Indian telecom operators and the UPA government never tried to focus on broadband coverage. That’s why mobile phone and fixed line users are still complaining about poor speed and coverage. BJP-led NDA government, PM Narendra Modi and telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad can learn from the achievements made by European Commission (EC).
IHS Technology in a survey for European Commission said next generation access technologies doubled since 2010 and now cover 62 percent of EU homes.
Compared to 2012, an additional 20.5 million homes received access to high-speed broadband (at least 30 Mbps download speed) in 2013. Indians are still talking about 1 Mbps.
Fixed broadband coverage in rural areas increased from 79.9 percent to 89.8 percent in two years as governments in many Member States focus on improving rural broadband. Indians do not even have seamless broadband connectivity in most rural areas. Mumbai, Maharashtra will give you some Internet access, while Munnar, Kerala will not. This is because operators cannot make from money from less populated areas.
4G (LTE) mobile broadband availability increased sharply to 59.1 percent of EU households in 2013, up from 27 percent in 2012. Have Indians experienced true broadband? Not really. Indian telecoms talk about 3G at 2G rates and seamless connectivity. We do not even get seamless data card driven Internet in five star hotels in Delhi. This is because Indian telecoms never invested for QoS.
Fixed and fixed wireless technologies cover 97.2 percent of EU homes and provide primary Internet access for most EU households. Among these technologies, xDSL has the largest footprint (93.5 percent) followed by Cable (42.7 percent) and WiMAX (19.7 percent).
Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, etc. always thought fixed broadband will be fixed with the ailing BSNL or MTNL, government-owned telecoms. Private operators invested in lucrative business. MTS India says it has 3G Plus. Does it work throughout Delhi? Not in many places in East Delhi.
Fixed coverage is the highest in the Member States with well-developed DSL infrastructures, and is over 90 percent in all but four Member States (Estonia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia).
4G availability increased 32 percent in one year. India is still struggling and in the process of fine tuning strategies. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are not responsible for the issue, some argue. Government did not offer free spectrum or incentives for 4G broadband.
4G mobile broadband coverage, as a percent of the number of households, shows that Scandinavian countries, Germany, France and the UK are among the 11 countries above the EU average of 59.1 percent. In Sweden, 99.2 percent of households are in areas covered by 4G broadband. In Germany, 81 percent of households are covered, compared to the 68 percent covered in France and the 63 percent covered in the UK.
With 4G technology being commercially launched in all but three Member States (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta), deployment of 4G mobile increased from 27.0 percent in 2012 to 59.1 percent in 2013. 3G (HSPA), however, remains the leading mobile broadband technology, covering 97.1 percent of EU households.
In rural areas, 96.5 percent of households have access to broadband Internet (excluding satellite). Rural households continue to be substantially underserviced by fixed technologies (89.8 percent), and especially by NGA technologies (18.1 percent).
There was remarkable progress in fixed broadband coverage in rural areas over the past two years — from 79.9 percent in 2011 to 89.8 percent in 2013 — as governments in many Member States focused on improving broadband access in rural areas.
62 percent of EU households have access to broadband connections capable of delivering at least 30 Mbps download speeds. These so-called Next Generation Access (NGA) technologies include VDSL, Cable DOCSIS 3.0 and fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP).
At the end of 2013, Cable DOCSIS 3.0 had the largest NGA coverage at 41.2 percent, followed by VDSL (31.2 percent) and FTTP (14.5 percent). Over the past year, the NGA coverage increased by eight percentage points, equaling 20.5 million additional households covered by high-speed NGA broadband technologies compared to 2012.
In 2013, VDSL was the fastest growing NGA technology (from 24.9 percent in 2012) with upgrades of cable networks to Cable DOCSIS 3.0 nearly complete and FTTP coverage increasing by two percentage points only.
This development clearly demonstrates the shift in broadband strategy in many Member States, where companies are focusing on upgrading of existing copper networks rather than on the more costly deployment of fiber optic all the way to consumers’ homes.
Malta, Belgium and the Netherlands are close to full NGA coverage. NGA coverage continues to be high (over 90 percent) in Latvia and Lithuania due to continued FTTP deployment, whereas VDSL and Cable DOCSIS 3.0 are behind the high NGA coverage in Malta, Belgium and the Netherlands. Italy, Greece and Croatia lag behind in NGA coverage with less than a third of households having access to high-speed broadband in each of the countries.
Europe achieved thanks to the support of the government. India can do the same.
Baburajan K
