FTTH COUNCIL ASIA PACIFIC Annual Conference and Exhibition, Fiber
to Bridge Socio-economic divide began its 2nd day conference with an inaugural
address from Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal.

While being delighted that the FTTH Council Asia Pacific has
chosen to hold the annual conference in New
Delhi, it is this organization that really wants to
connect people around the world. His vision and hopes for the world in the year
2050 is to become a completely interconnected world where we can in a jiffy
talk to each other, do commerce with each other, build trust with each other
and build a truly global family on the backbone of that interconnectivity.”

He also noted the urgency and importance of being connected to the
majority of the masses it is while stressing that it is equally important to
properly manage the flow of information to ensure that it actually empowers the
people.

 

There is a digital divide here in India. There are millions and
millions of people out there that have no access to the internet. Broadband
density is very low in our country. So we must all get on that platform to make
sure that relevant information flows to the people,” Sibal added.

 

Lives will be improvised if everybody is on a digital platform.
The two most critical aspects of state activity is health and education. It has
already been decided at the national level to connect 31,000 college and 600
universities and eventually every school in the country. He asked If someone
gets sick who does the diagnosis? And he can’t afford to run 50km or 100km away
to the hospital to get proper care? Just imagine he can get a diagnosis from a
doctor by just sitting at home.”

 

In Europe for the past 15 years, ICT investments have been
responsible for 50 percent of Europe’s
productivity growth. In the last twenty years, networks technologies have been
transforming human evolutionary process. They have and they are changing the
concept of space and time. We can feel this revolution effects on all human
relationship,” said Roberto Sambuco, head of Communication Department, Italy.

 

Kuldip Singh, chairman and managing director of MTNL in his
keynote speech noted that India
is at the cross-road in telecommunication technology, with networks being
rolled out for 3G, WiMax/LTE, NGN/IMS and FTTH. FTTH will give subscribers
limitless possibilities by serving the requirements of bandwidth-hungry
applications and this would revolutionize the way subscribers work, live and
play.

 

According to Rakesh Kumar Upadhyay, chairman and managing
director, Bahart Sanchar Nigam, this is the right time for FTTH Council Asia
Pacific to hold the annual conference here in India. When the government is very
helpful in proliferating the FTTH technology in the country and this will
present great opportunities for growth in the rural areas where the masses of India dwell.

 

Addressing the attendees at the closing session, he stressed that
there are two major consideration to push growth of this technology into the
country. First is the commercial consideration which is the critical mass of
customers and the second more important consideration is removing the ‘digital
divide’ that is the asymmetry of information and opportunity available to the
rural population while dramatically improving the quality of delivery of public
services,” Upadhyay added.

While acknowledging there is still not enough broadband use in India compared
to international standards, he added that the government however, aims to
increase to 75 million broadband connections by the year 2012 and 160 million
by the year 2014 where almost half of them is through fiber.

 

By TelecomLead.com Team

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