Strengthening India's optical backbone

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Indian mobile consumers saw the third generation services kicking off with not much hope, yet there was too much excitement in 2011.

A year after the auctions, we saw most operators rushing to serve their half cooked 3G dishes to their subscribers. The existing wireless infrastructure in India was designed to support only 2G technologies (for more voice-centric services) but with 3G, the backbone network capacity went for a toss.

Also Read: Optical network equipment market down 4 pc in 3Q11

The launch of 3G services stepped up the need for fiber optics infrastructure and backbone network services substantially. The growing subscriber base and the current 3G mess with demands and opportunities of fourth generation data services are further ripping the network links apart.

According to a performance indicator report released recently by TRAI, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased from 885.99 mn at the end of June '11 to 906.93 mn at the end of Sept'11, registering a growth of 2.36 per cent. Also, the report revealed that 42.79 per cent of total wireless subscribers base are capable of accessing data services/internet at the end of September'11.

With 42.79 per cent of 906.93 mn capable of using the present high speed data services; it clearly indicates how much more these services will add to the pressure on the backbone network. Such exponential growth in subscribers, devices, and overall traffic leads to an inevitable impact on the network performance and service quality.

With the 3G subscriber base crossing almost 14 mn within a year of its roll out, the operators are in the process of expanding the 3G reach to smaller towns as well.

The evolution of 3G, WiMax, and 4G technologies is providing the basis for rapid data uptake in mobile networks. A number of applications and devices such as smartphones and dongles have started operating at speeds of 21 Mbps and beyond, and are expected to go up to 80-100 Mbps with 4G in the near term.

Undoubtedly, 3G and BWA would require an enhanced backbone network. While the 3G services have been growing, high growth in 3G traffic is yet to happen in India. The poor quality of 3G services provided by operators also impacts the 3G uptake, the major reason being the present choked backbone network leading to low QoS, capacity constraints effecting even 2G services like call drops, etc.

Going forward, with the existing 3G networks being upgraded to LTE, HSPA+, etc, to meet the increasing demand, the transport networks will come under strain. With further addition of 3G subscribers in coming times, the network capabilities of operators would need a drastic upgradation.

The Cramped Network

Backbone network capacity dictates the operator's service level, the essential product of their business, and under-investing in it can lead to severe compromises in customer-visible service quality. The present backbone network, which was well suited to serve the capacity needed for voice; now caters to the demands of data services like 3G.

This is resulting in network choking, congestion, and capacity constraints. The operators are busy setting up new towers, co-locating their node B sites, and tying up with other operators or IP-1 players for co-locating their node B sites. On the backbone front, operator's investments and deployments of new technologies is, however, done in a very limited manner. Laying of optical fiber till now is being done on snail's speed.

Idea rolled out 2,270 2G cell sites during the quarter Q3FY11, taking EoP 2G cell sites count to 80,637, while count of 3G cell sites (Node B) increased to 10,902 compared to 9,744 in Q2FY11. However, the company laid close to 60,000 km of fiber cable transmission network by the end of Q3FY11.

In case of Bharti Airtel, their Q2FY11 result shows company's YoY growth of optical fiber network to 17,694 Rkms. By September 2011, they laid close to 1,51,719 Rkms. On the other hand, Reliance Communications has covered 160,000 Rkms of optical fiber network by Q2FY11.

Ten per cent of the network is fiberized, that too only in major cities. Thirty-forty per cent of the network is still on microwave. In the last few years, though the operators have increased their route kilometers, but the capacity of these networks remain unaltered.

Sanjay Dhawan, vice president, Ericsson India says, "With 3G/HSPA/HSPA+ technology, the possible speeds have gone up to the level of 21 Mbps on the radio side and to cater to these level of speeds, we need to have an equivalent level of backhaul, which means 14-21 Mbps of (7 E1 to 12 E1 equivalent). With LTE, the speeds will be closer to 60- 80 Mbps, which would need backhaul of similar levels (30 E1 to 40 E1 equivalent)."

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Strengthening the Backbone