bridge the resource gap
• In 1993 Government permitted only value added
services (paging, cellular) to private operators.
• Need to Extend privatization in all sectors of
telecommunication

23
Status of TelCos in 1999
• 8 CMTS operators in 4 metros
• 14 CMTS operators in 18 state circles (only 9
operational)
• 6 BTS operators in 6 state circles (with obligation
to cover rural areas)
• 6 paging operators in 27 cities and in 18 state
circles
• VSAT service liberalize for private data services
to closed user groups (banks, LIC, stock
exchange)
24
Lessons from NTP 1994
• Result of privatization - not entirely satisfactory
in terms of fulfilling rural telecom commitment
• CMTS has 1 M subscriber (1999) but
– actual revenue realized far short of projections
– operators unable to arrange finance for expansion
• BTS commenced only in 2 out of 6 state circles
• the NTP 1994 must be modified to avoid wrong
signals going to private operators
• Due to convergence the policy of separate
licenses for basic, cellular, ISP, satellite and cable
TV need to be reviewed
25
Objectives of NTP 1999
• Access to telecommunication is most important to achieve
national, social and economic growth
• Affordable and effective communication for all urban and
rural citizen
• Balance between universal services to all uncovered areas
and provision of high level services meeting needs of
country’s economy
• Encourage and enforce deployment of telecom facilities in
rural, hilly and tribal areas
• Modern and efficient telecom infrastructure taking into
account convergence of IT (SW), media (news), telecom and
consumer electronics and strive to become IT superpower by
2020
26
Objectives of NTP 1999 cont….
• Strengthen educational and R&D activities in the country
• Achieve efficiency and transparency in spectrum
management
• Protect defense and security interest of the country
• Enable Indian Telecom Companies to become truly global
player

27
 Targets of NTP - 1999
• Telephone on demand by 2002
• Tele-density of 7 by 2005 (70 M phones)
15 by 2010 (150 M phones)
• Encourage Deployment of telecommunication in rural areas
with suitable tariff structure and Rural communication
mandatory to all fixed service providers (0.29 M villages
uncovered in 1999)
• Increase rural tele-density form 0.4 to 4 by 2010
• Reliable transmission media to all exchanges by 2002 and
subsequently to all villages
• provide internet access to all district HQ by 2002
• provide high speed data transmission capabilities to all towns
with population more than 200,000 by 2002 28
 New class of operators NTP - 1999
• Access providers : CMSP, FSP and cable TV service
providers
• Radio paging service providers
• Public mobile radio truncking service providers
• National long distance operators
• International long distance operators
• Global mobile personal communication by satellite service
providers
• VSAT based service providers

Sharing of infrastructure in any other service provider permitted

and license given for 12 years
29
 Targets achieved by Dec 2002

• 1000 M people with 180 M households

– 40 M fixed lines ( 6 M in 1990)
– 8 M mobile phones
– 2 M internet connections

• Revised target with reference to NTP 1999

– 100 M phone lines by 2005 - 70 (NTP-1999 projection)
– 200 M phone lines by 2010 - 150 (NTP-1999 projection)

30
 Presence of TelCos in 2002
• Fixed lines and IS 95 based WLL
– BSNL : 38 M lines (out of 40 M lines)
– Reliance Telecom : Aggressive startup
– Bharati (TouchTel-AirTel), Tata, MTNL, HFCL, Shyam etc.

• Cellular operators
– Bharati, Tata, Hutchitson and some regional entrants
– BSNL, MTNL (new entrants) - economic national roaming (CellOne)

• Internet Service Providers

– More than 100
– VSNL,Satyam being dominant (vsnl.com, satyam.com)

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 Confidence level of Operators
• Telecomm. Industry confident of meeting 100 M target
(2005) with major regulatory bottlenecks removed
• Public confidence and usage increases as
– Long distance call reduce from 0.6 $ per minute to 0.18$ per minute
– 0.09 $ per minute between 9 pm and 6 am
– International call charges reduced by 40 %
– VoIP market grows rapidly
– Charges are expected to go further down
– VCC cards and VPT in all villages
– mobile charges falling rapidly
– Cable operators providing internet connectivity

• Short-term goals being achieved and primary bottlnecks being

removed, what will be the long term goal achieving scenario.
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 Affordability will be the major issue

• Telephone infra-structure costs 650 $ per line

– The cost of back-bone component is reducing (fiber-optic)
– Access n/w cost, which is the two-third of the total cost is same
– Access part of the network requires maximum service, dedicated link
and contributes to the most of the operation and maintenance cost
• Access network needs focus of attention for cost reduction
• Break-even point for TelCos
– Finance charges 15 % (Commercial loan int. rate)
– Depreciation 10 % (10 year span of excg.)
– Operation and maintenance cost 10 %
– 35 % of 650 $ (225 $) is the required yearly revenue for break even
– What percentage of Indian household can afford telephone bill
of 20 $ month assuming that a house-hold can afford 7 % of 33
income for comm. ?
Yearly house % of house-holds affordability monthly
hold income exp. On comm affordability

> 5000 $ 1.6 % > 350 $ >

30 $

2500 - 5000 $ 6.3 % 175-350 $ 15 - 30 $

2500 - 1000 $ 23.3 % 70 - 175 $ 6 - 15 $

500 - 1000 $ 31.8 % 35 - 70 $ 3-

6$

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
60 %
34
• In west
– 90 % of house-holds can afford 30 % per month on comm
– Hence, 1000 $ investment per line is viable in USA
• In India
– only 1.6 % can afford such cost of communication
– 200 M people in India (middle class) have yearly income
more than 1000 US $
– they can afford 70 $ yearly bill (6 $ per month)
– To get this huge market, per line network cost in India
should reduced by a factor by 3 or 4
– Challenge for Indian scientists and engineers to cut down
on technology costs (and this experience can be useful to
other developing countries)
35
 Some possible and tried solutions in India

• Local operations by self-employed persons.

– The operation cost of self-employed small business man/woman is 3 to
4 times less than that of an organized corporate sector
– STD-PCOs in India are some times run in small part of the house, with
xerox machine, fax facility and computer for e-mail, typing (share
and care the resources including the human resource)
• Local service provider (LSP) to provide access network to
subscribers
– Cable TV network in India works in the same way
– Lower cost of operation, more market due to face-face relations
• Access Network can be made totally licensee free so that LSP
can hook to back-bone network with revenue sharing
– This will encourage large number of LSPs who have small amount of
money to invest
36
• Access Network is the issue
– Public village telephones - 3 per village
– Post man comes with cell phone
– Wireless in Local Loop (CorDECT based)
technology indigenously developed by IITM
– Access centers providing POTS, WLL and DSL
services (DSL being most needed in developing
countries)
– Fiber in local loop to the villages where the
copper was never laid (advt. Of delayed tech)
37
 Summary

• Till 1984 personal telecommunication was considered as luxury and

service needed by privileged business man or professionals and hence
had low priority (Since telecomm. Is investment intensive, food,
water, education had higher priority)
• Stress on mass education via satellite (wide spread country) thus
satellite program got the boost (ISRO under civil control)
• 1984 : Production and installation of digital excg. Started on wide
spread, development of indigenous C-DOT rural exchanges
• Before 1993 telecomm was considered as national safety issue and a
part of social service (like Indian Railways) with Govt. Support only
• NTP were formulated in 1994 and revised in 1999 with increasing
stress on privitization

38
• NTP-1994 problem
– Very high license fee (total 0.35 b$ earned as fee) (same as
3G European market trend), since the return of revenue did
not match the prediction therefore companies were on brink
of bankruptcy
• NTP-1999
– Revenue sharing model being developed with more
deregulations for long distance etc.
– Telecomm. Picks up
– Deployment of technologies suitable for Indian
geographical, economical and social requirements (eg. One
phone per family, STD-PCO model, VPT model )
39
• Today all district HQ have reliable link (fiber), and satellite
connection at the HQ office
• 40 M phones, 8 M mobile and 2 M internet and all the three
services are available on demand in urban areas with
improved QoS
• Information and Communication Ministries merged.
• Regional language softwares being developed
• Access at economical cost is the big issue with WLL as one
possible soln.
• India has the capability, open policy has shown its
advantages, more deregulation is the key issue.
40
 References

• BSNL annual report 2001 - 2002

• Department of space, GoI, annual report 2001-2002
• Perspective plan for telecommuncation services : Ministry
of Comm. And Info. Tech. GoI, 2000-2010
• www.trai.gov.in
• www.tenet.res.in (IIT Madras research group)
• www.nasscom.org
• www.dotindia.com
• www.mtnl.net.in
• www.bsnl.co.in
• www.goodnewsindia.com
41
 Some universally valid quotations
• There is enough on the earth to meet everybody’s need but not
sufficient to meet anybody’s greed. - Mahatma Gandhi

• It is not the resources it is their utilization that matters

- Nobel laureate C. V. Raman
• Governments are good planners, and industries are good
executers but not necessarily the vice-versa.
• Internet, mobile and television can add or reduce your
productivity depending upon how you use it.

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• THANK YOU

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