India for common R&D fund: Maran

India has called for creation of a common R&D Fund for the Asia Pacific region, which can be utilised by identified centres of excellence in different countries that freely share their research findings and developments on Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT) platform.

Following is the remaining text of the press release issued by the I&B ministry to the Press Information Bureau

While addressing the APT Ministerial Conference on Broadband and ICT development at Bangkok, Thailand today, the Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Shri Dayanidhi Maran said "the Governments and the industry can perhaps fund this research, along with contributions from the United Nations (UN) as well as multi-lateral funding agencies".

Shri Maran stated that since communications is key to information which in turn is vital for removal of illiteracy, poverty and hunger, the need of sharing of resources and strategies cannot be overstated.

Emphasising the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the field of education, health, commerce and governance, Shri Maran stated "internet and broadband access are widely recognised as catalyst for economic and social development of the country. Not only will these contribute to economic growth, but would also enable the development of a vast pool of skilled manpower." He stated that there need to be a shift from voice communication to non-voice applications namely data communications, value added applications and broadband interactive services.

The Minister said that most economies are still struggling to realise nation wide broadband access principally because of high fixed cost of broadband network development. In this context, Shri Maran said "there is need to pay attention to the price component. Internet and Broadband are currently an expensive proposition for the major segment of our population, which is extremely price sensitive. Cost effective infrastructure including that of hand sets as well as reasonable tariff rates will determine the future growth of internet and broadband access in the developing countries".

The Minister further added that the benefits of the access can only be realised if the usage is high and consumer is not inhibited by high cost. All parties with a stake have a role to play. Manufacturers for example, need to devise solutions appropriate to lower income regions and operators need to strive to find innovative solutions to keep end user costs down, he added.

Referring to the remarkable progress made by some countries in the provisioning of broadband services at affordable prices, he said "we look forward to exploring possibilities of cooperation between India and the other countries of the region, particularly in the fields of Mobile Telecommunication, Digital Audio Video Broadcast, Broadband Converged Networks, Digital Content and Information Security".

Shri Maran said that a project that could be of interest to the region is to set up a East-West Information Super Highway in order to have broadband connectivity from Iran/UAE to Vietnam via Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia. Apart from serving the region, this has further advantage of giving a stand-by route from Iran/UAE to Vietnam to the SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cable and also for the forthcoming SEA-ME-WE 4 cable. This project can perhaps be taken up under the joint aegis of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the APT.

Highlighting the importance of a proper regulatory framework for development of Internet and Broadband services, Shri Maran stated that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had recently made some useful recommendations in this regard and had suggested a target of 20 million broadband subscribers and 40 million internet subscribers by the year 2010. In this context, Shri Maran offered to share India's experience about the regulatory mechanisms with the Member countries.