The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has terminated the licenses of 35 companies which never launched ISP services. Some of these include Discovery Infoways, Q-Net Infosystems, Netconnect (India), Infinity.com, KTV Net. As per the Hindu, over 100 other license holders are yet to offer services after five years of being given the license.
As far as my reading of this news goes - it does absolutely nothing to improve the situation in the market: these ISPs weren’t preventing others from launching services. They also weren’t hoarding licenses, since as as many as 770 licenses. Perhaps the mistake was made on the policy front - a gross underestimation of the scale of operations required for a profitable ISP business - only 275 ISPs launched services, and 397 license holders quit.
What compounds the issue is the new policy of having an entry fee, and an annual license fee. Yeah, right - that’s exactly what we need to support a sector that isn’t really taking off. This ends up reducing the possibility of competition in a market that is dominated by government companies - BSNL and MTNL because of their legacy ownership of the last mile. There was a school of thought that the India might well take the wireless route to broadband due to the expense involved with fixed-line deployment. However, there have been quality issues with wireless broadband (wired as well, but that’s another story). If the government was serious about broadband in this country, they’d open up the last mile. Scrapping non-performing ISP licenses is just an eyewash.
Source: contentSutra
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
You Telecom And Red Snapper Form Wireless Network JV: YouSnapper
YOU Telecom, an Internet Service Provider in which Citigroup Venture Capital has a majority stake, has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Red Snapper, a Malaysian wireless and VoIP service provider reports Business Standard.
RedSnapper has a Wide Area WiFi technology; the company is funded by the Malaysian Government. YouSnapper has already begun a pilot in Thane (Maharashtra). YouTele has around 17.5 lakh subscribers according to the report, and intends to expand operations from 12 to 26 cities in 18 months. At present, WiMax services are being piloted in India, with Tata Indicom, and BSNL has been announcing WiMax plans for the last decade (or something like that). GoBroadband lists a number of complaints regarding Tata Comm and Reliance WiMax services.
Source : contentSutra
RedSnapper has a Wide Area WiFi technology; the company is funded by the Malaysian Government. YouSnapper has already begun a pilot in Thane (Maharashtra). YouTele has around 17.5 lakh subscribers according to the report, and intends to expand operations from 12 to 26 cities in 18 months. At present, WiMax services are being piloted in India, with Tata Indicom, and BSNL has been announcing WiMax plans for the last decade (or something like that). GoBroadband lists a number of complaints regarding Tata Comm and Reliance WiMax services.
Source : contentSutra
Monday, April 7, 2008
Wi-fi facility inaugurated at Cuttack
CUTTACK: Chairman of Railway Board K C Jena on Sunday inaugurated the wi-fi facility at the railway station here to enable passengers pursue their professional and personal activities even during travel.
Any passenger could access the internet at the station with the help of a wi-fi enabled laptop and use credit card of any bank for online booking, he said.
Jena said the facility, introduced for the first time in the East-Coast Railway division, would help the bonafide passengers to enjoy wireless broadband access, access to reservation system, check e-mail and surf net at platforms while travelling.
The facility, provided by M/s Railtel, was currently available in 53 stations across the country.
In the near future, Bhubaneswar, Puri and Visakhapatnam stations would get the facility, railway sources said.
Jena inspected and reviewed the work of the second railway bridge over river Mahanadi which was likely to be commissioned soon.
As soon as the bridges over river Kathjodi and Kuakhai were completed, the double track between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar would be operational, he said.
Source : EconomicTimes
Any passenger could access the internet at the station with the help of a wi-fi enabled laptop and use credit card of any bank for online booking, he said.
Jena said the facility, introduced for the first time in the East-Coast Railway division, would help the bonafide passengers to enjoy wireless broadband access, access to reservation system, check e-mail and surf net at platforms while travelling.
The facility, provided by M/s Railtel, was currently available in 53 stations across the country.
In the near future, Bhubaneswar, Puri and Visakhapatnam stations would get the facility, railway sources said.
Jena inspected and reviewed the work of the second railway bridge over river Mahanadi which was likely to be commissioned soon.
As soon as the bridges over river Kathjodi and Kuakhai were completed, the double track between Cuttack and Bhubaneswar would be operational, he said.
Source : EconomicTimes
Friday, April 4, 2008
Bharti, RCom, Tata & BSNL to invest over $4 bn to build undersea links
NEW DELHI: The communication boom in Asia is triggering a fresh round of submarine cable frenzy across the continent and this time around, all major Indian players—Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Communications and BSNL—are riding the boom.
Indian submarine players are stakeholders in almost all key cable projects announced in Asia recently, while in the case of Tata Communications and Reliance’s Flag, they are building the undersea links single-handedly. In total, they will invest over $4 billion over the next two years to build new undersea links. The logic: a significant chunk of the next trillion dollars in global communications space will come from Asian telcos whose bandwidth requirements are growing by the day.
For Indian corporates, the move by service providers to build multiple cable systems implies that they can adapt high bandwidth applications in the coming years without incurring huge additional expenses. The surge in cable capacity will also enable the Indian outsourcing industry to lease capacity on multiple cables without investing large amounts of money, thus safeguarding themselves from service disruptions.
The larger implication of the cable boom is that Indian consumers will have better broadband speeds and provide telcos requisite bandwidth to offer triple-play services including IPTV and HDTV. For Indian IT companies, larger bandwidth will help create and host content at home. Put simply, large number of companies will look to place their servers in India.
Analysts also believe that an important factor that is aiding Indian submarine cable players to go for route diversity is the industry’s demands for better network reliability. Indian and Asian corporates are seeking better protection especially in the wake of the recent cable cuts in Flag and SEA-ME-WE cables. “The impact of the recent outage was heavy on most small outsourcing firms and they are now contemplating building in redundancy to avoid a similar situation. With increased capacity, more such firms will be able to afford redundancy,” explained Integreon Global Knowledge Services senior vice-president, Lokendra Tomar.
“We cannot put all eggs into a single basket,” Bharti Airtel’s President for enterprise services David Nishball recently told ET when announcing that the company had joined hands with five international companies including internet giant Google to construct the ‘Unity’ sub-sea cable system linking the US and Japan.
Bharti was forced to reroute its traffic through its i2i cable when the SEA-ME-WE damaged earlier this year. Bharti has also joined two other consortiums — the 20,000 km-long Asia-America Gateway project and the I-Me-We system that will connect India to France via the Middle East. “Consortiums are the way to go forward. In a growing economy, we see increased demand from corporate and enterprise customers and we are therefore open to joining new consortiums to meet the bandwidth demands on all key routes. I see the need for another cable between Asia and Europe via India,” Mr Nishball had added.
Tata Communications is part of both the TGN Intra Asia and TGN Eurasia undersea cable consortiums. The 6,500 km Intra Asia will cover Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam while TGN Eurasia cable system will link Mumbai directly to Paris, London and Madrid via Egypt. Tata Communication executives say that this was part of the company’s plan to invest $2 billion for additional submarine cable systems connecting emerging markets in Asia, Middle East and Africa to Europe to meet the demands of consumer broadband and enterprise customers over the next 5-8 years.’
The most ambitious of these projects is FLAG NGN being built by RCom — The $1.5-billion undersea cable will cover 50,000 km and span 60 countries across continents. Millenium Telecom, a JV between state-owned PSUs, BSNL and MTNL will soon award contracts for both the West Asia and Singapore undersea links.
Analysts also say that the bandwidth boom spells good news for those Indian telecom operators who have not invested in the undersea link businesses. This is because, the increased capacity in addition to keeping bandwidth prices down will also ensure that the prices are competitive.
Source : EconomicTimes
Indian submarine players are stakeholders in almost all key cable projects announced in Asia recently, while in the case of Tata Communications and Reliance’s Flag, they are building the undersea links single-handedly. In total, they will invest over $4 billion over the next two years to build new undersea links. The logic: a significant chunk of the next trillion dollars in global communications space will come from Asian telcos whose bandwidth requirements are growing by the day.
For Indian corporates, the move by service providers to build multiple cable systems implies that they can adapt high bandwidth applications in the coming years without incurring huge additional expenses. The surge in cable capacity will also enable the Indian outsourcing industry to lease capacity on multiple cables without investing large amounts of money, thus safeguarding themselves from service disruptions.
The larger implication of the cable boom is that Indian consumers will have better broadband speeds and provide telcos requisite bandwidth to offer triple-play services including IPTV and HDTV. For Indian IT companies, larger bandwidth will help create and host content at home. Put simply, large number of companies will look to place their servers in India.
Analysts also believe that an important factor that is aiding Indian submarine cable players to go for route diversity is the industry’s demands for better network reliability. Indian and Asian corporates are seeking better protection especially in the wake of the recent cable cuts in Flag and SEA-ME-WE cables. “The impact of the recent outage was heavy on most small outsourcing firms and they are now contemplating building in redundancy to avoid a similar situation. With increased capacity, more such firms will be able to afford redundancy,” explained Integreon Global Knowledge Services senior vice-president, Lokendra Tomar.
“We cannot put all eggs into a single basket,” Bharti Airtel’s President for enterprise services David Nishball recently told ET when announcing that the company had joined hands with five international companies including internet giant Google to construct the ‘Unity’ sub-sea cable system linking the US and Japan.
Bharti was forced to reroute its traffic through its i2i cable when the SEA-ME-WE damaged earlier this year. Bharti has also joined two other consortiums — the 20,000 km-long Asia-America Gateway project and the I-Me-We system that will connect India to France via the Middle East. “Consortiums are the way to go forward. In a growing economy, we see increased demand from corporate and enterprise customers and we are therefore open to joining new consortiums to meet the bandwidth demands on all key routes. I see the need for another cable between Asia and Europe via India,” Mr Nishball had added.
Tata Communications is part of both the TGN Intra Asia and TGN Eurasia undersea cable consortiums. The 6,500 km Intra Asia will cover Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam while TGN Eurasia cable system will link Mumbai directly to Paris, London and Madrid via Egypt. Tata Communication executives say that this was part of the company’s plan to invest $2 billion for additional submarine cable systems connecting emerging markets in Asia, Middle East and Africa to Europe to meet the demands of consumer broadband and enterprise customers over the next 5-8 years.’
The most ambitious of these projects is FLAG NGN being built by RCom — The $1.5-billion undersea cable will cover 50,000 km and span 60 countries across continents. Millenium Telecom, a JV between state-owned PSUs, BSNL and MTNL will soon award contracts for both the West Asia and Singapore undersea links.
Analysts also say that the bandwidth boom spells good news for those Indian telecom operators who have not invested in the undersea link businesses. This is because, the increased capacity in addition to keeping bandwidth prices down will also ensure that the prices are competitive.
Source : EconomicTimes
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Nokia Siemens Networks bags broadband contract from BSNL
NEW DELHI: Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), which had earlier bagged a greenfield rural tender from BSNL to deploy broadband access across 7,000 villages, has got its contract extended to cover deployment in 25,000 villages. This marks the third broadband contract that BSNL has awarded to Nokia Siemens Networks.
The company is also parallely deploying the urban broadband access for BSNL across 20 circles. For BSNL, the deployment of the NSN multi play solutions, will allow it to deliver cost effective high speed internet access and virtual private networks among others services to its customers. The network will also enable BSNL to provide connectivity to CSCs (Community Service Centres) and other e-governance locations.
India has approximately 3.4 million broad connections, of which 1.7 million connections are provided by BSNL. With the expansion of broadband density in urban and rural areas using ADSL2+ technology, BSNL plans make more than 25000 villages broadband enabled shortly.
“Partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks would give BSNL an edge over other broadband services providers as it would be the first to cover rural areas on such a wide scale”, BSNL’s chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said in a statement. “With high speed Internet service of BSNL, the rural broadband project is suitably poised to bridge digital divide and connect more than 25,000 villages in India by delivering high speed broadband services”, he added.
As part of the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks is deploying its Gigabit Ethernet-capable IP DSLAMs SURPASS hiX5625 (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers) and chassis based access switch (SURPASS hiD6615). Nokia Siemens Networks will also supply customer premises equipment that will enable BSNL to provide speeds of up to 8 Mbps using ADSL2+ for its subscribers over its existing copper infrastructure.
The company is also parallely deploying the urban broadband access for BSNL across 20 circles. For BSNL, the deployment of the NSN multi play solutions, will allow it to deliver cost effective high speed internet access and virtual private networks among others services to its customers. The network will also enable BSNL to provide connectivity to CSCs (Community Service Centres) and other e-governance locations.
India has approximately 3.4 million broad connections, of which 1.7 million connections are provided by BSNL. With the expansion of broadband density in urban and rural areas using ADSL2+ technology, BSNL plans make more than 25000 villages broadband enabled shortly.
“Partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks would give BSNL an edge over other broadband services providers as it would be the first to cover rural areas on such a wide scale”, BSNL’s chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said in a statement. “With high speed Internet service of BSNL, the rural broadband project is suitably poised to bridge digital divide and connect more than 25,000 villages in India by delivering high speed broadband services”, he added.
As part of the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks is deploying its Gigabit Ethernet-capable IP DSLAMs SURPASS hiX5625 (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexers) and chassis based access switch (SURPASS hiD6615). Nokia Siemens Networks will also supply customer premises equipment that will enable BSNL to provide speeds of up to 8 Mbps using ADSL2+ for its subscribers over its existing copper infrastructure.
Intel develops platform to boost Wi-Fi antenna's range to 60 miles
NEW DELHI: Wireless mobile internet access is a great tool to have. You can sit by the beach, by the pool side or an airport lounge and surf the net, without any dangling wires. You just have to ensure that the laptop can sniff a Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) hot spot and get going on the world wide web.
The range is about 150 feet and if you want a longer range, say around 30 miles, WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is the way to go. So said the geeks. But there’s a bit of twist in the tale, thanks partly to new research and partly to actual technology roll out.
WiMax is a great way to cover cities and sparsely populated areas, but actual coverage is far less than promised: one to 1.5 km in very densely populated areas to about 10-12 km in others. On the other hand, Intel researchers have developed a new platform that boosts Wi-Fi antenna’s limited range to 60 miles!
So, in effect instead of WiMax, as a wireless access technology in rural and remote areas, Wi-Fi could do the job as well. And being cheaper, companies may find the long range Wi-Fi a better connectivity tool for sparsely populated areas. With this both WiMax and Wi-Fi can potentially cover vast areas and companies might need to revisit their roll out plans for wireless internet access.
``Wherever we don’t have last mile access we have deployed WiMax; in all at about 20 (includes Ahmedabad, Cochin, Trivandrum, Jallandhar and Kolhapur) locations for enterprise use. WiMax is good for last mile access but it is hyped too much. For good connectivity you need to be in line of sight, outdoor range is good up to 12 km but the further you go from the antenna the weaker the signal becomes,’’ says TV Sriram, vice president, technology, Bharti Airtel. However, Mr Sriram has not come across the long range Wi-Fi or the rural connectivity platform (RCP) as Intel calls it.
Ditto’s Cisco’s business development manager for advanced technologies, Paramjit Singh Puri. Says he, ``there could be a lot of slip between the cup and the lip. WiMax has been the buzzword for the last few years, though it may not be practically possible to have a very long range with a single antenna. On the other hand Wi-Fi has seen lot of deployments the world over including India where there are about 700-800 hot spots. A long range Wi-Fi could make a difference.’’
Intel’s managing director, emerging markets WiMax Program Office, Lil Mohan, however, believes that WiMax is living up to its promise and Intel is launching new chips that offer both WiMax and Wi-Fi capability. ``With WiMax quality of service is guaranteed but not so with WiFi. Also, for the long distance Wi-Fi you need a flat terrain and it will work well where population is sparse, but quality could be an issue,’’ adds Mr Mohan.
The new long distance Wi-Fi platform or RCF has been tested by Intel in India, Panama, Vietnam, South Africa. It comprises processor, radios, specialised software and a directional antenna which helps shoot data to a receiving antenna as far as 60 miles away.
Intel was able to achieve this by using new software and radios, increasing the range of Wi-Fi from just about 150 feet to several miles. However, this is good for sparsely populated areas with a flat terrain, that will enable line of sight signal access.
Eventually both, WiMax and the long range Wi-Fi could be deployed together to cover remote areas for wireless internet access. But those who thought Wi-Fi is only for indoors better update their technology strategy and business plans.
The range is about 150 feet and if you want a longer range, say around 30 miles, WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is the way to go. So said the geeks. But there’s a bit of twist in the tale, thanks partly to new research and partly to actual technology roll out.
WiMax is a great way to cover cities and sparsely populated areas, but actual coverage is far less than promised: one to 1.5 km in very densely populated areas to about 10-12 km in others. On the other hand, Intel researchers have developed a new platform that boosts Wi-Fi antenna’s limited range to 60 miles!
So, in effect instead of WiMax, as a wireless access technology in rural and remote areas, Wi-Fi could do the job as well. And being cheaper, companies may find the long range Wi-Fi a better connectivity tool for sparsely populated areas. With this both WiMax and Wi-Fi can potentially cover vast areas and companies might need to revisit their roll out plans for wireless internet access.
``Wherever we don’t have last mile access we have deployed WiMax; in all at about 20 (includes Ahmedabad, Cochin, Trivandrum, Jallandhar and Kolhapur) locations for enterprise use. WiMax is good for last mile access but it is hyped too much. For good connectivity you need to be in line of sight, outdoor range is good up to 12 km but the further you go from the antenna the weaker the signal becomes,’’ says TV Sriram, vice president, technology, Bharti Airtel. However, Mr Sriram has not come across the long range Wi-Fi or the rural connectivity platform (RCP) as Intel calls it.
Ditto’s Cisco’s business development manager for advanced technologies, Paramjit Singh Puri. Says he, ``there could be a lot of slip between the cup and the lip. WiMax has been the buzzword for the last few years, though it may not be practically possible to have a very long range with a single antenna. On the other hand Wi-Fi has seen lot of deployments the world over including India where there are about 700-800 hot spots. A long range Wi-Fi could make a difference.’’
Intel’s managing director, emerging markets WiMax Program Office, Lil Mohan, however, believes that WiMax is living up to its promise and Intel is launching new chips that offer both WiMax and Wi-Fi capability. ``With WiMax quality of service is guaranteed but not so with WiFi. Also, for the long distance Wi-Fi you need a flat terrain and it will work well where population is sparse, but quality could be an issue,’’ adds Mr Mohan.
The new long distance Wi-Fi platform or RCF has been tested by Intel in India, Panama, Vietnam, South Africa. It comprises processor, radios, specialised software and a directional antenna which helps shoot data to a receiving antenna as far as 60 miles away.
Intel was able to achieve this by using new software and radios, increasing the range of Wi-Fi from just about 150 feet to several miles. However, this is good for sparsely populated areas with a flat terrain, that will enable line of sight signal access.
Eventually both, WiMax and the long range Wi-Fi could be deployed together to cover remote areas for wireless internet access. But those who thought Wi-Fi is only for indoors better update their technology strategy and business plans.
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