100 Million broadband subscribers through TV by 2012
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 19 November 2009, 22:43 IST   |    1 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
100 Million broadband subscribers through TV by 2012
New Delhi: Broadband penetration could be expanded to 100 million from the present seven million subscribers if TV could be used as an end user device, according to Vijay Yadav, Managing Director for South Asia, UT Starcom India. This way it could reach out to 700 million people including largely people in the rural areas, said Yadav at 6th Broadband Tech India 2009. Already One lakh people are benefiting an enriched information and communication stream through a pioneering project using IPTV format to reach the users on the networks of BSNL, Bharti Airtel and others. "Developments like these could bring phenomenal results," said P.J. Thomas, Secretary, Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communications and IT, Govt of India, inaugurating the 6th Broadband Tech India 2009. Thomas called for strategies to make such growth possible. The telecom revolution had already pushed the wireline use to the backburner, connecting hundreds of millions through wireless technology. According to BSNL Director for Consumer Mobility R. K. Aggarwal, the key issues in broadband penetration included content for all age groups and bandwidth speeds of 2 to 4 Mbps. "The audio-visual being a natural mode of communication, broadband through TV would be a more acceptable medium for rural communication than through PC. The experience so far in the experiment connecting a village near Jaipur with such broadband on television had been very encouraging," said Yadav. He expects that in the next ten years ninety percent of the communication would be video and the proportion of voice only was getting reduced. 'Funding from USO (universal service obligation fund), the allotments for such employment and development programmes like NREG NHAI, Railways should be used as this was a huge employment generating technology," added Yadav. Ajay Bhattacharya USO Fund administrator, Ministry of Commerce & IT revealed that after the proposed spectrum auctions USO would be supporting the extension of wireless broadband to rural areas. He foresaw a million broadband users in rural areas in the next two years. The fund was already supporting wireless connectivity in rural areas being set up by BSNL. "If broadband usage provides livelihood enhancing capacity for rural audiences, they would be able to pay for the service," said Mr. Kunal Bajaj, Managing Director of BDA Connect. At the same time it was necessary to find the network architecture that reduced both the capex and opex for rural connectivity While wireless networks were far less expensive the opex for rural connectivity was 40 percent higher than that for urban areas. Wireless broadband on 700 MHz spectrum was far cheaper than that on 2.3 to 2.5 GHz spectrum. More services needed to be provided to increase revenue from broadband provision.

Digital Supply Chain Transformation – Winning the AI/ML Way