The Hindu Business Line : `We'll make a difference'

THE Electrical Sciences Block (ESB) inside the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, is an old, dull and dusty building, but it houses some of the country's brilliant minds. One among them is Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, and head of the Telecommunications and Networks group (TeNeT) at IIT Madras. The group works with industry to develop telecommunications and computer network systems.

Dr Jhunjhunwala has an ambitious vision on India's development. A decade ago, he dreamt India should have about 100 million telephone lines. People then said he was foolish. Today, the country has about 75 million telephone lines and the 100-million mark is a couple of years away. He played a big role in this achievement through his work in `wireless local loop' (WLL) technology, at less than half the price of similar methods developed elsewhere. WLL is a system that connects subscribers to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) using radio signals as a substitute for copper for all or part of the connection between the subscriber and the switch. This includes the cordless access system, fixed radio access and fixed cellular systems.

Today, his dream is to make the Internet available in every village in the country. How will he achieve this? Dr Jhunjhunwala shared his vision, and how he plans to go about it, with eWorld. Excerpts from the interview:

What was your first dream and how did you fulfil that?

In early 1994, the vision of the TeNeT group (comprising Dr Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Dr Timothy A. Gonsalves and Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala) was to see India grow to 100 million telephones. At that time, India had about 10 million telephones. We realised that three things needed to be done to achieve this. The first was in terms of policy changes and bringing in competition and multiple (telecom) operators. This was important and we played a small role in making this happen. Being faculty at IIT, we worked with government officials on policy-related matters. We talked about our vision and participated in seminars and committees. The telecom sector was slowly opening up.

Do you feel things have changed?

Definitely. Over the last 10 years, things have changed completely in the telecom sector. The telecom policy has been, by and large, very positive. In the last 10 years, we have done extremely well. The results are very clear.

What is the second need you saw?

When multiple and new telecom operators come in, the immediate issue is whether they understand India. They do not have any experience. We helped companies understand the telecom network (Dr Jhunjhunwala is on the board of large telecom firms) in the country, especially in terms of economics and technology, which is an important factor. Five years ago, the cost of a telephone line was about Rs 40,000 per line. If you take the cost of finance, operations, maintenance and depreciation and add licence fee, there is no way you can break even unless you have a monthly income of Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 from each telephone line. And not more than one per cent of Indian houses can spend Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 a month.

Therefore, we realised that our dream of 100 million will go nowhere unless we significantly reduce the capital expenditure on telephone. Therefore, we worked on technology like corDECT — it offers simultaneous voice (telephone) and data (Internet) services — and Midas Communication was born primarily focussing on the use of wireless-in-local loop instead of a wired line so we can reduce the cost.

You have worked to reduce cost to what level?

Our target was Rs 10,000 per line. Today, with corDECT technology, mobile and fibre optics, to some of which we contributed through our group companies, the cost per line is Rs 14,000 to Rs 15,000, but still away from Rs 10,000. When it comes to telecom, the country is booming. About three million lines are added every month. Seeing this growth, in 1996, we changed the target to 200 million, which will happen in three to four years. Presently, we have about 75-80 million telephone lines.

In the light of all these changes, you must have changed your agenda too now!

Yes. Over the last few years, we have moved to something different. We want to see that every village in India has an Internet connection. This is important because while 200 million telephones lines can happen, rural India may still remain unconnected. So we focussed on providing the Internet in every village. And, we don't want to stop with providing an Internet connection or using the Net only for education and healthcare. We want the Net to be used to significantly enhance the gross domestic product (GDP) — the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country during a given time period. Our focus is to create a large number of micro enterprises in rural areas so that we can double the per capita GDP from Rs 10,000 per person, say in less than 10 years.

How would you go about achieving this?

By creating a large number of micro enterprises in rural areas. The kiosk is our entry point. We are creating kiosks in every village, and nLogue Communication, a TeNeT group company, is driving this. From there, we will drive more and more communications, healthcare, education and micro-enterprises. Micro enterprise means we need to drive finance, buying, selling, and logistics and even to work on power supply in the villages. We need to train and support people and share risk. This is our dream now. A kiosk operator invests about Rs 50,000 and earns a monthly income of about Rs 4,000. There are banks loans available to kiosk operators. (The business model works like this. Based on the STD/PCO booth model, which spread telephony in India, a kiosk located in a rural area provides telephony, standalone computer services and Internet services. An operator invests about Rs 50,000. He/she has the option of investing part and using a bank loan to make up for the rest. As soon as the kiosk operator begins earning about Rs 3,000 per month, he can recover the investment. Typically, a kiosk serves about 300 families, which means revenues estimates of a mere 30 paisa per family. For kiosk operators, offering technology at such low costs is, however, not enough, if they want their equipment maintenance costs covered. To provide immediate maintenance services, a Local Service Provider (LSP), who operates the services in about 400 villages, is appointed. The LSP puts up the base station and exchange, in partnership funding with n-Logue. At every stage the group brings in entrepreneurship — at the kiosk level and at the LSP level. Service is the key. The operator keeps the connection and equipment alive, and collects the connectivity charges for calls made and Internet usage.)

What is the third need you are striving to fulfil?

Our goal is having broadband Internet connection in urban India. We want to see that not just telephony, but broadband Internet connection is available in every home. We are working on content, platform, connectivity and access terminal. We are trying to work on each one of them. We are working on fibre access network, cable connection, DSL and even wireless broadband.

At the same time, we are also working on platforms, such as video-conferencing and relaying lectures online. On a 64-kilobits per second (KBPS) - an Internet modem's speed is measured in the number of bits it can transfer in a second. Modems rated in KBPS are now the standard.

A lecture can be given (Dr Jhunjhunwala demonstrated this and relayed a Powerpoint presentation by a group employee, who was sitting in a remote location), and it can simultaneously reach over 100 people. We will not provide the content but a platform to relay the content. Broadband is still at an early stage. Midas Communications and Banyan Networks (TeNet group companies) are working on this. The third thing that we want to do is to see if India can become No. 1 in a sector, let's say in wireless. That's what we are working on.

How would you go about achieving this?

Our group is capable of doing it. Today, we have 15-16 faculty members, 12-14 companies with about 1,200 people - a quarter of them from IITs. This is a big force. We say, let's make a difference. We try, and push forward our focus. That's what we are trying to do. All these companies were created in our department.

A couple of new companies have come up in the last six to seven months. Entrepreneurs here are not for short-term goals. They look at things long term. They do not look at the West. That is a major criterion.

If they look at the West, you cannot do anything. They have to look at India and Indian problems. I have absolutely no doubt that all these companies will succeed.

On funding for these firms... ?

We have tapped different sources of funding, mostly internal, and also from venture capitalists. We do not spend much. We do things at low cost which keeps us independent and focussed.

What is the return IIT Madras gets?

IIT Madras gets a per cent of revenue as royalty on everything that our group does. This year, IIT, Madras, will get about Rs 15 crore from the TeNeT group. It ought to be able to get this kind of money year after year, perhaps much more.

Picture by N. Balaji

raja@thehindu.co.in

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
All for the saree

This view's good too!

From strength to strength

The big ones are here

When it clicked!

Open the gates

Problems with Internet Explorer

Access denied!

Default operating system

`We'll make a difference'

At your service

Quiz

Some inspiration from space

Cartoon

Make your choice