Affordable broadband access is important to bridge the digital divide. Wireless is the best way to provide broadband access to non-urban areas since technologies like fiber would be too expensive and slow to deploy. As awareness and demand grows in non-metro areas, newer technologies and applications must be made available at affordable prices. Key applications driving internet usage are social networking, entertainment like YouTube, and information searching through Google. Mobile internet and video especially will be major drivers of growth and bandwidth demand. Technologies like LTE and WiMAX are competing to provide affordable wireless broadband access in India.
2. Affordable Broadband: The Why’s & Wherefores WHY? Urban India has had internet access for over a decade now – do you all remember how access changed from dial-up to DSL to wireless over the last 15 years and how it has impacted all our learnings over these years It bridges the digital divide converting non-metro areas into an information society and thereby increases employment in those areas HOW? We would all agree that Wireless is the way to go for Broadband Access and that ‘X’TTH technologies will probably never happen in non-urban areas as, They require Time and currently have very low penetration Wireless access speeds keep increasing Today for BWA the infrastructure is already in place, A pay per use passive infra setup with options in place A pay per use Backbone setup with fewer but increasing options WHEN? Today the non-metro areas pose a bigger opportunity than what the metro areas posed a decade ago More people with more awareness and more desires A faster growth curve of the burgeoning middle class
3. Defining Affordability The availability of a product or service at a convenient price???? The availability of a DESIRED product or service at a convenient price? This brings us to some fundamental questions about BWA What will make BWA an affordable option? Availability of Entertainment using BWA Availability of Information using BWA Availability of Services (Medicine, Education, Jobs etc.) Availability of Commerce using BWA Availability of Social Networking using BWA Etc. Availability of Low-Cost Consumer Devices Availability of Low-Cost bandwidth or Price of Service The Desired Means to achieve the Desired Now we have our Question: Does The Desire exist in the non-metro areas of India so that ‘The Desired’ & ‘The Means’ should be made available at an affordable rate? The Answer is yes!! The people of India are increasingly aware of the benefits of Internet Services and the ways in which it can change their lives
4. Now we come to the Topic of this Presentation: “Affordable Broadband: Newer Technologies & Applications” Going by the previous slide where I stated that Indians have the ‘Awareness’ that has created ‘The Desire’ the below seems logical Applications = “The Desired” Newer Technologies = “Means to Achieve The Desired” We will discuss both the above in an Indian context in the remaining part of this presentation Which Applications are driving the Internet usage globally & in Urban India? What has been the global trend of Application usage growth & Bandwidth usage growth? What will decide the technology winner of BWA? IS it going to be Bandwidth, Latency, Spectral Efficiency and such technically debatable parameters OR will it be Low-cost Handsets, Network Roaming & other such customer oriented aspects? What will be made first – A US$ 100 Phone-Computer OR a US$ 100 Computer-Phone? And who will make it?
5. Applications are mostly available on the WWW Applications can be broken down largely into the below categories Entertainment Social Networking Sites like FB drive the internet significantly Probably even more visited though fragmented are Pornography sites Music, Movies and other entertainment sites like Youtube drive the bandwidth demand significantly Information Google is the undisputed gateway site to information on the web All other sites contribute to the immense information repository we know as the world wide web Utilitarian E-Mail servers are probably the largest utility sites Product download sites like Microsoft, Adobe, Apple etc. In India we have Naukri, Shaadi.com as hugely successful sites Commerce All the e-commerce sites like Amazon, e-Bay and in India like Indiatimes, Rediff
6. Applications can also be segregated into Subscription Driving Applications & Bandwidth Driving Applications Lets look at the biggest Subscription Driving Applications first If Facebook was a country it would be the world’s 3rd Largest Today if someone wants to know how many English speaking people are there in Singapore they just study the Singapore FB users’ profile!! Some statistics about FaceBook India There are over 12 Million users and increasing exponentially Mobile uploads increased 900% over the last 1 year 53 Million pictures are uploaded every month in India Announces Hindi & 5 other languages for vernacular users
7. Lets also look at the biggest bandwidth driving applications February 2005 the founders registered the Domain Name October 2006 they sold it to Google for US$ 1.65 Billion It is the 5th most visited site in India It had 55 Million Channel Views for IPL Channel from across 200 countries Projections say that by 2014 Mobile Video will contribute to over 60% of Mobile Data
8. Lets also visit what China has done on the Mobile Applications front Lets look at TenCent – China’s leading Online Community which is the worlds third largest Internet company after Google & Amazon Another company called TaoBao has also achieved 145 Million Subscribers and a GMV of US$ 12 Bn
9. Some Statistics of Interest about Mobile Phones Today there are 1.7 Billion Internet Users globally distributed between mobile & PC as shown below, where pure mobile users > pure PC users The Mobile is accepted now as the Seventh Mass Media Channel and which is slated to become the biggest of them all (the other 6 are – Print, Recordable Media like Cassette/CD/DVD, Cinema, Radio, TV, Internet) Mobile Internet Users PC Internet Users 500 Mil 800 Mil 400 Mil The Mobile Internet market is expeted to grow exponentially over the next 4-5 years and mobile video will be the biggest driver for that making it important to have affordable video playing mobile phones
10. PC-Phone OR Phone-PC Today the PC-Phone market is led by Apple whereas there are several players leading the Phone-PC race (Nokia, RIM, HTC etc.) Whoever wins the race will be the one who, Makes an ‘Affordable’ Phone Has the distribution problem solved Has adequate Operator tie-ups Creates integrated Applications Customizes Locally
12. Finally Lets discuss the Technology alternatives for BWA Today the race in India is largely between TD-LTE & WiMAX as a Technology of choice for the subscribers Let us look at each of these technologies under the following heads Cost of Technology Here the cost of Technology will be dependent on economies of scale so the global leader will also have an edge in India over its rivals Cost of Consumer Devices This is one of the main reasons why CDMA lost out to GSM because CDMA operators could not continue subsidizing handsets forever and economies of scale were not building up Cost of Infrastructure This is one area where things would even out for any technology as India today has a very competitive Passive Infrastructure market and also huge fiber backbone availability Convenience of Usage The most important aspect would be roaming, which again would be dependent on the globally leading technology and backward integration with 3G & 2G We must remember that CDMA players could never solve the roaming inconvenience for their subscribers and hence never really had the cream with them
13. BWA is the cynosure of Convergence in our Industry and therefore it is extremely important to make it an affordable Access Technology BWA will not only drive the Convergence of Technology, Devices, Internet but also of the Users and gradually Mobile Internet will become a social equalizer in India surpassed probably only by the Mumbai Rains
