Reducing self-imposed barriers

Less restrictive regulations with better process discipline could improve broadband reach and functionality

Uncertainties with global supply chains are likely to persist even if geopolitical tensions ease in the coming months. With India’s dependence on energy imports of oil, gas, nuclear fuel, and materials such as cobalt, lithium and nickel for solar cells and batteries used in communications and information technology equipment and electric vehicles, we need to dedicate more focus and serious effort to fending for ourselves where possible over the longer term.

The ongoing processes of strategy formulation, execution and resource allocation necessarily involve trade-offs in choosing where and how to allocate time, capital, and human resources. In this context, advocates for services over manufacturing, or freewheeling opportunism, or those against performance-linked incentives for manufacturing, may be glossing over the fact that our size and circumstances make for imperatives that could have been different if we were a smaller country, or at a different stage of development, but ultimately, only if it were a kinder and tidier world. Retaining a degree of autonomy requires a level of security in essentials, including in defence, food, and other areas. Our stage and state of development are also often overlooked, especially when commentators don’t tailor solutions to fit the context of our facts, including the culture/s, processes, and institutions, or the lack of them.

Two conditions in particular hamper our capacity for enterprise and productivity need redress, besides social disharmony. One is an unsystematic approach, lacking goal-oriented, integrated planning and end-to-end execution. The second is regulatory constraints, often in the form of legacy holdovers that have not been reformulated to meet our present and anticipated requirements.

An example of the consequence of unsystematic practices is stranded electricity generation projects, despite potential users without adequate power, because transmission and distribution have not been built into the project “solution” as a prerequisite. Another example is the state of our broadband and telecommunications services, where many users have unreliable or inadequate access, because end-use delivery has not been successfully configured. A third instance is our highways, for which impressive statistics contrast with the highly uneven experience in using some of them.

Illustration: Binay Sinha

The open secret, of course, and the most difficult part, is to have a dedicated, end-to-end plan for projects, with the linkages thought through and provided for and executed in their entirety to achieve effective delivery without being distracted by new leads and schemes.  Given the way technology linkages have developed, communications and information technology are key drivers for all technologies and infrastructure, as well as many aspects of superstructures.  We sorely need pervasive, reliable, well-functioning networks. The criteria of good delivery and efficiency require policy reforms regarding the way spectrum is assigned, used, and paid for, how it is regulated for operator access, and how all network resources are optimally utilised for user benefit. That is the task, starting from where we are, with what we have.

For optimal service delivery, there are three aspects to the structure of our telecommunications requirements:

• The core network or backbone and skeleton,
• The distribution to user clusters beyond, and
• End-user connectivity within clusters.

At the first level, fibre networks are available in most urban and semi-urban centres, but in less than half of our gram sabhas or village-cluster centres. The criterion to be ensured is network quality for delivery standards including up-time, not just nominal connections. Rural coverage perhaps needs to be tackled systematically in sections, with realistic time frames and budgets, unalloyed by electioneering grandstanding and exaggerated claims that emphasise announcements over delivery and performance.
 

The second level is the extension and distribution of links from existing fibre networks within cities, and to villages in each cluster. Given continuing difficulties in completing the BharatNet fibre network to the numerous village clusters that don’t have fibre connections, a possible way to bridge this gap may be to enable and use high-capacity wireless links. Policies facilitating the use of viable wireless means do not exist even as these could improve network reach and functionality. Appropriate changes could enable the use of spectrum bands such as 60 GHz and 70-80 GHz for point-to-point fronthaul, mid-haul and backhaul. Six GHz could be enabled for high-speed Wi-Fi. Financial viability could be evaluated using modelling and simulation exercises.

Perhaps wireless links up to several kilometres to gram sabhas also need to be considered in place of fibre which has not been possible to install for years on end. In more remote cases, the use of satellite links may be a necessary expense, with the likely availability of such links with recent changes in policies. The third level needs a combination of fixed and wireless end-of-middle-mile links, with cellular or Wi-Fi user access.

Given the legacy of colonial-era laws, a conscious, imaginative effort may be useful, such as the use of a negative list as in trade agreements of prohibited items, with the rest open to consideration by due process when sought by service providers. This would enable, for instance, industry representatives mooting the consideration of 12 GHz for Wi-Fi going forward, on the lines of developments in the US, the European Union, or the UK.

For equipment and solutions, there is a product-and-services aspect for global as well as local markets that is much larger, which involves manufacturing and integrating services to deliver solutions. These avenues are closed off to our talent and enterprise because of our regulations. These regulations hamper us needlessly, forcing us to constrain ourselves in ways that other nations do not restrict their people.  Enabling policies could remove these constraints, so that research, development and experimentation are facilitated for our vast talent pool.  There is no other way in which we can hope for domestic production for local markets, for instance in wireless equipment, without prohibitive levels of imports.

If we have rapid facilitation of controlled trials and testing by authorised industrial and academic institutions, active development and proliferation of devices would be possible here. This would enable the design, development, and production of solutions for local use, as well as for the much larger global markets, e.g., for 5G applications, for which there is no domestic market yet.

The writer is associated with proposed wireless trials.shyam.ponappa@gmail.com