Continuing to my last post about why broadband is so poor in India.In last post I discussed little bit about “last mile”.
There were few confusions, let me first clear them out before I end up topic about last mile.Someone left comment on last post and said The pvt. telcos really think we Indians are idiots are idiots and don’t need high speeds.come on yaar give 8mbps @ 999 with no FUP and see the rush for BB.
Very good confusion!
Let me clear this one. Firstly how many people you think know the difference between 2Mbps and 8Mbps, and how many really need that much speed? Me, you and other folks here do understand what is 8Mbps and what one can do with that, we will be happy to get one, but are we in majority? Infact a study shows top 5% user on broadband network constitute for 57% of resource usage. Why not ISP’s should cut those 5% and make life easy for 95% users?
Next thing, most of us already have broadband and we pay close to 1000Rs a month for that. Point is how many you think are still not having broadband because there’s no 8Mbps@1000 ? If ISP comes with that, they won’t really get new people signing up for service, so what’s the profit?
Airtel is already giving 50Mbps, BSNL is offering 24Mbps for 7000Rs a month. Main reason for such high pricing is the fact that there’s no business model which supports lowering prices. Don’t expect something super rocking from small players as they do sit on Domestic & International bandwidth of big players. They can’t kill of business of big guys sitting on their backbone! (Do you think billion $ companies are that much stupid?)
Next (good) question was = Why low demand is keeping rates high?
Well, reason is broadband is quite different from things like say electricity. Bandwidth is virtually unlimited (as oppsed to case of electricity), but to create that sort of “unlimited” capacities we need heavy infrastructure consisting of fiber links, routers, switches = making backbones, datacenters followed by servers serving that much data on the network. Now if less users use it, it takes cost per user quite high. As more and more users come up, cost/user comes down.
Other question is confusion about wireless broadband. Is wireless broadband cool thing? What about 3G & WiFi?
I would again say here – 3G is good if you come from path like 2G, 2.5G and 3G. It’s very good as for fast connection while on go, but it was never designed to be an alternate of fixed broadband. Reason remains “limited spectrum”. At the end, you have limited spectrum available which carries data. It’s true that HSPA+ can give a real world speeds of 5-6Mbps, but overall capacity is limited, and cannot offer “everyone” with those speeds. That’s why 3G is a good option for low demand areas like Tier 3 cities, Rural areas etc. I myself stay at Rural area during weekdays and I have seen EDGE performs better here as compared to EDGE in New Delhi.
Other part here is = at the end 3G is “just a last mile” technology and it needs significant backhual capacity to provide users with broadband. Most of mobile towers are still running over point-to-point microwave and that itself has limited capacity followed by varying latency. It works well for low bandwidth applications like voice calls but it will be a challenge to provide high speed broadband over 3G over such backhual capacity.
Next point = wifi. Many people have confusions about WiFi & it’s power.
Well, the big reason for success of wifi is fact that it operates in unlicensed spectrum 2.4Ghz. Now unlicensed makes it available for everyone (not like exclusive spectrum which telecos carry). This makes wifi prone to heavy interference. To cover a city like say New Delhi with wifi, it’s a big technical challenge. Firstly, you can’t build big towers like you have for cell phones, because big tower = covering more area = covering more users = too much interference apart from limited 20Mhz spectrum in 2.4Ghz band. And a Ghz band has lot lower penetration then Mhz band (on which telecos operate).
Way out is = small wifi hotspots. To atleast cover whole area with wifi coverage effectively, we need something around 1 hotspot after every 100m. Nearby hotspots will operate on different (non-overlapping) channels of wifi, and will enable 20Mhz of bandwidth per hotspot. This way is again = good for wireless/handheld devices where you tend to consume “decent” amount of data in sending emails/chats/ a couple of videos etc. It still can’t give a 8Mbps to each home user, enabling them to download 2-3GB of data in a day.
In real = most of projects which started to provide city-wide wifi in Western countries = failed. Technically it seems like a non-feasible idea, apart from fact when you build hotspots after every 100m, you need a wired backhual to feed those access points, apart from constant power feed (which is again not easily available) creating economical challenges. WiFi hotspots will become more popular in crowded areas like Airports, Malls, theatres etc of big cities as here aim is mainly to offload peak traffic from cell phone networks. Aim of such wifi network is not to give a super high speed broadband on cheap rates (to home users), but to provide a high speed connection for limited usage on go.
Bottom line = there seems NO wireless technology available till now which can give you high speed broadband experience and is scalable. You will get point about scalability once you will see choked 3G networks after few months!
Other confusion = capacity of fiber optics.
Many people feel fiber optics offer almost unlimited capacity and we can do anything. It’s half correct. To understand capacity on fiber optics, understand it as “free open space” outside. Now to run a car/bus smoothly on that “big space” you need to build road. Fiber is much like that. In peak rates, you can have 10Gbps/wavelength of bandwidth over single-pair (2cables, one for sending and one for receiving). Now you can have 160 wavelenghs (peak) over such pairs uding DWDM. This takes capacity to as high as 1.6Tbps over single pair. Most of fiber pairs deployed on backbone are like 100-200pair fibers and this takes theoretical peak bandwidth to as high as 100Tbps. But here one big thing is = fiber is just a media = just a part of network. There are lot more components required in such networks, which are still bottleneck. BSNL’s core network is still at just 10Gbps, and they are upgrading it to 40Gbps. Just an upgrade from 10Gbps to 40Gbps needs over few thousand crore’s of investment over new equipment (other then fibers). So in theory = yes fiber has almost unlimited capacity, but in real it’s limited due to economical factors.
In case of Verizon FiOS (one of biggest fiber to home deployments in US) they give 50-100Mbps of bandwidth. They can surely take it high to 4-5Gbps, but to offer end users that much bandwidth, they need to upgrade backhual capacity and that needs more investment.
Here’s a summary of (popularly) available last mile options:
| Name of technology | Type | Good | Bad |
| DSL | Wired (twisted pair phone lines) | Has enough bandwidth to serve existing needs for India. It seems OK atleast till end of 2012. | Only BSNL+MTNL hold most of copper and their “unions” are not permitting Govt. to unbundle last mile for other operators. For new players, DSL doesn’t seems like long lasting due to limited bandwidth.Distance is big limitation of DSL After 1Km distance from exchange, it’s gets too noisy to provide high speed broadband. |
| Cable broadband | Wired (co-axial cable) | Has lot more bandwidth then DSL. Using technologies like DOCSIS 3.0, ISP’s can easily provide broadband speeds of 50Mbps over coaxial. | In India there’s hardly any big cable tv operators. Super high fragmentation limits their size, apart from fact most of last mile co-axial is badly managed and doesn’t supports two way Internet. We need totally new infrastructure, and in age of fiber, big guys tend to ignore such heavy investment. |
| 3G | Wireless over 2100 band (with recently allocated) 5Mhz spectrum | One of very cheap deployments for broadband. Just needs investment in upgrading equipment on existing towers and increase in backhual capacity. In low demand and low ARPU’s it can surely help. | Allocated spectum is way too less for most of broadband needs. 5Mhz is way to less and can’t provide everyone with good broadband speeds in big cities. |
| Mobile WiMax | Wireless over 802.16e over recently allocated 20Mhz spectrum | Better then 3G technologies. Is more scalable, and good enough to support decent need of mobile broadband. | BIG problem here is limited spectrum. Cities like New Delhi need over 200Mhz spectrum, while allocated is hardly 10% of that. Apart from that, globably WiMax seems failing agaist it’s competitior LTE. Thus overall ecosystem is also a problem for WiMax. |
| WiFi | Wireless over 2.4Ghz on 802.11n. | Global standard, and can be used on almost all laptops and most of new handheld devices. Spectrum is open and thus free for ISP’s to use for deployment. No heavy spectrum fees. | Open spectrum makes it terribly prone to interference, apart from limited bandwidth of 22Mhz. To cover big area, wifi needs lots of Access Points & to serve them itself is a challenge. |
| GPON | Optical Fiber | Extremely scalable, and supports super high bandwidth. Technically one of best available technologies for broadband deployment. | Needs completely new infrastructure, and it’s costs a lot. Low ARPU makes it very hard to deploy such technology. Apart from that cost of termination electronics is yet to come down. Slicing fibers, connections, etc all needs trained technicians as opposed to current low-trained “linemans” and that also makes it expensive. |
Well my post seems again going too big to cover next part. Will cover rest in next post 
Comments are always welcome!
About the author:
Anurag is a Student and a part time network admin at dito.
He is all around network related technologies like DNS, Internet routing, servers, connectivity etc. He is also one of Power Posters at Official Google Apps forum and is involved in deployment of Google Apps.
Anurag is doing bachelors in Information & Technology from a State college in Haryana.
Uday March 1, 2013 at 3:13 pm
What you will say about Internet Lease Line,MPLS…..services……
Anurag Bhatia March 20, 2013 at 1:51 am
What about them?
Basically they have last mile over copper, fiber and wireless based on whatever is available to nearest customer location. Also usually enterprise clients enough on their bills that last mile can be managed specially in metro areas where getting fiber to one building gets you many new clients.
Anurag Bhatia March 29, 2011 at 2:14 pm
@Marshall
Operating wireless broadband in most of areas is still a challenge, forget broadband (over DSL). Airtel will hardly make any profit from areas beyond metro cities, and tier 2 cities. They still see a huge un-served demand from metro areas, and they will stick to those areas. That’s one of reasons I always say = do NOT compare BSNL with any private telco. BSNL was made with totally different aim…
Marshall March 28, 2011 at 3:39 pm
@Anurag Bhatia
Airtel is not even available in most areas they are money whore… they only provide internet service in rich areas…
… and If only one ISP would jump on the 8MBPS UL Plan bandwagon then it wont make much difference… Every ISP should launch VFM plans like 2MBPS UL or 4MPBS UL plans @999… 
… Then there would be huge competition between ISPs… And we customer would get benefit of their price war… 
Anurag Bhatia March 26, 2011 at 1:46 am
@ARJUN
Will try later. Although that’s little out of sight. I am focusing on just connectivity part in these series of posts. Anyways, will surely keep it in list for sometime else.
ARJUN March 25, 2011 at 8:12 am
@Anurag Bhatia
No Mention, Thank You. Please Publish Article Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server Advantages Over Telecommunication Networks ASAP!.
Anurag Bhatia March 25, 2011 at 1:18 am
@ARJUN
Thanks for kind words
Anurag Bhatia March 25, 2011 at 1:15 am
@rajesh
Probably because 900 slots are all given already. Measure of spectrum….hmm…that’s bit of complex job.
Actually to be true, India hardly has innovation in all this stuff. We just implement whatever is done in Western side. In US FCC handles all spectrum related stuff. So once a technology say GSM is built to work on 1800, 1900Mhz bands, FCC decides what to make available and for which purpose.
In case of India, TRAI looks into deployments done in Westen world, then puts a consultation paper which includes technical part (apart from backend business related part), and they make band available.
EVDO has limited speed because that’s bit old technology. It was “designed” to provide that sort of speeds. Newer technologies like HSPA+, LTE and mobile wimax are quite more efficient, but since new thus cost of deployment is still high.
rajesh March 24, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Govt. is giving 1800Mhz spectrum for the new players.Why not giving 900Mhz?.If d shortage of 900mhz is d answer,is d 1800mhz is so plenty to give?.How can they measure the availability of spectrum?.Also why its not possible to increase d speed of EVDO beyond 3.1mbps?
ARJUN March 24, 2011 at 7:10 am
@bharathkumara
Ya That’s Right, This Fellow Anurag Bhatia Knows Everything About Networking. You Know What Every GSM/CDMA Operators Deploys Optical Fiber Cable On Their BTS Towers Basements So That They Can Provide Wide Coverage Across Country.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 10:59 pm
@Akash
Good comment Akash
That’s what I also tried saying = Airtel, Tata’s, Reliance are selling highly unutilized capacity at expensive rates, but it’s topic of debate if that’s right or wrong. At the end of day = they are commercial organizations and infact all Public. So they tend to make more money. We should avoid calling them theves or chors for fact that they are just making money.
Beyond that = yes, there have been cases when few companies are reported of doing unethical work, specially of damaging BSNL’s network intentionality. That’s certainly wrong/illigal/unethical. But selling bandwidth at rates what they fee; are good for them isn’t that bad
Akash March 22, 2011 at 10:47 pm
@devx hi. The problem with most people is that they have an instinctive distrust of any company operating for profit..india is operating on the lowest tariffs in the world by a huge margin..for both voice and data …please check it with any developed country friend of yours …people want voice calls at 1p/sec which is 0.02 cents ..even then telecom companies are looting you …then you want 8 mbps speed unlimited at Rs 1000…can you even begin to imagine the amount of cost which telecom companies incur for giving this data …apart from the huge cost incurred in getting spectrum which is again priced highest in the world in india only, telecom companies incur a huge fixed cost and incremental cost in setting the network towers …how did you come up with the statement – developed countries give far higher speeds compared to India inspite of having higher operating costs due to high percap incomes. on what basis have you come up with this gem?
Its good to have an opinion but we should try and have an informed opinion rather than just spewing steam in public forums. Nothing personal.
bharathkumara March 22, 2011 at 9:42 pm
nice to hear the speed between the cables…, i am studying diploma in electronic and communication…., i am working in communication field already, i want to know more about this concept..
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 8:20 pm
@devx
Thanks for info devx
Well, frankly speaking I have rough idea of DTH. As far as I studied it was one way, and I am not fully sure if it supports two way. Even if does, it will be on very very low bandwidth. I usually go around technical part and leave commercial part of such technology unless required.
Based on core technology of DTH = it is JUST for broadcasting from one point to multi-points and cannot provide broadband. Satellite broadband is quite different technology + that itself is terribly poor as compared to other alternatives we have right now.
(sorry about any confusions)
Thanks!
devx March 22, 2011 at 7:56 pm
@Nidish Vashistha
U clearly don’t have any idea about DTH. your lines
“This is totally a Myth that Today’s DTH or DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) is a one way communication. If it is of one way..How these DTH providers are providing Interactive Services…??”
prove that…………
Any service that today’s DTH service op provides whether games,interactive services or anything comes totally as a one way traffic. THE STB DOES NOT UPLINK UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES as of today.
All channels are broadcasted all the time, u just need the right key to open it. That too is broadcasted all the time for all STB’s.
I know it is complex lets put an Example:
Ur STB has a ID and a unique smart card. The sat. transmits
channels 1-100 all the time
after every 5 min it broadcasts the key associated with a cust. ID.
There a millions of subscribers so millions of keys & ID’s are downloaded any time.
The STB only takes its own key and discards others.
U can try this take out ur smart card and put in some other STB, can watch for say 5 min then there will be no feed.
VICKY March 22, 2011 at 7:08 pm
thanks bro
but if i use airtel edge then consistency is there at any time but in my area tower max speed goes up to only 64kbps
But data transfer and connectivity is better in airtel
whether it means airtel has good server
Nilakshi March 22, 2011 at 7:02 pm
@Anurag Bhatia
Thanks dude.
Nihit March 22, 2011 at 6:09 pm
gr8 post………….. i am a doc, but now am an addict to telecomtalk
such a simple way to stay updated
TREMERIN DSOUZA March 22, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Hi ANURAG can you highlight a post on a detailed comparison of different wireless broadband techniques.Especially between FD-LTE,TD-LTE,WIMAX2.
TREMERIN DSOUZA March 22, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Hi ANURAG can you highlight a post on a detailed comparison of different wireless broadband techniques.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 5:30 pm
Thanks ashR
btw you are from which year and which stream at NIT K? You know I am quite close from there at Radaur…
ashR March 22, 2011 at 5:07 pm
@Anurag Bhatia
nice post dude
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 4:37 pm
@Nidish Vashistha
Thanks for reply Nidish
I said it’s one way to make people realize the idea behind how it works.
1.Amount of downlink is way too high then uplink.
2.KU band doesn’t supports a massive deployment of satellite broadband.
3.I wrote that in frame of blog and discussion where we are focussing on something like having a 8Mbps connection at 1000Rs a month. Satellite just can’t do that.
DTH is hit because it’s broadcasting = point to multi-point. Infact players like Airtel are considering to have a SIM card in DTH box to provide 3G connectivity. We all know how poor is performance of those “interactive” services due to high latency.
Hope that clear things up
Jitendra March 22, 2011 at 4:36 pm
@MaNoJ It’s already running on some countries like in urope “ASTRA2Connect” providing the same
Nidish Vashistha March 22, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Earlier DTH systems are TVRO means TV Receive only.. worked in C-Band Communication..now today generation system are using frequency range Ku Band (10 GHz to 14 GHz), mean more Uplink/Downlink rates so Soon using a DTH to use as an Internet Provider will be a reality.
Satellite Internet is used in many countries..via Satellite receivers/Satellite phones..Not implemented in India due to couple of reasons.
1.High Cost of Satellite Internet Modems & Services.. Although Cheaper variant like GPRS/EDGE, Wired Broadband, Now HSPA are also available in Indian Market.. so companies are Bit -hesitant to launch this service.
2. Also the TRAI.(Article 10 http://www.trai.gov.in/dthguidelines.asp ).a major decision taker has restricted DTH to only Television Broadcast..Uplinking for Other services is still not permitted, a special license reacquired. But for the normal functioning of DTH & Signaling purposes..Uplinking of Data is done from End user side..which is not known to user.
3.In Satellite Uplinking has high latency..which is somewhat a problem in using internet..
This is totally a Myth that Today’s DTH or DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) is a one way communication. If it is of one way..How these DTH providers are providing Interactive Services…??
Some companies are doing Trial for Satellite Internet via STB’s.. But no final outcomes yet
Remember Modern DTH cannot be placed in the category of FM Radio or Coaxial Feed Cable Television! Two way Comm. is now possible.
In Short Why DTH Internet not in India because of Companies Marketing Interest,Legal issues & some Technical trials going on.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Hi
never heard of that. Remember satellite is completly different technology and sort of super expensive and laggy. It’s only useful for providing internet access in middle of rural areas of deserts!
In case of LTE, Physically infrastructure will be almost same = just LTE antenna’s at BTS and LTE CPE at consumer end. Providing BTS bandwidth is mostly done via LoS based Microwave (seen those big speaker looking devices on towers?)
Also, LTE has no specification of 100Mbps or like that. It was specification of 4G to provide atleast 1Gbps of speeds when stationary, and 100Mbps while on move. NO one right now supports that. TD-LTE & FD-LTE still are far behind that specification. Same is case is mobile wimax also.
LTE-advanced might bring such sort of speeds, but it will take atleast 2-3 years more to see a commercial deployment of LTE advanced.
TREMERIN DSOUZA March 22, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Dear Anurag i have heard that in US a company named ‘LIGHTSQUARED’ is planning satellite LTE coverage throught the US what is the technical aspect of this type of service.What will be the speed of such proposed service it will surely not meet the LTE specifications of min 100 mbps speed.
MaNoJ March 22, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Nice way to answer…
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 2:09 pm
@mahesh
You can find cost at which BSNL purchases bandwidth. Private telcos will never open that e.g sify will never tell what it pays to International carriers. BSNL does that because it’s is state owned telco and has to open that information.
Try looking for BSNL’s tenders for International bandwidth and you will probably get that information.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 2:05 pm
DTH = one lane, while Internet needs two lanes.
Can you use FM radio for telephone calls?
marcavenu@gmail.com March 22, 2011 at 1:17 pm
DTH internet would be the great
Nilakshi March 22, 2011 at 1:07 pm
BSNL is already deploying GPON in limited areas. Have a look at this = http://bsnl.in/service/bb_ftth.htm
Developed world is gettingactive on FTTH. Verizon is deploying verizon FiOS in US, while many European countries are also getting FTTH. http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/Fiosinternet/
Hope that will help.
Thanks!
@Anurag Bhatia
mahesh March 22, 2011 at 12:57 pm
can you kindly share web links where cost of bandwidth (of airtel, tata, rcom, bsnl etc) is published. any deal or contract between airtel/bsnl which mentions the cost/pricing of bandwidth per GB.
i need the above information… its very very important. will be grateful to you if you could kindly share web links or information on the same.
thanks in advance.
mahesh March 22, 2011 at 12:48 pm
@Sid
anurag… excellent article. would be grateful if you could cover cost of bandwidth to telcos in detail so that public becomes aware of the costs. its very important that people know about the costs of bandwidth per GB, especially when there is no or little information on the web for the same.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:48 pm
@Nilakshi
Hi Nilakshi
BSNL is already deploying GPON in limited areas. Have a look at this = http://bsnl.in/service/bb_ftth.htm
Developed world is getting active on FTTH. Verizon is deploying verizon FiOS in US, while many European countries are also getting FTTH. http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/Fiosinternet/
Hope that will help.
Nilakshi March 22, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Manoj Abhigyan
Allahabad, March 21st, 2011 at 17:28 | #5
Thanks Anurag for this nicepost. Do you think BSNL with the support of GoI can deploy GPON technology? What is the possibility if government want to do it? In which country this technology is being used?
I also need the answer of the above question.
@Anurag Bhatia
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:34 pm
@muthu
Hi Muthu
That’s not correct.
Airtel is quite active in consumer market in Tier 1 & Tier 2 cities. They are laying their own copper & fibers for business users. Also, 2G, 3G also are sort of “last mile connectivity options”. Only thing which makes BSNL special is fact that they hold over 80% of last mile copper. Beyond tier 2 cities, you will only see BSNL as most of those areas are economically non-feasible for providing wired broadband.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@VICKY
Hi Vicky
Speeds on wireless varies a lot. Main reason remains load on that perticular site. You can actually get 238Kbps of peak speed if there is minimal load, but in real world, we mostly get something around 100Kbps on EDGE. All operators have configured network to give priority to voice calls rather then data (since they make LOT more then voice calls). There can be more vodafone users on that perticular site. Try checking speeds at 1pm Vs 1am and you will get idea
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Hi TREMERIN
CDMA sort of failed in India. Here are few reasons:
1.It didn’t catch up with ecosystem of devices. Most of manufactures bring high end handset over GSM only limiting CDMA smartphones.
2.Qualcomm holds lots of patents in CDMA, and they still charge a ton to manufactures for using their technology.
3.It’s correct that CDMA is better in many ways because it can cover lot more area with single site, apart from fact that deployment is cheap. But CDMA based broadband technologies didn’t went at that much good speed. EVDO is still highly un-scalable. EVDO can’t provide broadband to many people in big cities, here HSPA+ performs lot better. Also, EVDO can’t be used for voice calls, so here also you need support of 1x. EVDO is still good option for Rural areas where demand is low, but problem is = no one is interested in putting money into such sort of technology for now. Primary market is of voice, and GSM is leader in that. For broadband market mobile WiMax and TD-LTE seems better as future proof technology.
That’s what I see. We all know Tata Tele & Reliance Comm are also putting lot more efforts on GSM, and probably they will end up CDMA business after few years. I am yet not sure what are plans of MTS
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Hi Nikunj
Not exactly. Two things:
1.Most of ATM software is still way too slow, and you won’t find much difference in ATM’s running over leased line (copper) Vs ATM’s running over satellite. Though a little slowness is there.
2.There’s a BIG difference between ATM application and our Internet usage. ATM needs very very low bandwidth, while we need lot more for multimedia apps. In case of ATM, a latency of 2-3seconds is just OK while in our case when we load a page of facebook which calls further 20-30 more widgets/plugins/API’s = a 2second latency will case a delay of over 1min in loading which will degrade whole experience.
Hope that explains.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:17 pm
@ARJUN
Reason is in simple Physics. Overall spectrum is limited, thus this limits total bandwidth at last mile on mobile networks. In case of 3G, you share a cell site which has 5Mhz of spectrum. As more and more user comes up, amount of bandwidth/person decreases, and which makes internet slow. And beyond a point, even calls start dropping.
muthu March 22, 2011 at 9:05 am
DON’T COMPARE THE PRIVATE OPERATORS TO THE LAST MILE CONNECTIVITY.BSNL IS THE ONLY PLAYER GIVING LAST MILE CONNECTIVITY IN ALL OVER INDIA.
VICKY March 22, 2011 at 8:22 am
Anurag bro
in my working area vodafone gives max 15 kBps downloading speed
where as idea (using vodafone tower) gives 20+ kBps downloading speed and in my domicile area it has its own tower where it is giving worst speed wit no consistency
Why these variations is it because of problem in idea server in my circle?
ARJUN March 22, 2011 at 7:57 am
@Anurag Bhatia
Anurag Your Article is Very Excellent. One Thing I’d like to Say That Fiber Optic Cable is Used In Mobile Networks So as to Give a Wide Coverage across Country. I Think You Know This, But This is The Sake Of Your Information
TREMERIN DSOUZA March 22, 2011 at 7:28 am
Hi ANURAG Excellent topic and well presented in lay mans language.why dont the CDMA operators provide affordable evdo data plans like BSNL since they have not paid huge sum to acquire spectrum and CDMA can handle more users on a network and coverage is far better wont a plan like rs1000 for 30-50 gb be a hit for them as they are quickly loosing ground to gsm on both voice and data?
ARJUN March 22, 2011 at 6:43 am
@Anurag Bhatia
Anurag One Thing Why This Congestion Occurs in Mobile Networks are Occuring and How It Will be solved?
Raghu March 22, 2011 at 1:19 am
@Anurag Bhatia
yes u are right. thanks for the explanation.
devx March 22, 2011 at 1:09 am
@sam
sorry dude a typographic error
Nikunj March 22, 2011 at 12:55 am
@Anurag Bhatia
all remote ATM in India use satellite internet for its all transactions. i think they should be ultra fast(is that right?).because account holder name appear on screen within micro-second after u enter pin.
Nikunj March 22, 2011 at 12:43 am
BTW,
which internet connection u r using?
what the speed of yours?
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:18 am
@Raghu
Oh yes, and about FUP. Well there needs to be NO FUP on offering below 8Mbps. E.g on current 512kbps plans, we can hardly consume maximum of 160GB a month. That’s not that high to cause any significant load on backbone. In case of say 8Mbps, where you can consume over 3TB of data in a month, we certainly need FUP as ISP’s can afford to give 3TB of usage even to top 5% of users.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:15 am
Dear Raghu, if you talk of capacity (just in technical terms, and leave commercials issues out) = well, in 2008, we had over 18Tbps of International bandwidth available, and we hardly used 0.5% of that. So technically (and virtually) speaking, we can take whole backbone bandwidth to over 200times. Point is = International bandwidth is available, but it costed a lot to build that sort of Infrastructure, and ISP’s want to extract maximum from their investment (that’s what all tend to do…)
It’s all about linear programming we study in 12th (and even in B.tech) = Optimize all resources to obtain maximum profit. In current situation = equation says = keep bandwidth expensive, but this will change a lot as demand will increase due to increase in penetration by wireless broadband.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:11 am
One wireless = yeah sort of.
On wired broadband – DSL/Cable/Fiber = no. We certainly need more bandwidth. I say 8Mbps because it seems more then enough for running almost all possible apps including HD streaming without buffering. I don’t think we really need to think of 1Mbps or so on wired connections, where high speeds are certainly possible.
Hope that clarifies your doubt
Raghu March 22, 2011 at 12:07 am
@Anurag Bhatia
India has the capability of offering 1 mbps speed at a cost of Rs 600-Rs 700 with unlimited usage . but they are not prepared to do so. they say Unlimited usage and then put FUP. Unlimited means no limit but they put limit which is 100% cheating by the operators.
Anurag Bhatia March 22, 2011 at 12:00 am
Sort of yes. I have seen BSNL’s promo documents saying 2MBPS of speed (yes all were in capital) which is just crazy.
Even I feel frustrated with the way TV shows are showing 3G. I heard on a show on TV that 3G is already way too high then wired broadband as we can download a movie within 3mins. o_O
TRAI needs to come up with some regulation of gurantee of speeds on 3G. 21Mbps peak speed is meaningless and highly misleading.
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 11:54 pm
@Sid
Thanks for kind words Sid. You raised many points, let me reply back in points
1.FUP is MUST and SHOULD ALWAYS be there. In case of India, it’s getting a trend that ISP’s are screwing end users with crazy FUP. They call it Fair Usage Policy, and it needs to be fair. So, for a 8Mbps connection, where you can grab as high as 1GB in 15mins, a FUP of 20-30GB is meaningless. A FUP should be of atleast 200GB a month. Beyond that usage surely ISP feel the pressure. That’s about wired broadband. In case of wireless = atleast in current scene of 3G, FUP is as low as 10GB because of extremely low spectrum (that too at really high rates). Most of ISP’s are presently taking advantage of FUP to do overselling on their network. I wish TRAI becomes bit active on that part.
International bandwidth cost is a big problem = that’s correct. Atleast for BSNL who hardly has any International asset, a huge amount of money goes to Tata and Airtel for International bandwidth. I plan to cover that part in detail in other cost. Apart from costs you mentioned of International bandwidth, current domestic backbone of BSNL is also on heavy load. Their MPLS is at 90% utilization, which is way too high then industry standards. They don’t need more fiber, but they need to lit more fiber pairs, adding more line cards, adding more routers,etc and unfortunately that work seems going way too slow. Checkout traceroutes to US based server in day time and night time. In comparison you will get idea of crazy latencies during daytime followed by very high packet loss within BSNL’s network. So essentially if you break down cost per GB of bandwidth, that’s still higher then 10Rs a GB. So, if you transfer 75GB on 750Rs a month plan, it’s just a loosy deal for BSNL (consider other costs also). So how come we can expect 8Mbps for 1000Rs?
In case of Airtel = they seem just overselling! Latency seems not that bad = thanks to their 20GB FUP on unlimited plans!
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Good question Ram. dth is based on point to multi-point, and that’s what makes it very cheap. They broadcast over high bandwidth from single point – satellite to all dishes. Internet works on different way of point-to-point. There are satellite broadband players, but they are the worst ones because technology is very very expensive. Technically satellite broadband offers very low bandwidth with very high latency (due to distances) making it poor option for broadband. In case of TV broadband, latency (or 3-4seconds don’t matters at all).
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 11:41 pm
@Marshall
Marshall, that’s right someone has to start. I am sure soon they will do. Sooner they will find there’s not much left to compete on, other then bandwidth. That will be party time for us
You will see Airtel saying = come to us because we give 8Mbps, while BSNL is still on 4Mbps
Nikunj March 21, 2011 at 11:34 pm
i think in internet connection speed Isp always looting people with the confusion of KBps and Kbps.
here b=bit
B=byte
Udai March 21, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Hi Anurag, I loved the way u explained last mile connectivity
Sid March 21, 2011 at 10:54 pm
First of all congrats to u Anurag for writing such nice, simple understandable articles on such a largely followed blog. I think u have made most of the readers understand about the actual scenarios around the online world that we all enjoy in a fairly simple manner.
Now to the discussion, I have a question, most of the ISPs say 5% people are affected by their FUPs(shitty in my opinion) and eat resources as u have mentioned nearly 60%. Now is this not a capacity problem on their part as such things would happen only when u keep adding more & more customers with upgrading ur POPs/DSLAM/core routers capacity. Backbone I think is pretty heavy for most of those and BSNL is already working on further upgrading its core routers.
Others ISPs shouldn’t face such problem since 85% of BB population is on BSNL+MTNL networks. If this resource problem is more on micro level then shouldn’t there be added more POPs in heavily congested areas so that consumer doesn’t face slowdown on speed.
Now on pricing front, u must be knowing that operational per/GB cost is what matters to an ISP for being profitable. As BSNL’s in its recent tender for International Bandwidth got 3rs./Gb bid, if add other operation costs if it becomes 5-8rs./GB and a keep a selling price of 10rs./GB, u urself are better knowledgeable what todays plans are bringing to all ISPs.
Moreover there is no such break-UP data on how many of the BB customers are on unlimited plan and how many on a limited plan. And In limited plan we have plans priced 100rs/Gb to 300-400 per GB, espcially after u cross the limit.
Now for e.g. if say on a limited plan of 25GB@1399rs. if 80%-90 % of people are not hitting FUPs then 1399/10rs./Gb =130Gb fair limit now multiply it with the 80% BB population (not hitting FUP) are excess & if say 5-10% heavy downloaders utilize the same what so harm to these ISPs. If they are not increasing download limits then either reduce the price for casual/lite readers atleast.
If ISPs continue to come up with such horrible Limits, there will be a day when we people would think before browsing all those informative blogs/websites from the fear of hitting the limit early. Why the principle behind Insurance polices can not work here!
Anyway continue ur post, i’ll be back here to read & comment again !
Keshav Jha March 21, 2011 at 10:40 pm
Thanks Anurag for such an informative post. I think 1 mbps is ideal speed for a normal student/Working person & no need of 10 mbps/20 mbps for a common man. We shouldn’t waste spectrum by unnecessary uses but charges should also be lowered then only people can afford.
ram March 21, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Why is internet not being offered through dth? I have a dth that allows viewing a high definition video for 24 hours a day and that too at a cost of 300 per month. Can that technology be used for broadband services?
Marshall March 21, 2011 at 10:26 pm
[quote]Next thing, most of us already have broadband and we pay close to 1000Rs a month for that. Point is how many you think are still not having broadband because there’s no 8Mbps@1000 ? If ISP comes with that, they won’t really get new people signing up for service, so what’s the profit?[/quote]
In U.S people get above 3MBPS plans for 20$ (Rs.1000). But we only get 1MBPS plan by spending that much money. See somebody has to take a step in the right direction. There are so many people here in India who are waiting to see above 1mbps UL plans at affordable prices. So first they should release an 8Mbps UL plan @999 and then they should just sit and watch for the magic happen. There would be so huge demand that even people who are using kbps plans would shift to 8mbps UL plan. How can they predict that most people wont go with 8MBps plan if they wont launch it at the first place.
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 8:27 pm
@Rahul
Dear Rahul, what most of us want is something like 8Mbps unlimited. It can have a fair usage of say 200GB a month or so. Existing plans no where support that.
We all are good and we deserve more speed. So do not be happy on 512kbps
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Wireless broadband is expensive everywhere due to limited capacity. They have cheap broadband due to many things:
1.They have almost all datacenters within US. Over 95% of traffic of US goes within datacenters build in US, while in India over 80% still goes over of India!
Thus, they have most of data already hosted in US. This makes small ISP’s very powerful.
2.Competition is very high in US for broadband due to last-mile unbundling also. Almost all of last mile copper is of At&t and companies like Verizon, Frontier DSL can lease those pairs, and provide broadband over them. In India almost all copper is in hands of BSNL and they are very less efficient to take advantage of it.
3.ARPU is way to high. They provide broadband over $30-$40 a month. Now 1500Rs a month is way too high for 95% of India, while for US, that’s pretty cheap.
About Reliance Infotel = I will try covering in next post.
Hope it clears out your question
jitender kumar March 21, 2011 at 8:22 pm
indian isp company does not want that indian people will improve their standard..they want to loot people money as soon as possible and as high as possible….kuch ni ho skta in companies ka…nothing
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 8:14 pm
@rajesh
Good question!
In single line = lower the spectrum the better penetration it has, while higher the spectrum, the more bandwidth it can carry. Example = low spectrum bands of AM radio in Khz covers few hundred Km’s, while 2.4Ghz based wifi covers few meters.
In GSM 900Mhz spectrum is the best one. Higher frequencies tend to attenuate over distances. You are absolutely correct about your observation of Idea having better coverage then Airtel. I am not sure about other circles, but in Haryana circle also IDEA works on 900Mhz of spectrum. Interestingly carriers like Tata are already reaching Govt. requesting them to charge operators more for 900Mhz spectrum!
1Mhz on 900 Vs 1Mhz on 1800:
In terms of capacity in theory = it’s same but in real world 1800 attenuates a lot over distance, thus 900 carries more capacity.
How many calls can be handled is a complex question!
I can help you in calculation theoritical peak, but in real world capacity is less due to many other complexities in system.
technologies like HSPA+ are capable of having 3-4bits/second/Hz of bandwidth. This means for 1Mhz is roughly = 4Mbps. GSM uses codecs which take anywhere between 5-13Kbps. Taking average 10Kbps for calculation, 1Mhz can have 4000/10 = 400calls. In real capacity is more because calls are broken between 8timeslots 125ms each. So 8times more, but next capacity is less due to factors like low SNR, interference and lot more.
Hope that will give rough idea of capacity
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 7:52 pm
4G is all about making efficient use of existing spectrum. Technologies like mobile wimax and LTE are NOT real 4G technologies considering the real definition of 4G. They cannot be an alternate for wired broadband where you expect getting 10-20Mbps speeds and downloading 100GB’s a month. As broadband for on-the-go = LTE will be quite good.
Also, I would like to inform that Verizon wireless launched TD-LTE based network and users are getting real world speeds of 5-12Mbps but they have a capping of 5GB/month. JUST 5GB! So got my point?
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 7:48 pm
@devx
About FUP I agree it’s useless. In India MOST of ISP’s are having so low FUP that it’s hardly anything “fair”.
Well, rates are definitely high, but is that ethical or non-ethical from ISP is a topic of big debate. We can’t forget that these players have build big infrastructure, and they want to extract maximum money from that. They get maximum profit by keeping it expensive.
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 7:45 pm
Hi Manoj
GPON is already available in selected areas from State Teleco BSNL. Although plans are too crazy!
Again, don’t forget it’s not easy for BSNL too due to extremely expensive deployment of new fibers on last mile.
Rahul March 21, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Now i telling u about 2G n 3G range.
1st we hve to knw the relation between frequency, power, coverage, noise.
Frequency is directly proportional to power consumption n inversely proportional to coverage.
Higher the frequency higher will be crosstalk n noise.
Tarun March 21, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Sorry as of now there is no option to edit the comment !
marcavenu March 21, 2011 at 7:26 pm
Coverage comparison of different frequencies
Frequency (MHz) Cell radius (km) Cell area (km2) Relative Cell Count
450 48.9 7521 1
950 26.9 2269 3.3
1800 14.0 618 12.2
2100 12.0 449 16.2
marcavenu March 21, 2011 at 7:23 pm
Higher frequencies are a disadvantage when it comes to coverage, but it is a decided advantage when it comes to capacity
sam March 21, 2011 at 7:22 pm
^^^ under 7 billion sorry. by the way how do i edit a comment?????
Rahul March 21, 2011 at 7:21 pm
High speed broadband: Are bhaiyo BSNL desh ki dhadkan aapko saste me high speed de to rha he.
Plan 1100: 4 mbps upto 8gb then 256 kbps unlimited. 500 calls
Plan 1000: 2 mbps upto 8gb then 256 kbps unlimited. 450 calls
Plan 900: 1 mbps upto 8gb then 256 kbps unlimited. 400 calls
Plan 850: 512 kbpsps upto 8gb then 256 kbps unlimited. 350 calls
Plan 750: 512 kbps unlimited.
All plans r combo. No landline rental.
Are itne saste me kya loge?
sam March 21, 2011 at 7:20 pm
@devx
“And at last on a funny note our countries pop. is 120 billion,even if 5% want BB it is like a entire UK wanting BB.”
dude as far i knew the world population was still under 6 billion
Abhijit March 21, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Good Article.. Basic Concept of each medium is explained so well yaar.. very good..
@Anurag Bhatia
Kishor March 21, 2011 at 7:19 pm
Good work Anurag..:)
Keep posting.
sam March 21, 2011 at 7:16 pm
nice post anurag .but i have a few doubts
how come countries like US who have more than 10 fold expensive mobile tariff provide a cheaper wireline broadband??
what is the actual advantage of lte over wimax?
i heard reliance infotel is launching a country wide lte network by year end. what advantage can we expect from that?
rajesh March 21, 2011 at 6:08 pm
What is the difference between 800/900/1800 Mz spectrums.Which spectrum is more good for mobile usages?.How much calls can handle through 1Mz spectrum of 800,900 and 1800Mz?.In my experience idea(900mz)gives more coverage than airtel(1800mz) from a single tower(by distance)and idea signal is available with in my house,but not airtel.why is like this..both tower is with in 2 k.m..Also BSNL 3G is available outside of my home but not getting it inside..Can anyone explain…
ZerviDesk Systems India March 21, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Anurag, All of your articles are very informative. Keep up the good work.
Abadan Mohapatra March 21, 2011 at 5:45 pm
As always, a very Informative article by Mr. Bhatia. And the Best part is , the article is as simple as it can be.
Like Mr. Stephen, even I would like to know your view about 4G.
Meghashyam K March 21, 2011 at 5:34 pm
Nice Article… Expecting more…
devx March 21, 2011 at 5:32 pm
well i left that comment “pvt. telcos really think we Indians are idiots are idiots and don’t need high speeds.come on yaar give 8mbps @ 999 with no FUP and see the rush for BB.”
I agree that in India BB education is still low but the main culprit is Telcos themselves. They have created a mess of the plans, to many speed tiers,FUP’s, this that and what not. If they had something simple it would have made a lot of difference to the existing scenario.
But i don’t agree about the MARKET SIZE. Look if the govt. is targeting some 7 crore subscribers by 2012 and 15 crore subscribers by 2014 then there must be some sense to that. The main problem today is the artificially high prices kept by the companies which drive away potential customers.
and the market size is quite evident from no. of Internet users using mobiles as a medium.
And if developed countries give far higher speeds compared to India inspite of having higher operating costs due to high percap incomes.
And at last on a funny note our countries pop. is 120 billion,even if 5% want BB it is like a entire UK wanting BB.
Manoj Abhigyan March 21, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Thanks Anurag for this nice post. Do you think BSNL with the support of GoI can deploy GPON technology? What is the possibility if government want to do it? In which country this technology is being used at present?
Anurag Bhatia March 21, 2011 at 5:17 pm
@Srihari K
Probably ARPU will increase. Experience of multimedia services was quite poor on 2G networks, while on 3G will be quite good. Although I am not sure if manjority of people use those “multimedia” applications. One other thing in support for 3G is fact that it increases overall capacity a few times for voice also.
@stephen
Which cards you are refering to Stephen?
stephen March 21, 2011 at 5:08 pm
how about the 4G which is on the cards in India ?
Renish R March 21, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Thanks Anurag, Good Work
Srihari K March 21, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Anurag, you are doing fantastic Job in posting facts about Broadband and other Technologies. Well in your View how can Telecome increase ARPU on 2G and 3G?