Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate of BJP, has proposed optical fiber network across the country. The initiative will assist telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio Infocomm, etc. to improve ARPU and enterprises can find better broadband speed.
The Gujarat chief minister, however, did not spell out details. It can be a government-owned project or via a private-public partnership.
The proposal assumes significance in India because majority of broadband users face poor internet speed across the country. An efficient optical fiber network means a strong broadband ARPU for telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Aircel, Reliance Communications, etc.
The national telecom network will spur the growth of broadband and LTE in India. The number of fixed line broadband subscribers lags at around 15 million.
Remember, the global broadband subscriber base is approaching 635 million globally. India’s pie in this space in negligible due to lack of adequate planning.
Broadband Forum says 54 million broadband subscribers added from 3Q 2011 to 3Q 2012. Fiber deployments (including FTTx and FTTH) rise to serve over 125 million.
According to figures published by the Broadband Forum in February 2013, hybrid fiber access (FTTx) has experienced the highest market gain over the past year. Of the 54 million new broadband subscribers added in the year leading up to 3Q 2012, 26 million are being served with fiber (48 percent). Overall, fiber deployments have now passed cable to account for 19.7 percent of the total broadband market.
A recent CyberMedia Research said fiber-optic cabling is likely to drive the SCS growth. Need for future-proofing of networks and data centre consolidation is likely to be primary drivers.
The research report says a transition in copper cables combination usage from Cat 6 and Cat 6A to higher versions of Cat 6A and Cat 7 is expected.
The increasing demand from infrastructure, hospitality and education sectors would see deployment of structured cabling solutions to create new revenue streams for vendors.
Narendra Modi says the country should create 100 smart cities. There should be IITs, IIMs and AIIMS in every state. This means, India needs a strong network to connect.
Vendors are expected to see new investments coming in from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities on account of Government spending, real estate expansion and infrastructure development.
In addition, M2M (Man-to-Machine and Machine-to-Machine) is poised to rise in the India enterprise. Apart from office automation, customer support and servicing will be a major application area, CMR said.
With LTE services on the rise, enablement of IP infrastructure will grow within the enterprise domains. This will eventually lead to adoption of converged telecommunications.
This was recognized by 4G telecom service provider Reliance Jio Infocomm when it announced a Rs 1,200 crore deal with Reliance Communications for sharing nationwide inter-city fiber optic network infrastructure. Reliance Jio Infocomm will utilize multiple fiber pairs across RCOM’s 120,000 kilometres inter-city fiberoptic network to provide future-proof backbone for rolling out its 4G services.
India does not come in the top 10 list for Internet speed. Globe Telecom, a mobile operator in the Philippines, says its Tattoo Platinum offers speeds of up to 150 Mbps.
Being the first to launch the Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network (GPON) internet service in the Philippines, Tattoo Platinum comes with exclusive offers all for Free such as Globe landline, Globe-to-Globe landline NDD calls, Unlicalls to Globe and TM mobile, 4-port modem + Wi-Fi router and a Tattoo Postpaid Stick with 40 surfing hours per month.
Tattoo Home Broadband is also part of the latest LTE expansion giving ultrafast internet speed for households that are close to 1,000 sites nationwide. High-definition videos, downloading and uploading, streaming and voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) is now possible at home with this latest upgrade.
