Could Digitized Cables Ease India’s Broadband Woes?

Unlocking the potential of vast cable assets could give the country’s broadband ambitions some wired teeth and not just wireless wings

Industry watchers will readily vouch for the fact that India’s broadband numbers have miserably fallen short of the targets set by Broadband Policy of million subscribers by 2010, the country had achieved less than 11 million. That !

Yes, that was just before the 3G - " # $ $ $ % " & $ Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), ' * $ - scribers at the end of CY 2014, of which * $ & # %* $ " %* $ $ % $ % +

In other words, the broadband targets # # /5 5 " " Indeed, mobile broadband is good but not enough.

Mobile broadband is a means, not an end

6 $ are good enough for accessing a number $ $ $$ 7 $$ " # - 89 & # : # " " $ through a larger screen.

True, the fact remains that the broadband access goals could not be realized " $ 89 and the wireline—so low has been the in 89 of the wireline in India. (Low PC literacy # " - # # " ;

<" $ $ $ /5 be highly effective. Not only the cost # $ $ $ $ & # $ " $ shows to the average Indian user has = $ > $ : +8/ The superiority of our broadband internet services is primarily because of the technology we use and the quality of service we provide. We use “fiber to the home technology” using various mix of layer 2 and layer 3 data-com technologies for delivering the broadband services to the end customer. With experience of s everal years behind us, we have developed immense expertise in delivering these services to the end customer. We consider LTE technology as a complementary service which provides data option only for convenience of mobility. Irrespective of LTE-Advanced or dense LTE Small Cells, the LTE based service will never be able to match the products that ACT Fibernet is offering today. LTE-Advanced with its Carrier Aggregation feature will still be unable to economically provide dedicated 50Mbps or 100Mbps speeds at peak times. LTE uses shared spectrum and hence service providers will not be able to provide 1:1 contention ratio. ACT Fibernet always provides 1:1 contention for all customers at all times. Cable Operators are venturing with DOCSIS 3.0 based broadband services. DOCSIS 3.0 comes with its own technological limitation. More than 50 Mbps per subscriber will not be possible, and the medium is shared with a high contention ratio. We feel that there is ample opportunity for all operators, be it MSOs or Telcos in this space, especially considering that the Indian data market continues to be severely under-penetrated.