From local to global

— Dr. Gulshan Rai & BK Syngal

Telecommunication is a success story in the 72 years of independence that has metamorphosed India on to the world stage and has benefited the common man and, knowledge based services as well as the elite of the society. It is so far the fourth dimension of transportation after Land, Sea and Air. Space may be the next dimension of transportation, hopefully.

The combination of Technology, applications and regulation has brought in competition, affordability; usage enhanced and of course issues relating to security, there by resulting in the commoditisation of telecommunication. From an abysmally low teledensity of less than a tenth of a percent at the time of independence it has touched to the present level of 59% (as of Dec 2018) (most of it, though, in the last 15 years). More than 98% of the telephone density as well as market are contributed by mobile (wireless).

Having a phone at home meant that one is some one of very high standing in the society or a very senior government executive. From “Aap katar mein hain, kripya pratiksha kijiye” literally translated means “you are in a queue, please wait”, the country now have katar (queue) of telemarketers bending over backwards to offer mobile phones. In the days gone by it was pretty normal to wait for 12 hours for a phone call from Delhi to Jaipur or calling fiancé from the jungles of Assam, hilltops and valleys of J&K (while installing microwave stations in the mid ‘60s) to Calcutta or any other place and that too after walking some few miles either to a post office or to the high and mighty. The joke used to be that if you wanted a phone for your ward, book it when you got married; 10 to 15 years was the norm.

All this commoditization is the end product of the evolution or emergence of regulation, technology and applications in telecomm. It is all changed for the benefit of common person, the society and India. Connectivity has brought jobs and increased knowledge based export of services. For example in 1991 the knowledge based export used to be about USD 40 million and in Dec 2018 it was more than USD 125 billion. Knowledge based industry has generated employment for millions of our youths. The industry is world’s most competitive and fastest growing

Emerging technologies, miniaturisation and their applications? The technology moved away from wires strung on poles, to coaxial cables, satellites, fibre and from Analogue to Digital connectivity resulting in many fold increases in capacities for both domestic and international digital connectivity? Internet, international connectivity has increased from some 2000 simultaneous conversations to god alone knows how many! From a meagre few megahertz (bits) in 1991 to terahertz (bits) today resulting in from hours of wait time to get connected, we get connected in the blink of an eye.

The connectivity band width has evolved from 90 bits per second in the 19th century to Hundred (100) terabits or so in the 21st century. Strong policy support from the government has also been crucial to the sector’s development. FDI cap in the telecom sector has been

increased to 100%. The National Digital Communication policy, 2018 is expected to catalyse the growth further. Investment of USD 100 billion is envisaged in this sector by 2022. 5G Connectivity though delayed but will take the growth of the sector and in economy to mind boggling imagination. It is expected to be playing lead role to USD 5-trillion economy. Telecommunications in India is in process of transformation to next generation network. of the conversion of telecomm from being an elitist’s tool to common man’s support. Connectivity has become that vital tool in the hands of every discipline, health, medicine, agriculture, entertainment and technology. Connectivity has provided flow or transportation of information at speeds of light, which has changed the way we live, think and execute; yearning for more of the same with each passing second. One may live without food, but without connectivity everybody feels helpless.

Submarine cable only 3% of communication traffic is through satellites. It may be mentioned that number of satellite transponders in use in the country has also increased manifold. The success story of growth of satellite communication is similar to Telecommunication Sector (Terrestrial, wireless and submarine).

The global telecoms industry went through a period of turmoil during the early part of the new millennium. The domestic Indian market was largely protected from this due to the growth phase that it was in. However, as an example some very large undersea optical fiber network players got overextended and in financial trouble. A number of Indian giants saw these distressed assets as an opportunity for India and they bought them at reasonable prices. Reliance ADA Group bought FLAG Telecom, of the UK; and Tata, through its VSNL subsidiary, bought Teleglobe of Canada and Tyco Global Network of the US.

These acquired companies are now once again major players in global networks. Now that the global capacity glut has been worked off, prices for bandwidth are once again on the rise. This means that the Indian telecom has the opportunity to have the same kind of disruptive effect on the global telecom industry that the country’s software industry is having on tech services.

The potential for Indian companies to connect countries in SE Asia and Africa so far have been on the other side of the digital divide with global connectivity encircling the whole globe with fiber loops has huge implications for developing nations. This means everybody gets equal access to bandwidth. Indian companies are contributing to the global economy as now there will be an opportunity for other emerging nations to have a shot at the global economy just like India did a decade ago

With high quality international and national telecommunication network, and world class IT and management professionals, India has become one of the most preferred destinations for sourcing software and IT enabled services. In comparison to other low cost locations, India ranks high in several critical parameters including the level of government support; quality of the labour pool; English language skills; cost advantage; project management skills, entrepreneurial culture, strong customer relationships and exposure to new technologies, industry’s strong focus on quality software and processes, Institutes of Science and Technology, R&D Laboratories. However more needs to be done to develop the R&D environment. Enabling further industry collaboration with our premier institutions of higher learning will augment the talent pool for R&D and in turn facilitate development of state-of-the-art technology. This is needed not just to benefit the global economy but to also promote country specific innovation.

We are on the brink of a revolution in India. Indian companies are enhancing their global service delivery capabilities through a combination of green field initiatives, cross-border mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and alliances with local players. Telecoms connectivity is at the heart of this revolution.

Proper regulation is especially important in telecom as is the importance of intellectual property and industry standards. Global rules of the game have traditionally been set largely by the U.S., together with Europe, with others coerced and cajoled to go along. But the developing countries are beginning to resist and this is leading to increasing divisions within the developed world about what should be the rules of the game. Success has always entailed trying to shape, understand, and take advantage of “regulatory” environment. This will continue to be case in the future. However it will be more complex both politically and economically. There are risks and uncertainties about future directions of the global economy and this will require diversified approaches. The guiding principles will still be around more openness, less protection, more competition.

This is an area that India has been slow to react to. Technology evolution or emergence is irrelevant in the absence of proper regulation. For close to fifty years we suffered from no regulation because of government monopoly and a vice like control in telecomm sector. In 1997 the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was set up to strike a balance between a government

monopoly and private sector companies. Had that not been done, the fruits of technology and applications would not have been possible for bringing in commoditisation of telecomm connectivity

At present, regulatory issues related to telecom in India are in the process of maturation, most tariffs are forborne providing healthy competition. There are remnant issues of spectrum pricing which are getting resolved to be in line with international best practices to establish the true economical value of this scare national resource.

Such a technology was developed with growing demand of video and data services.

Earlier technologies like ATM and ISDN could not handle the multimedia applications. The wireless mobile evolved from SMS to 3G, GPRS, EDGE, LTE, LTA, Internet Protocol (IP) are current backbone structure. The trend is to move towards 5G next generation technologies which would offer seamless connectivity with low latency and higher bandwidth to billions of heterogeneous devices wide range of competitors’, mobile phones, devices, Drones, health equipment, Industry and defence. The Government has already planned to conduct field trials so as to undertake feasibility for deploying 5G. A complex Next Generation Communication network is on the way in the next 2-3 years.

interconnection interfaces. This possibility of intruders gaining access irrespective of geographical location terminal. especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big data, Internet of things (IDT) and cloud computing.

Telecom security