The Hindu Business Line : What's the buzz about broadband?

Once television needs, office needs and data transfer needs are met, what's the unique matter that can be sent down the broadways which are being created? Kripa Raman finds out.

THE central operational spine or skeleton of any telecommunications convergence system will be the broadband network, for it is this that will constitute the single channel to transport and distribute everything, from television programmes, films, audio material, data for the information technology industry, or voice communication or doe education.

In this context, uniform licensing, which will come into force this year and which unifies at least the access providing operations (last mile connectivity service, whether landline or wireless), is a step in the right direction.

"Imagine 10 or 12 separate activities, each demanding a separate licence and all using more or less the same broadband network, it does not make sense," says a senior executive with a telecommunications company. "Ultimately, every telecom operator must be able to offer any telecom-related service, with content providers using us as telecom transport conduits."

It is not that the authorities have not realised this. The Communications Convergence Bill is one indication that there is the intention to integrate and monitor services legally. Besides, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is working on a single licence for all telecom operations. Mr Pradeep Baijal who heads TRAI said at a recent conference that this licence would "not only be technology-agnostic but be geographically-agnostic as well." This would mean one licence for any activity, in any "telecom circle" in the country.

Going by the claims of various operators, the race for networking potential broadband customers is now nearing its last lap. The road-cutting machine of Reliance Infocomm can be seen everywhere in the central business districts of the largest cities, making little one-inch broad channels into which their optical fibre cable will be shot.

Here it is not just the spine, the major nerves too are going to be made of optical fibre. Fibre-to-the-building is the strategy. Millions of buildings will be connected in this way, and offices can have anywhere-to-anywhere multiple hotlines across their branches, perhaps connecting even their suppliers and distributors, so that for any telecommunications activity, the transacting or collaborating parties would constitute just one office for all practical purposes.

For a "smaller" kind of broadband experience, Reliance Indiamobile's wireless phones already offer snippets of video and Internet connectivity, while GSM operators offer Internet connectivity through WAP or broadband access through GPRS technologies to individual handset users. This, however, constitutes what may be called "small-scale" broadband usage.

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is already offering broadband access both through wireline (basic telephone lines) as well as wireless connections. Customers in some of the larger cities are now being offered broadband connectivity and TTSL is also setting up wireless broadband access at Barista stores, the Tata group-owned chain of coffee shops, across the country, and offers to set up Wi-Fi systems for other corporate customers.

Apart from its WAP and GPRS access offers, Bharti also has its broadband services for more intense broadband usage, it also being a basic service provider in some circles. The biggest telecom operator in the country, Bharat Sanchar Nigam, too has ambitious broadband plans, which are under way.

Then there are skeletal optical fibre networks put up by the Power Grid Corporation of India, Gas Authority of India and other operators such as the Railways who have put up fibre, owning as they do networks to which they have their own "right-of-way."

"The problem staring us in the face is that with all these giant networks soon to be in place, what kind of content can we provide through broadband?" many an industry expert is heard asking at many a conference today. Once television needs, voice needs, office needs, closed-user group needs and data transfer needs are met, what is the unique matter that can be sent down through these broadways which are being created? Industry experts point out that more than half of the fibre networks in the West are "dark", that is, cables have not yet been lit.

Content provision will be the key, say experts. Telecom operators such as Reliance are already straining every nerve in their corporate body to keep the networks buzzing. Film advertising offers, film promotional contests, world gaming contests and speak-to-a-film-star programmes are being organised on a weekly basis. "It is a great pain and a strain, at least for starters," said an employee. "It is not intense work, but consists of scattered laborious work."

Experts fear that with time, telecom operators will no longer be able to do this; specialised agencies would end up doing everything from Virtual Private Networking to organising contests. Telecom operators around the world are getting out of such activities, becoming mere wholesale purveyors of telecom transport services. Getting more "content-based" operators to lease their networks will be the key to keeping themselves alive, says an analyst. Other futurists say India is not a homogeneous country like many a Western country. Separate programmes would be required for almost every state, linguistically speaking. There are so many groups of so many kinds in the country and its sheer diversity will ensure that various networks would have to be created for various interest or community groups. "And we Indians are good at inventing applications. If we can use washing machines to make lassi, we can use the broadband to do many a different thing, who knows," says an industry analyst.

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