state and opportunity of broadband in india v1.0
TRANSCRIPT
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State and Opportunity of
Broadband in India
In this paper we will present the state and opportunity of broadband in Asias
most promising and fastest growing economy and worlds second largest
wireless market only after China.
BP Tiwariwww.beyond4g.org
4/20/2010
http://www.beyond4g.org/http://www.beyond4g.org/http://www.beyond4g.org/ -
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2 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
www.beyond4g.org | Executive Summary 2
Table of ContentsExecutive Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction and motivation ......................................................................................................................... 5
Current shape of broadband in country ....................................................................................................... 6
Broadband leadership Ranking ................................................................................................................. 6
Broadband Penetration in India ................................................................................................................ 8
Average Broadband Speed in Country ...................................................................................................... 9
The principal Challenges ............................................................................................................................. 11
Limited Wire line ..................................................................................................................................... 12Scarce Broadband Spectrum ................................................................................................................... 13
Low Data ARPU ....................................................................................................................................... 13
Broadband opportunities ............................................................................................................................ 15
4G can change broadband situation ....................................................................................................... 15
Deliver a GB for half a dollar ................................................................................................................... 17
Deliver new internet applications with 4G ............................................................................................. 18
Support of large connections in 4G cells ................................................................................................ 18
A need for strong national broadband policy ............................................................................................. 19
Government can influence the broadband situation ............................................................................. 19
Taking India to top 10 broadband nations .............................................................................................. 22
DISCLAMER
This paper is prepared by BP Tiwari and the views expressed here are my own and does not
reflect my company opinion. All the information is presented in this document were collected from public
domain (internet) & wherever possible reference has been provided regarding the source of information.I have made reasonable efforts to ensure that information is true as best of my knowledge at the time of
compilation, however I do not warrant that the information presented herein is complete and without
error. Author of the paper does not take any responsibility of the errors, omissions, or any other accuracy
in any form. I encourage readers to independently verify information as author does not have any
responsibility of the presented information & content.
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3 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
www.beyond4g.org | Executive Summary 3
List of Figures
Figure 1 : Broadband quality scores.............................................................................................................. 6
Figure 2 : Broadband leadership scores ........................................................................................................ 7
Figure 3 : Broadband penetration ................................................................................................................. 8
Figure 4: Total Internet connections in country .......................................................................................... 8
Figure 5 : Reliance Ev-Do Coverage .............................................................................................................. 8
Figure 6 : Tata Ev-Do Coverage .................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 7: BSNL Ev-Do Coverage .................................................................................................................... 9
Figure 8 : Average mobile broadband speeds in metros cities ................................................................... 10
Figure 9 : Distribution of speed tests .......................................................................................................... 10
Figure 10 : Average National Broadband Speeds ....................................................................................... 11
Figure 11 : GDP based on PPP per capita .................................................................................................... 11
Figure 12: Indicative right of way charges .................................................................................................. 12
Figure 13: Capex per subscriber .................................................................................................................. 12
Figure 14: India Spectrum allocation chart ................................................................................................. 13
Figure 15: Global Data ARPU ...................................................................................................................... 14
Figure 16: Data ARPU of global operators .................................................................................................. 14
Figure 17: Average Data Packages in India ................................................................................................ 14
Figure 18: Global Broadband Tariffs ........................................................................................................... 15
Figure 19: Total Subscriber supported per 4G cell ..................................................................................... 16
Figure 19: Spectral efficiency of various technologies ............................................................................... 16
Figure 20: Broadband delivery cost over 4G............................................................................................... 17
Figure 21: Peak Data Rate in Different MIMO Configurations. .................................................................. 18Figure 23: Broadband and Internet users in India ...................................................................................... 19
Figure 24: Projected additional spectrum requirement for India............................................................... 20
Figure 25: Present right of way charges ..................................................................................................... 21
Figure 26: New Telecom World Order ........................................................................................................ 22
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4 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
www.beyond4g.org | Executive Summary 4
Executive Summary
Its been a dreamrun for voice in India. Indiapositions itself as number two nation in new
world order. However the broadband
leadership is dominated by Southkorea, Japan,
Hongkong, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands,
Singapore, Luxemburg, Denmark and Norway.
India ranked 62 in global broadband leadership
scale, with average download and upload
speeds recorded way below than the needs of
current internet applications. The current
internet visual applications require consistent
2Mbps downlink and 1 Mbps uplink data rates.
In our analysis we found that the average
broadband speed in country is below 600 kbps
in downlink and 300 kbps in uplink. The leading
broadband nations were found above 8 Mbps in
downlink and 2.5 Mbps in uplink and the access
latencies were found below 80 milliseconds1.
Broadband penetration by number of
households was estimated between 5 to 6 %.
The availability of broadband networks hasespecially improved after beginning of Ev-Do
services in country. The mobile broadband
networks were deployed in top 100 cities by
four wireless operators i.e. Reliance, TATA,
BSNL and MTS.
The data collected from Ev-Do Networks in five
metro cities imply average delivery of 300 kbps
in downlink and 150 kbps in uplink. On
average, Hyderabad performed best with 250-
350 kbps average download speed and 100-125
kbps average upload speed and New Delhi was
at the bottom with 240 kbps for download and
130 kbps for upload.
1Cisco,
http://www.cisco.com/web/MT/news/09/news_021
009a.html
The number of broadband connections incountry is less than 10 Million, which is fewer
than 2 % of the total number of voice
subscriptions in India. Total internet
connection in India is about 15 Million as per
statistics released by regulatory of India,
representing less than 1% of total population.
The principal challenges in delivering
broadband to masses are excessively high right
way charges, fragmented cable operators, non
cooperation in last mile copper unbundling
and low data ARPU. The total amount ofspectrum allocated by regulators for broadband
application in country was too little to support
proliferation of broadband services.
The new 3G/BWA spectrum and the advent
WiMAX and LTE based 4G technologies will
play crucial role in shaping broadband industry
in India. Our analysis in this paper exemplifies
the competence of 4G technologies like WiMAX
and LTE to deliver broadband in most
competitive manner. 4G technologies has thepotential to bridge the digital data gap in India
and will play very similar role what 2G
technologies played in Voice.
A need for strong national broadband policy is
felt to foster social and economic development
in India and accomplish broadband leadership.
Analysis presented in the paper estimates
allocation of at least 270 MHz of new spectrum
in next five years and over 450 MHz of
spectrum in next 10 years for broadband
applications would be inevitably required to
take India to top broadband nations.
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Introduction and motivation
Broadband is the great wireless infrastructure
challenge of this century and broadband inIndia is no exception. Like electricity a century
ago, broadband is an underpinning foundation
for economic development, employment
creation, universal competitiveness and an
enhanced way of life.
Availability of ubiquitous broadband enables
entire new industry and unlocks vast new
possibilities for existing ones. Broadband is
changing how we educate children, deliver
health care, manage energy, ensure public
safety, engage government, and access,
organize and disseminate knowledge. The
number of Indians who have internet access has
grown from eight million in 2006 to nearly 15
million in early 2009. Increasingly capable fixed
and mobile networks allow Indian consumers to
access a growing number of internet
applications and helping them in transforming
their life.
It is unfortunate that broadband in India is not
all it needs to be. Less than 5 % of thehousehold population in India has true
broadband connection in country and more
than a billion people has limitation in accessing
broadband. This in contrast with the number of
subscriber who has voice connection is
enormous disparity. Broadband in India is
catching up but behind many developing
countries and developed nations.
The situation of broadband has worsened
further with continual delay in allocation of 3Gand broadband spectrum in country.
Government of India has the responsibility to
design policies which will ensure fair
competition for consumer welfare, efficient
allocation of spectrum, right of way to ensure
network availability and reform laws, policies,
standards and incentives to maximize the
benefits of broadband in sectors government
influences significantly, such as public
education, health care and government
operations.
In this paper we will present the state of
broadband in Asias most promising and fastest
growing economy and worlds second largest
wireless market only after China.
The greatest motivation to write on this
particular subject is to present the shape of
broadband in the country and also give you an
idea about the broadband opportunity which is
latent in the country. With advent of 4G
technologies like WiMAX/LTE and allocation ofnew broadband spectrum in country, the
development of broadband is expected to grow
up at a rapid rate.
In this white paper, we will present all aspects
of broadband in India with our analysis and
suggestions to take country in to the league of
top broadband nations.
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Current shape of broadband in
country
It is been generally understood that broadbandproliferation is linked to social and economic
benefits and that countries with high
broadband availability have broadband on their
national agenda.
A recent study by University of oxford, and
Cisco established the fact that high broadband
penetration drives innovation, labor
productivity and competitiveness. The Study
also focused on the minimum performance
requirement for current broadband connections
and found that 28 to 30 countries are meeting
the requirement of current internet
applications.
In 2009, new insight into who the global
broadband leaders are by combining data for
each countrys broadband penetration with a
measure of the quality of broadband services
actually experienced by its citizens was
conducted by a team of MBA students from the
Sad Business School at the University of Oxford
and the University of Oviedos Department ofApplied Economics, and sponsored by Cisco was
published2.
Highlights and key facts of the study;
Overall average broadband quality
increased across the globe in 2009: Global
average download throughput increased by
49% to 4.75 Megabits per second (Mbps)
and global average upload throughput
increased by 69% to 1.3 Mbps.Global average latency decreased by 21% to
170 milliseconds
Top 10 nations on terms of Broadband quality
are;
2CISCO and Said;http://bit.ly/dm5RH7
Figure 1 : Broadband quality scores
Rank Country Broadband
penetration(%
of household)
Broadband
quality
Score 2009
1 South Korea 97% 66
2 Japan 64% 64
3 Hong Kong 99% 33
4 Sweden 69% 57
5 Switzerland 90% 40
6 Netherlands 83% 46
7 Singapore 96% 32
8 Luxemburg 99% 27
9 Denmark 82% 45
10 Norway 84% 38
62 India 3% 20
Broadband leadership Ranking
There is a huge leapfrog opportunity in India
and other emerging markets as per the findings
of the studies3. The minimum average
downloads speed for supporting requirement ofcurrent application was estimated at 3.75 Mbps
in downlink and 1.3 Mbps in uplink with latency
in the range of sub 100 milliseconds in 2010.4
The broadband leadership was dominated by
Southkorea, Japan, Hongkong, Sweden,
Switzerland, Netherlands, Singapore,
Luxemburg, Denmark and Norway. The average
download speeds of these nations were found
above 8 Mbps in downlink and 2.5 Mbps in
uplink and the access latencies were found
below 80 milliseconds.
4
3Cisco,
http://www.cisco.com/web/MT/news/09/news_021
009a.html
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39 countries have a Broadband quality scores
above the threshold required to deliver a
consistent quality of experience for the most
common web applications today, such as social
networking, streaming low-definition video,web communications and sharing small files
such as photos and music.
Nine countries, South Korea, Japan, Sweden,
Lithuania, Bulgaria, Latvia, The Netherlands,
Denmark and Romania, were found to have the
broadband quality required for future web
applications, such as high definition Internet TV
viewing and high-quality video communications
(such as home tele-presence) that will become
mainstream in the next 3 to 5 years.
India ranked 62 in global broadband leadership
scale with average download and upload speeds
way below the threshold of current internet
applications requirement. Broadband
penetration by number of households was
estimated at 5 to 6 %
Figure 2 : Broadband leadership scores5
5Said Business School ,
http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/Pages/Search.aspx/Results.
aspx?k=broadband%20quality
0 50 100 150
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
Sweden
switzerland
Netherlands
Singapore
Luxembourg
Denmark
Norway
Malta
Iceland
Australia
Lithuania
United States
Ireland
Canada
France
Estonia
Belgium
FinlandSlovenia
Tiawan
Latvia
United Kingdom
Baharain
Germany
United Arab Emirates
Romania
New Zealand
Spain
Qatar
Portugal
Italy
Greece
Turkey
Russian Federation
Poland
Chile
Mexico
Argentina
Malaysia
China
Saudi Arabia
Ukraine
Brazil
Phillippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Morocco
Pakistan
South AfricaIndia
Indonesia
Egypt
Nigeria
BB Leadership
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Figure 3 : Broadband penetration
Broadband Penetration in India
Broadband penetration in India is about 6 % of
total household which has improved more than
3% as compared to similar period in 2008.
Wireless technologies in last one year have
facilitated in expanding coverage footprint and
availability of mobile broadband networks in
India. By far the largest network is CDMA based
Ev-Do Rev A, and after the launch of Rev A
networks in country, the coverage penetration
has increased to 6% .
Over 75% of the internet connections in the
country are facilitated by state controlled
operator BSNL/MTNL6.
Figure 4: Total Internet connections in country
The coverage of broadband networks has
especially improved after beginning of Ev-Do
services in country. The Ev-Do based mobile
broadband networks were deployed in top 100
cities by four wireless operators i.e. Reliance,
TATA, BSNL and MTS. The coverage is mostly
limited to city centers or areas high inbroadband potential; nevertheless it has higher
reach as compared to wire line deployments.
Figure 5 : Reliance Ev-Do Coverage 7
6BP Tiwari;http://www.beyond4g.org/india-
wireless-market-update-2h-2009
0 50 100 150
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
Sweden
switzerland
NetherlandsSingapore
Luxembourg
Denmark
Norway
Malta
Iceland
Australia
Lithuania
United States
Ireland
Canada
France
Estonia
Belgium
FinlandSlovenia
Tiawan
Latvia
United Kingdom
Baharain
Germany
United Arab Emirates
New Zealand
Spain
Bulgaria
Qatar
Austria
Portugal
Italy
Greece
HungaryTurkey
Russian Federation
Mexico
Argentina
Malaysia
China
Saudi Arabia
Ukraine
Brazil
Colombia
Tunisia
Phillippines
Thailand
Vietnam
Morocco
Pakistan
South Africa
India
Indonesia
Egypt
Kenya
Nigeria
Global Broadband Penetration
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9 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
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Figure 6 : Tata Ev-Do Coverage 8
State owned largest operators BSNL has Ev-DO
network in 76 cites.
Figure 7: BSNL Ev-Do Coverage 9
However the potential of broadband
development is massive as several of topbroadband nations like South Korea, Japan,
HongKong, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherland,
Singapore, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway,
7Reliance; http://bit.ly/cSeSP5
8Tata ;http://bit.ly/dwkHj9
9BSNL;http://bit.ly/aVsjou
Malta, Iceland, Australia, Lithuania, United
States, Ireland, Canada, France, Estonia and
Belgium has achieved broadband penetration
over 80% of their household as compared to 6%
in India.
Average Broadband Speed in
Country
Country has deployment of ADSL, Fixed WiMAX,
Metro E and other wire line broadband
technologies but those wire-line technologies
are not enough in extending coverage to large
number of households due to deployment
challenges as presented in next section of thepaper. Our internal studies indicate that
country lacks the minimum required broadband
threshold speed to support the growing
demand of internet applications. In contrast, 39
countries have average download speeds above
3.75 Mbps and 1.3 Mbps in uplink as presented
in Figure 9. The average broadband speed in
India was recorded less than 600 Mbps in
downlink in 2009 as compared to global
average of 4.75 Mbps in 2009.
The leading broadband nations like Japan,
South Korea, Sweden, Netherland and
Switzerland have average downlink speeds of
10 Mbps and above. Broadband connections of
these countries are capable of supporting
future web applications, such as high definition
Internet TV viewing and high-quality video
communications (such as home tele-presence)
that will become mainstream in the next 3 to 5
years.
Russia, Germany, UK, Tiawan, Canada, US,
Norway, Denmark, Singapore, HonkKong,
France has average download speeds of 5Mbps
and above.
Wireless technologies are playing an imperative
role in delivering broadband to underserved
areas but their capability to deliver faster
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10 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
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speeds are limited by available technology,
spectrum and other parameters. To give our
readers an idea of their capability to deliver
broadband we have collected data from
different cities to show achievable speeds. Thespeeds can vary depending on the time of the
day, technology used, traffic conditions,
topology, etc.
In the collected samples across different
metros, we found that the average speeds were
on the lower end as compared to their
announced10 values with average measured
download and upload speed was 300 kbps and
150 kbps. The download speed touched as high
as 650 to 700 kbps while the upload speedtouched 460 kbps with Ev-Do networks
recording the highest peaks on non busy hour
period.
The results varied by Device/city/route/ time of
day. On average, Hyderabad performed best
with 300-350 kbps average download speed
and 100-125 kbps average upload average
speed and New Delhi was at the bottom with
240 kbps for download and 130 kbps for
upload.
Figure 8 : Average mobile broadband speeds in
metros cities
10Peak Data ;http://bit.ly/dwkHj9
There were occasional peaks observed while
collecting data. The download speeds reached
as high as 650 to 700 kbps while the upload
speeds touched 460 kbps with Ev-Do networks
recording the highest speeds on non busy hourperiod. Data throughput presented above was
averaged for number of samples over time.
Figure 9 : Distribution of speed tests
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Average Download Average Upload
0
24
6
8
10
12
14
050
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
450
500
550
600
650
Frequency%
Kbps
Speed Tests ( Ev-Do ), Mumbai
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11 State and Opportunity of Broadband in India
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Figure 10 : Average National Broadband Speeds
The principal Challenges
The economy of India is one the fastest growing (in
terms of GDP) & is the twelfth11 largest economy in
the world by market exchange rates and the fourth
largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) basis.
Figure 11 : GDP based on PPP per capita
The last mile (connecting end-users to service
providers), except in top 100 cities is primarily
non-existent in country. In metro cities, copper
cabling is available which can support lower
variants of DSL such as ADSL2. More than 90%
of the countrys urban copper network is ownedby incumbents such as BSNL and MTNL
(Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited) and was
deployed for telephony purposes. Multi-tenant
unit (MTU) type homes have implied large
distances of the order of 1000+ feet from the
nearest POP, thereby limiting the use of
advance variants of DSL such as VDSL which can
give 10 Mbps or so of connectivity. DSL (Digital
Subscriber Line) remains the most widely used
technology to deliver broadband Internetservices. For those tier 1 and tier 2 cities
without copper infrastructure, some initial
deployments of Fixed WiMAX, Ev-Do Rev A,
MMDS and other wireless broadband
11Wikipedia
0 5 10 15 20 25
South Korea
Japan
Hong Kong
Sweden
switzerland
Netherlands
Singapore
Luxembourg
Denmark
Norway
Malta
Australia
United States
Canada
Tiawan
United Kingdom
Germany
New Zealand
Mexico
Malaysia
China
Russia
Brazil
Phillippines
Thailand
South Africa
IndiaIndonesia
Nigeria
Average Download speeds
Gross domestic product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita GDP
0.00
500.00
1,000.00
1,500.00
2,000.00
2,500.00
3,000.00
3,500.00
4,000.00
4,500.00
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Gross domestic product based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita GDP
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technologies has started appearing as a
alternative to wireline.
Our analysis points to the following key factors
which is prohibiting use of broadband in India.
Wire line last mile domination by PSE
incumbents & Local Cable Operators
(LCOs)
LCO market which control the cable last
mile is highly fragmented with over
100,000+ LCOs across the country
The current cable TV network is Arial and of
low quality, backed with the lack of
organization makes it difficult to upgrade be
used for reliable broadband lines.Lack of strong national broadband policy to
support low and more uniform rental rates
for access to poles and reduce cost of right
of way charges to enable deployment of
wire line in country.
Numerous delay in allocating necessary
spectrum to support wireless broadband
deployments in India.
Limited Wire line
The prevalent challenge in the country is to
deliver broadband at affordable tariffs.
Exorbitantly high hight of way charges and lack
of necessary attention from government bodies
has prohibited buried DSL penetration in
country as compared to other nations.
Figure 12 represents right of way charges in top
metro cities of the country. To make business
case of broadband appealing alternative modelsof deployment like Arial fiber and copper were
also experimented in top cities of the country
where exorbitantly high right of way charges
prohibited buried copper for residential
consumers.
Figure 12: Indicative right of way charges
Other factors which have worsened situation of
broadband is non cooperation to unbundle thelast mile local copper from state owned
operators like BSNL and MTNL who controls
more than 90% of the last mile copper in
country.
Whether we like it or not, excessively highright way charges, fragmented cable operators,
non cooperation in last mile copper unbundling
and low data ARPU has made operators in India
to realize, that Wireless is the most effectiveway to provide affordable broadband to
masses in country.
Figure 13: Capex per subscriber
90000
40000 5000030000
20000
ROW (Per Km) US$
800
240
1200
500
0200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
Capex per Sub(60
Active)
Capex per
Sub(150 Active)
US$
WiMAX DSL
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Scarce Broadband Spectrum
The amount of spectrum allocated for
broadband application in country is really
narrow as compared to other nations. The only
spectrum which was allotted to operators was
in the band 3.3 GHz for broadband MMDS and
LMDS. Each operator assigned nearly 6 MHz
TDD or FDD spectrum in 3.3 GHz.
The 3.3 GHz spectrum suffers from high path
loss and poor indoor coverage. Deploying a
nationwide wireless broadband networks is this
spectrum would require substantially high
capex as compared to sub 2 GHz spectrum.Poor indoor characteristic of 3.3GHz has made
most of the deployments fixed in nature. Fixed
3.3GHz WiMAX/MMDS in country is providing
connectivity to SME and enterprise customers.
The other spectrum allocated for broadband
applications was in 10.15 to 10.65 GHz for
LMDS technology. The 3G and BWA spectrum is
under auction process and should be available
very shortly for operators to deploy new
wireless data networks. Our analysis advocatesthat the total amount of spectrum made
available for 3G and Broadband wireless access
systems is way too low to support countrys
data demand.
Figure 14: India Spectrum allocation chart
FREQUENCY ALLOCATION
452.5-457.5 &
462.5-467.5
MHz
5+5 MHz for cellular mobile,
particularly for rural areas (not yet
allotted)
824-844 & 869-
889 MHz
Cellular mobile
890-915 & 935-
960 MHz
Cellular mobile (only parts of this
band allotted)
1710-1785 &
1805-1880
MHz
Only parts of this band, for cellular
mobile
1850-1910 &
1930-1990
MHz
Part of this band being investigated
for potential allocation to cellular
mobile
1880-1900
MHz
Micro cellular systems TDD
1920-1980 &
2110-2170
MHz
IMT-2000 (3G) FDD mode (still to be
allocated 3 to 4 slots to be
auctioned)
2010-2025MHz
IMT-2000 (3G) TDD mode (still to beimplemented)
2.4-2.4835 GHz EIRP 4W over 10+ MHz (250
mW/MHz) Delicenced (WiFi)
2.535-2.655
GHz
Indian satellite applications, LMDS
and MMDS
2.7-2.9 GHz Available for MMDS if protection
ensured for Aeronautical radio
navigation, location services
3.3-3.4 GHz Broadband MMDS, LMDS
5.150-5.350 &
5.725-5.875
GHz
Max EIRP 200 mW (10 mW/MHz)
Delicenced
5.470-5.725
GHz
Indoor and outdoor wireless access
(incl. RLAN) Max EIRP 1W (50mW/MHz)
10.15-10.65
GHz
Broadband LMDS
24.5-26.5 &
27.5-29.5 GHz
Broadband LMDS, MMDS (High
capacity only LoS systems)
Low Data ARPU
For some leading operators, data is nowcontributing over 40% of the overall revenues.
However increase in data ARPU is not
completely offsetting the drop in voice ARPU
for most operators. From the true and tested
SMS messaging to the new services such asMobile Advertising, Social Networking,
Commerce, Mobile Wallet, and others, different
services helped in adding billions to the
revenues generated in 2009.
US, Japan, Australia and Singapore continue to
lead in data ARPU.
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Figure 15: Global Data ARPU
Most of the major operators around the worldhave double digit percentage contribution to
their overall ARPU from data services.
Operators like DoCoMo, and Softbank are over
44%. KDDI, 3 Australia, 3 Italy, 3 UK, Vodafone
UK, O2 UK, KTF, Telstra, and 3 Sweden
exceeded 30% and many others are on the
verge of crossing the 30% mark. Indian
operators Bharti , Vodafone and reliance are
improving data revenues and today stand at 10
% mark12. India operators data ARPU from
wireless services is less than 1 US$.
Figure 16: Data ARPU of global operators
12Chetan ,http://bit.ly/dt5R0T
We collected samples of different broadband
operators to calculate average data
consumption of broadband in country. It was
found that an average connection in country isconsuming around 3-5 gigabytes per month and
corresponding revenue is around US $ 12.
Figure 17: Average Data Packages in India
The utmost challenge in the country is to deliver
broadband at affordable prices. Current
broadband fee in India is already moving
towards some of the most competitive prices
around the globe and operators are increasingly
finding enormous challenge in delivering data at
current prices levels while meeting the growingdemand of new internet visual applications.
The observed median average price of
broadband in different countries is presented
below to give the standpoint of challenging13
broadband delivery cost in India. The prices
presented below are the median price of lowest
and highest observed tariff in that country.
13OECD ;http://bit.ly/drA5AN
0
10
20
30
1 Gig 3 Gig 5 Gig 10 Gig
Average ARPU
http://bit.ly/dt5R0Thttp://bit.ly/dt5R0Thttp://bit.ly/dt5R0Thttp://bit.ly/drA5ANhttp://bit.ly/drA5ANhttp://bit.ly/drA5ANhttp://bit.ly/drA5ANhttp://bit.ly/dt5R0T -
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Figure 18: Global Broadband Tariffs
Broadband opportunities
4G can change broadband situation
The role of WiMAX and LTE based broadband
technologies is pivotal in shaping broadband
industry in India.
Our analysis illustrates that 4G technologies like
WiMAX and LTE has the potential to deliver
broadband in reasonable cost and performance
to India consumers.
In this Section, we will present why 4G
technologies has the potential to change the
broadband situation in country.
To present our case, we will consider four main
segments of the addressable market forbroadband wireless access in India. In each
market segment, the number of BWA
customers for each service provider per cell
is projected from the population density
represented by the number of households and
SOHO (small/home offices) per sq km. In this
analysis, we thus do not consider multiple
customers per household. It is also noted that
we only calculate the capacity requirements
and the population that needs to be served in a
cell, we do not address the coverage issues and
techniques needed to deal with null spaces if
any between sectors in the cell, as our main
idea is to present the case of 4G technologies
and its suitability to deliver affordable
broadband in country.
Dense urban
Cell Radius 250 Meters
Households 8000 per SQ/Km
Subs/Cell 9753 SPs 325 customers/SP/Cell Site
Urban
Cell Radius 400 Meters
Households 3000 per SQ/Km
Subs/Cell 936
3 SPs 312 customers/SP/Cell Site
Sub UrbanCell Radius 700 Meters
Households 1000 per SQ/Km
Subs/Cell 955
3 SPs 318 customers/SP/Cell Site
Rural
Cell Radius 2 Kilometers
Households 150 per SQ/Km
Subs/Cell 1170
3 SPs 390 customers/SP/Cell Site
To compare the subscriber capacity which
needs to be supported by technologies like
WiMAX and LTE , following parameter were
considered to simulate the case of Dense
0
20
40
60
80
US$
Median Price of BB
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Urban, Urban , Suburban and Rural
demographys.
3 Sector Cell sites
Typical download speed of 1 Mbps
4G spectral efficiency ( 1.6 Bits/Hz/Sec)
20 Mhz of Spectrum per service
provider ( Total 3 Service Provider)
Monthly data consumption : 6 GB/Mo
Busy hour 1.6 times
From Figure 19, it is easy to distinguish that
with a total capacity of 52 Mbps/cell, a service
provider can support 1350 Connections per cell
for an average 6 GB/Month usage taking busy
hour traffic in consideration. With data doubling
every year as per the forecast from Cisco VNI
Index14, service providers will exhaust their cell
capacity in third year and their consumers
monthly data consumption will reach around 12
gigabyte in a month.
Figure 19: Total Subscriber supported per 4G cell
The amount of bandwidth a service provider
has to license to support a desired total
capacity, depends on the spectral efficiency
14Cisco VNI;http://bit.ly/nqdf
achieved by the technology (standard) chosen.
Gradually WiMAX and LTE will shift to their next
evolution by the time India operators come
across difficult situation of maintaining service
levels to IMT-Advanced based systems like 16m
or LTE A to support the their need of growing
mobile data .
Our analysis supports that WiMAX and LTE
based technologies will support mobile data
requirement for first three years and later it can
be upgraded to IMT advanced based systems to
support the growing need of mobile data.
Alternatively operators can also add more radio
carrier to support their capacity requirement or
install more capacity cell sites.
Figure 19: Spectral efficiency of various
technologies
It is worthy to note some of the much recent
data trends form CISCO VNI Index which were
captured in collaboration with 20 leading
Internet service providers and according to
Cisco, average broadband connection
generated 11.4 gigabytes of Internet traffic per
month, or 375 megabytes per day in Q3, 2009.
0
500
1000
1500
6 Gig
/Mo
12
Gig/Mo
18
Gig/Mo
24
Gig/Mo
30
Gig/Mo
NumberofSubscribers
Subscriber supported in 4G cell
Support required per cell ( DU)0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
HSPA
Rel 6
HSPA
Rel 7
WIMAX
16e
LTE Rel
8
LTE A 16M
0.5
0.8
1.4 1.5
2.4 2.4
0.30.5
0.7 0.8
1.9 2
DL Spectral Efficieny UL Efficiency
http://bit.ly/nqdfhttp://bit.ly/nqdfhttp://bit.ly/nqdfhttp://bit.ly/nqdf -
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The average monthly download traffic reported
in clearwire and Yota WiMAX network is around
7 and 10 Gigabytes per month.
Clearly the mobile data traffic is growing fast
and availability of necessary amount of
spectrum to support the need of growing
mobile data traffic is the key to maintain
proliferation of broadband in country.
Improvements in technology will also play an
important role in bridging the gap in digital
dividend. The key to success in Indian
broadband story will largely depend on
necessary amount of spectrum andadvancement in 4G Technologies.
Deliver a GB for half a dollar
The biggest challenge for operators in India is to
deliver a Gigabyte of mobile data in less than
half a dollar. It was always difficult to deliver
data over wire line media at such cutthroat
prices. 4G technologies like WiMAX and LTE has
come close in their ability to deliver broadband
data at very affordable prices and has the
potential to reach half a dollar for a gigabyte of
data. The main reason attributed to delivery of
affordable broadband data over 4G
technologies is;
Higher spectral efficiency ( 2-3 times
improved as compared to their 3G
counterparts)
New and more economical broadband
spectrum as against to their cellular
counterparts( 2.3, 2.5 and 3.5)
Availability of bigger chunks of spectrum (
20 to 40 MHz)
Flat architecture reducing protocols and
network elements
Balanced IPRs which will allow competitive
devices.
Figure 20: Broadband delivery cost over 4G
MIMO and bigger chunks of spectrum is the key
to deliver data at competitive and affordable
prices. The amount of data that can be
delivered over wireless systems becomes
double with growing number of multiple
antenna chains. The theoretical peak data rates
that can be supported in 20 Mhz of spectrum
can achieve data rate well above 300 Mbps with
4x4 MIMO systems. We envisage evolution of
MIMO systems to play an important role in
shaping Indian broadband wireless industry.
With Similar amount of spectrum, the peak cell
site data rate for different MIMO configuration
is presented below to emphasize the weight of
MIMO systems in shaping India broadband
wireless systems. Data presented here is based
on 2 , 4 and 8 layer spatial multiplexing.
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Figure 21: Peak Data Rate in Different MIMO
Configurations.
Deliver new internet applications
with 4G
It is expected that a 10MHz 4G system will
averagely achieve between 2000 7500 (kbps)
which is 2-3 times higher as compared to 3G
systems.
Figure 22: Date throughput vs. Coverage
A 20 MHz FDD 4G systems based on LTE or
WiMAX 16m would averagely deliver data rates
of 2000-12500(kbps) to the consumers.
As per Cisco the current visual application s
requires average connection speed of anywhere
above 2 mbps in downlink to support most of
the applications over internet. Needless to say,
the availability of higher speeds in the networks
for consumers will only improve more rapid
adoption and usage.
Support of large connections in 4G
cells
One of the larger interests from the 4G
technology is to support minimum of 500
concurrent connections, as wireless medium
will become the primary source of data delivery
in country. In our earlier analysis we found that
a minimum support of 450 to 500
simultaneously connections will be required per
cell site to deliver the need of urban
population in country.
The current release of WiMAX can support up
to 300 active and 600 non active consumers and
LTE will support at least 1200 consumers percell site in 20 MHz channel profile. The support
of higher number of active subscribers in 4G
technologies is crucial to keep the capex low.
To summarize , we believe that 4G technologies
has the potential to bridge the digital gap in
India and will play the vital role in shaping
broadband situation in country.
4G technologies has 2-3 times higher
spectral efficiencies and capability to
support bigger channel bandwidths which
will allow delivery of over a GB data for less
than a dollar.
4G technology can be scaled up to support
the growing mobile data
0
100
200
300
400
10 MHz peak
2x2 MIMO
4X4 MIMO
8X8 MIMO
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4G technologies have the capability to
deliver consistent data throughputs to
support the needs of visual applications.
Over 500 broadband subscribers can be
supported in a single 4G cell site.
4G architecture is flatter and has balanced
IPRs which will allow delivery of broadband
at least possible value.
A need for strong national
broadband policy
Like electricity a century ago, broadband is a
foundation for economic growth, job creation,
global competitiveness and a better way of life.
It is enabling entire new industries and
unlocking vast new possibilities for existing
ones. It is changing how we educate children,
deliver health care, manage energy, ensure
public safety, engage government, and access,
organize and disseminate knowledge.
Fueled primarily by investment from private
and public sector and innovation, the Indian
broadband ecosystem has is growing rapidly.
The number of Indians who has broadband at
home has grown from two million in 2006 to
nearly 8 million last year. The latest deployment
of Ev-Do network by four operators has allowed
Indians to access a growing number of valuable
internet applications through innovative devices
in larger locations.
Figure 23: Broadband and Internet users in
India
But, broadband in India is at a nascent stage.
Approximately 1 Billion Indians does not have
broadband at home. Broadband-enabled health
information technology (IT) can improve care
and lower costs by hundreds of billions of
dollars in the coming decades, yet India is
behind many advanced countries in the
adoption of such broadband technologies.
Government can influence the
broadband situation
Government can influence the broadband
ecosystem in many ways;
1. Ensuring efficient allocation and use ofgovernment-owned assets
Spectrum: Broadband spectrum is a majorinput for providers of broadband services.
Currently, the Government of India has set
aside 60 megahertz of spectrum for BWA
applications which will be auctioned shortly.
This spectrum is just a fraction of the amount
that will be necessary to match growing
0
2
4
6
8
1012
14
16
Jan 06 Jan 07 Jan 08 Jan 09
Broadband connections Internet Users
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demand. More efficient allocation and
assignment of spectrum will reduce deployment
costs, drive investment and benefit consumers
through better performance and lower prices.
Our analysis foresees that government of India
will require at least 450 to 600 MHz of new
spectrum in next decade to support the
broadband requirement of country. As wireless
will become the predominant way of
broadband delivery in country and hence the
availability of adequate spectrum is even more
important for India.
To draw from our analysis, we have projectedmobile data growth trends of internet traffic
measured from CISCO VNI index and other
operators with best know spectral efficiencies
from 4G systems taking 10 years into
consideration.
Projected mobile data traffic considers busy
hour data traffic requirement and also look
forward to factors that large amount of wireless
data will be offloaded to wi-fi and wire-linenetworks in next 10 years.
Figure 24: Projected additional spectrum
requirement for India
Spectrum analysis summary;
Make 450 megahertz of spectrum newly
available for broadband within 10 years, of
which 270 megahertz should be made
available for mobile use within five years.
Reframe 2G spectrum for more flexible use.
More unlicensed spectrum: Expand
opportunities for innovative spectrum
access models by creating new avenues for
opportunistic and unlicensed use of
spectrum and increasing research into new
spectrum technologies.
Infrastructure: Infrastructure such as poles,
conduits, rooftops and rights-of-way play an
important role in the economics of broadband
networks. Ensuring service providers can access
these resources efficiently and at fair prices can
drive upgrades and facilitates competitiveentry.
The current right of way chargers are
exorbitantly high. If government can maintain
low ROW charges for broadband networks, it
will have direct impact on delivery of
0
200
400
600
800
2010 2015 2020
Mobile Data in Handsets
Broadband Data( BWA ,Laptops)
Year Handsets Internet
centric
devices
2010 6 MB/H 20 MB/H
2015 48 MB/H 173 MB/H
2020 366 MB/H 1500 MB/H
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broadband services and will allow delivery at
affordable levels.
Figure 25: Present right of way charges
Summary of infrastructure;
Establish low and more uniform rental
rates for access to poles, and simplify the
process for service providers to attach
facilities to poles.
Improve rights-of-way management for
cost and time savings, promote use of
government facilities for broadband,
expedite resolution of disputes and identify
and establish best practices guidelines for
rights-of-way policies.
Facilitate efficient new joint infrastructure
construction and allowing joint deployment
of broadband infrastructure.
Other Initiatives
Create mechanisms to ensure affordability to
low-income Indians: Creating incentives for
universal availability and adoption of
broadband.
Ensure all Indian have the opportunity to reap
the benefits of the broadband. All Indians
should have access to broadband service with
sufficient capabilities, all should be able to
afford broadband and all should have the
opportunity to develop digital literacy skills to
take advantage of broadband. This should
include creating broadband funds to accelerate
deployment of broadband in country,
2. Promote polices and incentives forbroadband adoption.
Health care: Help ensure health care providers
have access to affordable broadband and create
incentives for adoption by expanding
reimbursement for e-care.
Education: Provide and improve the
connectivity to schools, libraries and accelerate
online learning by enabling the creation of
digital content and learning systems, removing
regulatory barriers and promoting digital
literacy.
Economic opportunity: Support broadbandservices and applications to drive job creation,
growth and productivity gains. Also expand
opportunities for job training and placement
through an online platform.
Public safety: Support deployment of a
nationwide, interoperable public safety mobile
broadband network in next 10 years.
90000
4000050000
3000020000
ROW (Per Km) US$
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Taking India to top 10 broadband
nations
Its been a dream run for voice in India. India
positions itself as number two nation in new
world order.
Figure 26: New Telecom World Order
Our data story has been lacking for number of
reasons which was also talked earlier
throughout the paper.
We have listed top 10 items if done properly,
will take India into top10 broadband nations.
1. We need a strong national broadbandpolicy now focusing on making India top
broadband nations and polices consistent
towards that goal.
2. Ensure at least 270 MHz of spectrumavailability in next five years and over 450
MHz of new spectrum in coming decade.
3. Allocation of more unlicensed spectrum toenable delivery of broadband in affordable
way.
4. Use of 4G technologies for broadbanddelivery would be most efficient way of
broadband delivery in India.
5. Government should establish low and moreuniform rental rates for access to poles and
reduce cost of right of way charges to
enable broadband deployments in country.
6. Government should facilitate efficient new joint infrastructure construction and allow
joint deployment of broadband
infrastructure.
7. If possible, a little amount of broadbandspectrum should be allocated free of cost to
operators with obligation of deployingnationwide broadband network to have
higher broadband penetration in country.
8. Creating incentives for universal availabilityand adoption of broadband in country.
9. Ensuring availability of low cost broadbandaccess devices to masses.
10.Operators will have to continuouslyInnovate in delivering new services,
improving network efficiencies and in
keeping broadband delivery cost asminimum as possible.