Wireline Infrastructure: Awaiting Broadband Push

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Although fixed line infrastructure has been in India for a long time, the growth of fixed line (wireline) phones has not matched the rise in the number of mobile (wireless) subscribers in India. However, both wireline and wireless technologies are complimentary and work in conjunction. Broadband deployment by telcos and telecom service providers' push to focus on fixed line phones may boost the image of wireline infrastructure. The new thrust comes at a time when a couple of telecom infrastructure service providers reduced their focus in the wireline market.

For many telecom service providers in India betting on the wireline sector, the objective of our broadband and telephone business is to have presence in cities with high revenue potential. For them, the product offering in this segment includes supply and installation of fixed-line telephones providing local, national and international long distance voice connectivity and broadband Internet access through DSL.

Currently, in the broadband and telephone business, Bharti is present in 15 circles covering 94 cities and we plan to be anywhere near 100 cities by end of the financial year 2007. The company had 1,737,799 customers as on December 31, 2006 of which 31.6% were subscribing to broadband services. IPTV will be one of Bharti's major drivers to be launched sometime this year over the same copper which provides telephone and broadband services. IPTV services were successfully test launched in Gurgaon and are under trial with over 1,000 customers, IPTV services shall provide digital broadcast TV, time-shifted broadcast TV, video-on-demand and radio services.

India, where the dynamics of wireline service are changing, which also contributes to increasing pressure on revenue streams of telecos, is not alone in the world. Traditional wireline service revenues in the US remains on an overall negative trend, according to market research firm Research and Markets. Revenue shrinkage is primarily due to reduced consumer voice service spending. Business voice services also show negative growth, but not as much as consumer voice services. Long-distance revenues are decreasing at a much faster pace than local-service revenues, as users rely on their wireless service for long-distance calls. Growth in broadband wireline revenues remains robust, particularly in the DSL and cable modem arenas, but are not sufficient enough to offset the overall negative trend.

Experts panel

Amit Laroya, MD, 3M Electro & Communication India
Atul Bindal, joint president (Broadband & Telephone Services) Bharti Airtel
JP Singh Sehdev, director, Metro Ethernet Network, Nortel Networks India

NEW TECHNOLOGIES
In India, Metro Ethernet Networks are relatively new. But few infrastructure providers are committed in building on the market leadership in the growing Metro Ethernet market. Since proliferation of 3G, WiMax, IPTV, IMS will drive the network expansion in wireline, wireless and cable, few cellular service providers are looking at MEN for their future expansion.

Since it is a relatively new technology to Indian telcos, infrastructure providers are pushing hard to win critical new space in the market. Their strategy is based on the increasing reliance on Ethernet as the standard protocol for both LAN and WAN communications to break the bandwidth bottlenecks between high-speed fibre-optic networks and Metro networks serving customers and businesses. They are driving carrier-centric Ethernet innovation and have been a major driving force behind the standardization of Provider Backbone Bridging and new comprehensive Ethernet OAM (Operation, Administration and Maintenance) tools. New technology Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) allows service providers to deliver the communication and entertainment services of the future to consumers and companies across cities and countries.

WHAT IS DRIVING THE GROWTH?
Besides, broadband deployment by telcos, following can be termed as the key growth drivers in the Indian wireline sector:

Broadband Over Power Lines

Broadband over power lines has already made its presence in the United States and the Europe. Sooner or later, transferring voice and data through power lines will be a reality in India as well.

Broadband over Power Line (BPL) is a technology that allows Internet data to be transmitted over utility power lines. (BPL is also sometimes called Power-line Communications or PLC.) In order to make use of BPL, subscribers are not dependent on a phone, cable or a satellite connection. Instead, a subscriber installs a modem that plugs into an ordinary wall outlet and pays a subscription fee similar to those paid for other types of Internet service.

BPL works by modulating high-frequency radio waves with the digital signals from the Internet. These radio waves are fed into the utility grid at specific points. They travel along the wires and pass through the utility transformers to subscribers' homes and businesses. Wires and sockets are used simultaneously for electricity and data transmission, without causing disruption to either.

BPL equipment vendors typically use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) processes to handle high-speed data transmission between computers, as a solution for a noisy electricity network. The OFDM technique detects changes within the power line and maintains network communication - even during power spikes or other disruptions on the line.

Add on Features
BPL technology can also be used for smart grid application control using data transfer over an existing electric grid, and improving their control of energy reserves. It can detect real-time theft detection, Detection of any malfunctions or service distribution disorders, alert on misuse of any utility service, real-time power usage detection.

The Web-based broadband automatic meter reading (Broadband AMR) application can be used for simple integration of a variety of existing metering systems into an IP-based network which can be used to read and record real time usage of electricity.

Security and surveillance issues can also be handled by this technology by placing audio and video devices at strategic point and transferring the data through power lines.

Challenges Ahead
The biggest challenge for wide scale use of this technology is the opposition from users of the same spectrum. They fear interference from BPL in their radio signals.

In both access and in-house high-speed BPL technologies, multiple carriers spread signals over a broad range of frequencies that are used by other services. In the spectrum below 30 MHz, incumbent authorized operations include fixed, land mobile, aeronautical mobile, maritime mobile, radio location, broadcast radio, amateur radio terrestrial and satellite, and radio astronomy. In the spectrum from 30 to 300 MHz, incumbent authorized operations include fixed land mobile, aeronautical mobile, maritime mobile and mobile satellite, radio astronomy, and amateur radio terrestrial and satellite, broadcasts TV and radio. This spectrum is also used for public safety and law enforcement, and government aeronautical radio navigation and radio navigation satellite. Each of these authorized services in the spectrum can get harmful interference. The close proximity of access BPL equipment on utility poles may affect the operation of cable television service and high-speed digital transmission service, such as DSL.