IT IS NOT FOR THE OLD

Interview with Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister
 on public information infrastructure and innovations

India had 10 million broadband subscribers in October 2010, as against China’s 113 million. Ten million is only 50 per cent of the target set by the Department of Telecommunications’ Broadband Policy, announced in 2004. Even these subscribers don’t get the committed bandwidth from the operators. India’s broadband penetration, too, is abysmally low at less than 1 per cent. It is a yawning gap compared with other Asian countries such as South Korea, which has 100 per cent penetration. Sam Pitroda, advisor to the Prime Minister on public information infrastructure and innovations, has a tough task ahead to roll out Mission Broadband. In his second stint to bring a revolution in telecom, Pitroda tells BW’s M. Rajendran why he is in a hurry to finish the job. Excerpts from the interview:

What is the biggest challenge in Mission Broadband?

Mission Broadband is about to begin. One challenge is connecting people on mobile telephones, through WIMAX, 3G and other technologies. But the real big challenge is to provide the backhaul, which is fibre.

Fast Facts

Subscribers: India has 10 million broadband subscribers

Penetration: Broadband penetration in India is less than 1%

Technology: More than 85% broadband subscribers in India use DSL technology

Broadband leaders: China (112.59 million), US (87 million)

We are focused on two major national programmes by the government, besides what the private players will do. One is related to the National Knowledge Commission, headed by R. Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Prime Minister along with S.V. Raghavan and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) headed by B.K. Girola. They are working to connect 1,500 nodes, with ultimate aim to provide 40 gigabit (GB) bandwidth. To begin with, it would be 2 GB, 10 GB and then 40 GB, to connect all our universities and all our research and development institutions, colleges, and that network will grow.

Wouldn’t such a network need huge investment and time to complete?

Such a network would need an investment of $2 billion. It would be set up over a period of two years. National Knowledge Network’s (NKN) funding of Rs 7,000 crore has been approved by the Cabinet and since we currently use the existing infrastructure, there is no need for additional funding.

How will the existing networks be used?

This will form the backbone of all the existing networks. We will consolidate this network with some of the existing networks like eRNET. We have lots of bits and pieces of networks based on different technologies like the satellite-based networks. All such networks will get added to the backbone.

This would give the government the ability to connect securely 250,000 panchayats to fibre. It can be done; we already have 1 million km of fibre underground, which is under-utilised. We want to use that fibre and add another 200,000-300,000 km of fibre. That’s the last mile fibre, so it doesn’t have to be underground, and we can pull it over the power-line. That would give the network a capacity to connect to the 2,50,000 panchayats, to fibre, that would need huge bandwidth.

The investment required for that would be Rs 15,000 crore and that money is already available in the Universal Service Obligation fund. It is the best way to use that money.

How secure is the network? What about the hardware and software?

This network will also have high levels of security. It will be sanitised properly, so when one enters this pipe, for R&D purposes or any other activity, they will have a better control on it. We will give priority to using our own products (manufactured in India). We are looking at designing routers for such networks in India, so we can have better control.

So it would be a government-owned infrastructure?

It will be a purely government owned and operated infrastructure. We need public information infrastructure that will be a National Knowledge Network (NKN). We have already connected 2,500 municipalities with fibre. If we do it consistently and manage it effectively, we will have robust public information infrastructure.

We also need to create platforms for the Unique Identity project, because it will need a lot of bandwidth. Bandwidth is something that if you have enough, public will know how to use it. Our effort is to democratise information. We need hundreds of megabits at panchayats, not 256 kilobits or 512 kilobits.

In India, the definition of broadband is that we get 2 mbps. That is slow compared to global standards. What should be the definition of broadband?

It should be minimum 10 mbps, and soon 100 mbps. It is achievable in India.

What would one do with such speeds apart from using it for entertainment?

You give it (broadband) to the young and they will figure out what to do with it. Broadband is not for the old. Give the college or university kid 100 megabyte; they will know the applications for that. The customer base is 550 million young people below the age of 25 years. We need to build infrastructure for them and not for today’s government infrastructure.