Enabling Digital India

INTRODUCTION:

The Hon. PM of India announced the objective of a fully ‘Digital India’ that extends governance to the hands of the common man through the mobile handset. The mobile handset virtually represents a networked minicomputer. Essentially, the success of Digital India will depend on the extent of population foot-print that it is able to target. This means that the network device penetration and Internet penetration should extend to every nook and corner of the country, including the rural and hilly regions, wherever the citizen needs such connectivity. This paper outlines how these objectives could be met in a spectacular way by the government taking a few timely policy and regulatory decisions.

1.        Proliferate WiFi Hotspots:

WiFi is a citizen friendly medium which can be relied upon to serve the cause of the noble objective of Digital India by providing efficient and cost effective connectivity to all mobile handsets. All that the government needs to do is to tweak the regulations in a way that can enable WiFi hotspots to mushroom all over the country, covering every “basti”, every highway and every rail line. The government should permit entrepreneurs to setup hotspots without requiring a Cat A or Cat B ISP license as at present. Instead, a special hotspot operator license may be granted at a nominal fee (say Rs. 1000/-) which should entitle the recipient to backhaul broadband from one or more of any of the existing service offerings by the Cat A or Cat B ISPs.

2.        Backhauling broadband from ISP’s Internet nodes to connect WiFi hotspots:

Spectrum which is a natural resource like water and air, qualifies to extend the first right of use to citizens at large, for utilizing it for their individual needs without having to pay a heavy and unaffordable price. Allotment of appropriate spectrum of sufficient bandwidth using OFDM technology for backhauling broadband from an ISP’s Internet node to the WiFi hotspot at affordable licensing charges will go a long way in meeting the citizen’s need for a wireless backhaul solution, which is presently limited to only landline solutions which in most cases end up being financially non-feasible. This is true even in urban areas where backhaul distances are as low as 3 kms, what to talk of rural areas where the backhaul distances extend to as much as 30 kms!

UHF band in the region of 400 MHz to 700 MHz has the necessary 30km coverage characteristic and therefore presents just the right opportunity for backhaul applications in urban as well as in rural areas. This band, which was earlier allocated for Analog TV transmission of Doordarshan (called TV White Spaces or simply TVWS), stands abandoned today with the advent of the digital age where the TV programmes are distributed over TV Cable systems or over DTH Satellite systems, and has remained unutilized for the entire last decade. It must therefore be put to immediate use for providing the said wireless backhaul solution to WiFi hotspots.

3.        Unlicensed TV White Space band dedicated to Rural citizen:

As a special dispensation to the severely handicapped rural and hilly terrain sector, the government should unlicense another chunk of the said TV White Spaces only for rural applications (on lines similar to that of WiFi) with an appropriate administrative mechanism for ensuring fair usage. This approach has already been followed by the FCC in the USA, with following countries/organizations also taking initiative in opening up TVWS spectrum: United Kingdom (OFCOM), Japan (NICT), Singapore (I2R), South Africa (ICASA) and Korea (KCC).

TVWS spectrum allocation presents a unique opportunity to India to take a lead in positioning broadband to drive National GDP. Hence it is time for India to take the necessary leap. One can say that this is India’s moment to demonstrate technological leadership which has hitherto been latent, just for want of a credible government policy.

4.        Position India as leader in “Content management”:

Content is typically served from a server located anywhere in the world-wide web or the “www” and could be subject to many a congestion in the Internet. However, if all end devices and set top boxes are mandated to become content distributors through a well defined and unique content addressing scheme and protocol, content would then flow freely and become available in clusters whenever and wherever it is in maximum demand.

For example, if a Bengali movie is once downloaded by a customer residing in a Bengali colony, all further downloads of that movie from other customers in the same colony would be limited to the network within that colony itself. The implication of this innovative mechanism is that the Internet bandwidth at the backbone level and the particular server hosting the content would be subjected to that much less load, and would result in more efficient use of the Internet and server resources. This would also result in improved packet latency and download speeds by a significant order of magnitude. Last but not the least, all this would in turn result in significant reduction of cost of Internet bandwidth.

To implement this, India would have to take a lead in standardizing the content addressing scheme that would enable her to be virtually a global leader of Content distribution, in much the same way as USA is a global leader in the field of Internet addressing.

5.        Open Set-top-boxes will widen customer choices:

The proprietary nature of Television set-top-boxes offered by Cable or DTH Operators imposes severe limitations on customer choice. These set-top-boxes must therefore be mandated to access broadband Internet service also from any Service Provider – landline or wireless so that Internet content can also be viewed over the same TV set. Going a step further, the same STB should be mandated to work with different DTH operators also, so that a customer does not have to buy a new STB each time he changes his DTH operator.

CONCLUSION:

The adoption of the aforesaid measures, which only involve policy decisions by government with no separate outlay, will convert all fixed and mobile Customer devices and Set-top-boxes into micro-computers connected to broadband Internet through WiFi hotspots spread all over the country, thereby simultaneously catapulting the Computer and Internet penetration of the country to unprecedented levels. Further, it would result in more efficient Internet bandwidth at lower costs. The ordinary citizen would be empowered with the power of network computing in his hands and would be better placed to connect to a wide variety of network based services, including e-Governance. It would position India as a world leader in broadband usage. In other word, it will contribute positively to make “Digital India” a grand success.

"Mere Sapnon ka Bhaarat" - Suggestions on Telecom Policy

Suggestions on Telecom Policy

1.     World Telecom scenario

World over today, the Telecom business is driven basically by technical innovation – what we call next generation technology. India has the potential to lead the world and show the way. For this, the government has to play its role- to initiate the right policy moves that can leverage networking power to provide the necessary growth in the tottering GDP. The business is not about the old product set but of a new paradigm altogether – of a set of totally new services that transform the way people live an enhanced life style and the way they communicate with each other – that brings about an efficiency hitherto not even dreamt of. This represents a way to empower users through a new infrastructure platform that keeps customers continuously attracted to a variety of newer and newer services offered to them. This capability allows the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) to continuously increase with time. The next generation networks also represent an opportunity to reduce capital expenditures by being able to offer all services over a single integrated IP based infrastructure. Likewise, the Soft Switch and IMS architectures would extend multi-fold decrease in operational expenses like space, power, air-conditioning, human resource, etc. Implementation of NGN would therefore ensure increased revenue and profitability on an unprecedented scale.

2.     Objective

While acknowledging the rapid changes in the world Telecom scenario, the government can work on implementing policies suitable for India’s operators and service providers to adopt the world’s best practices in terms of technology and management to place India

(a)   among top 10 countries in Internet usage in terms of bandwidth utilization,

(b)   among top 5 countries in terms of number of Internet users,

(c)    and among top 3 countries in terms of number of voice devices (phones & mobile)

in the next five years.

3.     Considering the following limitations and afflictions 

a.   that Indian market for Telecom particularly for mobile services has saturated over the last couple of years, though there is ample scope for its further proliferation

b.   that reach of mobile service has been stagnant especially in vast tracts of rural areas, leading to absence of requisite signal levels thereby defeating the purpose of connectivity

c.  that quality of service in the case of mobile services has fallen to unacceptable levels in terms of frequent call drops and session breakage at cell crossings and that there is need to ensure remedial measures in the interest of mobile users

d.  that today’s market is getting more and more saturated with vanilla type voice services and that today’s customer can be won increasingly through service offerings involving multimedia with information/content delivery in transactional mode by such applications as Social media, WhatsAp, Blogs, etc.

e.   that telecom connectivity is driven dominantly by wireless technologies notably 3G and 4G, but the spectrum allotted to operators are under utilized as the user base has not risen in necessary proportion

f.    that spectrum is a virtual gold mine belonging to the citizen at large, and that lot of unused spectrum allotted to agencies such as TV Broadcasting, and that re-farming of unused spectrum is an imperative and need of the hour

g.   that there is urgent need to implement the Next Generation framework which brings about convergence between fixed and mobile networks, and makes it possible implement the concept of “Any device, Any Access, Any service, Anytime, Anywhere” through communication networks driven dominantly by Internet based technologies on end-to-end basis that brings with it unprecedented reduction in capex and opex

h.  that Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) though laid extensively by various operators, are heavily underutilized resulting in constraining bandwidth availability impacting its price, both in Core and Access networks

i.      that the public sector companies instead of serving as a model for implementation of  government policy are sliding downward in all major targeted parameters

j.     that the huge potential domestic market remains untapped and if developed through orchestrated policy changes that address the aforementioned limitations is bound to position Indian companies to participate aggressively in businesses around the globe,

Following 10-point policy initiatives are proposed for speedy implementation to be able to achieve the stated objectives.

Ref	Policy Action Plan
a	(i)       Tower usage policy to increase transmitter density       (ii)   Usage policy for OFC/copper cables to implement Passive Optical Networks and Landline Networks respectively in Access segment
b	Policy of connectivity mapping to be implemented for monitoring coverage targets
c	Policy of implementing periodic “drive tests” to cover entire licensed area say every two years
d	(i)   Set national target of 10 fold increase in Internet proliferation in 5 years      (ii)   Policy and implementation target for IPv6
e	(i)   Policy of sharing of spectrum between licensed operators      (ii)   Policy for in-building solutions in urban areas      (iii)    Policy for Sharing of multi-frequency antenna systems
f	Identify un-used spectrum and policy for re-farming, utilizing, valuation & public auction
g	(i)   Policy to encourage operators to achieve Yr-on-Yr growth of 60% p.a.      (ii)   Policy for legalizing Voice over IP services over PSTN networks      (iii)    Policy framework for complying with “Any device, any access, any service”      (iv)   Policy for fixed mobile convergence
h	Fair usage policy for Optical Fibre Cables
i	Innovation & professional management only way to revive PSUs.
j	(i)   Policy to encourage Indian operators to participate in International businesses      (ii)   Policy to encourage Indian R&D to enable manufacture of end devices and export to International businesses

4.  Strategic Thrust in policy:

Since the traditional voice and bandwidth services have become commoditized, there is need for operators to rethink their strategy by transforming themselves from voice centric bit pipe connectivity provider to a multi-service platform provider. The vision is that of creating a new service driven organization. The strategy is to create new value curve by converting the bit pipe into a service pipe and to extrapolate the strategic value profile through innovative factors that enable capture of new markets and services. The Year-on-year growth plan in order to match the 10 fold growth in Internet market in 5 years should be targeted at 60%. This growth figure has not been unknown to Telecom segment even during trying times in the last decade, and considering the enormous potential in technology solutions, the figure therefore represents a do-able proposition. There is credible opportunity here to propel other segments of industry in urban as well as in rural areas and help position the overall GDP back to 2-digit figure.  

Improvement in reliability of long distance network has to be taken up on priority with emphasis on convergence in terms of its utilization by different operators. This calls for new initiatives for setting up of managed IP networks. This also calls for centralizing network operating centre at national level by every operator to monitor their respective national level network through single window.

To bring about quality services for the common man, there must be regulatory focus on ensuring proper coverage of services through performance bench-marking and accountability. The creation of GIS Coverage maps for all access technologies. Mobile drive tests will provide accurate coverage picture which is critical in providing quality service to the common man. Strategic partnerships between the operators and NIC (Dept of IT) could leverage the latter’s GIS digital maps in consolidating associated knowledge base.

The mobile offering is witness to ruthless competition, and it is but a matter of time that this sector too will start experiencing the pressures of churn. It is therefore imperative that operators work on increasing the value of their mobile offerings through such concepts as Customer Home Gateway in accordance with the latest GSM standards that connects any device such as phone, TV set or PC through any access to any service. Key services would be voice, high speed internet, WiFi, DTH and/or IPTV.

India’s regulatory framework has an opportunity to blaze a trail in adapting itself to the powerful technological options available today. For instance, it could take bold initiatives in the concept of sharing valuable spectrum between licensed operators. It could mandate the use of in-building solutions in dense urban areas. It could allow tremendous relief to urban clutter by mandating sharing of multi-frequency antenna systems and software based radio systems in such areas. These measures will subdue the needless clamor by operators for leasing additional spectrum.

After the proliferation of TV cable systems and DTH, the TV broadcast spectrum in the 700 MHz band has been left to waste. In the USA, this spectrum band has been envisioned to be utilized for national broadband by ordering the erstwhile broadcasters to vacate the spectrum through an Act of Parliament. The valuation of the said spectrum runs into mind boggling figures. Yet, no serious attempt has so far been made in India to tap this virtual gold mine. The opportunity can catapult the broadband initiatives stated above to success and render the proposed 5-year objective easily possible.

The OFC deployment across the country represents an indispensable asset, put in place by various operators but not utilized optimally. These assets have been created by pooling the resources of a host of public organizations such as the roads authorities, the municipal authorities, etc. and also cause considerable disruption in traffic at the time of installation. It is high time that such activity is brought within the ambit of regulation, so that the resource is not monopolized by any one operator, rather optimally utilized through a fair usage policy.

The Public Sector companies of the government have been known to be subject to government’s interference for reasons other than the valid ones. The existence of these PSUs should not be justified by vague reasons such as security, etc. Rather, the only justification may be that they represent a platform for the government to showcase their policy through early implementation. The PSUs should therefore show the necessary leadership for this purpose, and must therefore exhibit a very healthy financial outlook, the best among the top service providers. They must lead through example. The turn round of the PSUs therefore represents the top priority for government.

Last but not the least, the aforesaid policy initiatives that are meant to create a strong domestic market will afford India to set its sight on participation in the global arena. Policy initiatives to tap technology talent in R&D need to be taken.

Conclusion:

This article is intended to offer suggestions on Telecom Policy to the new government under "Mere sapnon ka Bhaarat", the implementation of which can place India in a leadership role in the comity of nations. The suggestions can be implemented through strong conviction and belief in collaborative brain-storming culture that must be fostered among the various stakeholders by the government. 

NOTE: Being a technical subject, the author has posted several allied articles in this blog that may be able to lend more clarity to a reader who has no prior knowledge of the subject. The reader is requested to refer to these articles and provide valued feedback/comments.

Internet Protocol drives Universal Networking

Internet Protocol drives Universal Networking

Role of Internet Protocol in Networking

When digitalization of networks started taking place in the late eighties and  Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) was being developed for supporting data applications, the concept of OSI model came into being. OSI stands for ‘Open System Interconnection’ and the model classifies the entire end-to-end digital application as a set of seven distinct functions layered one on top of the other, each one entirely independent o f the others in terms of development and implementations. The model called for standardization of interfaces between the layers. The 7-layered OSI model is depicted in Figure 1.

Any application comprising of software is ordered in the form of packets of bit-wise information encapsulated in the presentation layer by appending a predefined leading header and possibly a trailing footer, that contain information and parameters pertaining to the presentation function. The presentation function in turn is encapsulated in the Sessions layer in similar manner, and so on until the process reaches the Physical layer. The physical layer defines the bits and bytes that get physically carried from origin to destination.

The Link Layer

The link layer is meant for transporting information between limited numbers of nodes with communication rules being defined at the link level. Here, a link is defined as a connection between a set of neighboring nodes. The communication rules are referred to as ‘protocols’. Initially, the link layer was conceived to serve a local area network within a building or a campus. Over a period of time, ‘Ethernet’ became a link layer protocol that gained tremendous popularity and virtually became a widely accepted standard. Employees in a company working in a common office could access their counterparts at speeds of 10Mbps or 100Mbps. The latter came to be known as the Fast Ethernet (FE). Later on, the concept of local area network was extended to the metro area within a city, where different commercial establishments such as banks or companies scattered at various geographic locations in the city had need for exclusive internal connectivity. The connectivity service provider soon had to contend with huge demand where he had to cater to providing metro area connections to thousands of establishments. There was therefore need to develop another link layer protocol that had to virtually carry the basic Ethernet between such customers. A Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) was formed for the purpose of defining such services. To be able to deliver these services, the service provider needed to deploy serving nodes close to the customer premises. The function of these nodes would be to aggregate the traffic of different customers. There would then be a need to identify the user organizations. There would be need to control information queues to control traffic. All these set of new rules or protocols that enable these functions came to be known as the ‘Carrier Ethernet’. The new interfaces supported speeds of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) and then later on 10 Gbps, which came to be known as 1Gigbit Ethernet and 10Gigabit Ethernet respectively or simply as 1GE and 10GE.

The Network Layer

Consider a situation where one wants to step up one’s communications needs to the global level. In such a case, every node would need to have a global identity and if every such node needed to setup communication with any other node, a network level rule or protocol would be needed globally at the network level. The Internet protocol has turned out to be the most popular network layer protocol accepted by millions of Internet users. Like in the case of the Ethernet, here also, the service provider would need to setup aggregation nodes close to the customer locations that perform network functions such as routing the information packets to desired locations. The mechanism of maintaining route tables, updating them from time to time as per predefined rules and performing the routing functions are defined by standard protocols understood by every router. These nodes when interconnected together to provide any-node to any- node connectivity form a network of IP routers.

Initially, the Internet protocol called IPv4 or ‘IP version 4’ catered to only 2³² addresses which equal nearly 4 billion. Over the period of last two decades, it was realized by the Internet fraternity that this number was too small to cater to the needs of the growing number of Internet users. The Internet standards community called the IETF has subsequently upgraded the protocol to IPv6 or ‘IP version 6’ that caters to 2¹²⁸ addresses – a number which is sufficiently large to comprehensively cater to the needs of all the possible Internet users for a long time to come. The IPv6 protocol also includes a number of other new features that are likely to be needed in the future.

The Transport, Session & Presentation Layers

The Transport layer provides protocols that ensure reliable data transfer between users. The Sessions layer establishes, manages and terminates the connections between users, often referred to as Call control processes. The Presentation layer establishes context between Application Layer entities, in which the higher-layer entities may use different syntax and semantics if the presentation service provides a mapping between them. These layers are in most cases within the domain of the Telecom Service Provider.

The Application Layers

The Application layer interacts with software applications that implement a communicating component. Examples are Common Management Information protocol (CMIP), Hypertext Transfer protocol (HTTP), File Transfer protocol (FTP), Simple Mail Transfer protocol (SMTP) and Simple Network Management protocol (SNMP).

The Applications

On top of the Application layer, we have the specific Application which is visible to the user. The Application software works on the Computer operating system, and as such resides in the memory of the end terminal, say the PC, laptop or the mobile device. There are virtually thousands of applications that are used to drive the Input-Output devices connected to the computing system to deliver different type of services. The Input devices comprise of a variety of sensors such as optical scanners, pressure sensers, and so on, whereas the output devices range from printers, optical light emitting devices, sound producing devices, etc. The applications can be designed to interact with different devices spread anywhere in the network. Development of Applications therefore has become a multi-billion dollar industry where the developer only needs to know the computer programming language to develop the software without ever having to know the complexity of the intervening Telecom connectivity. Application development can therefore become a defining business for the IT professionals in India with enormous growth potential.

IP-MPLS Infrastructure

However, for being able to utilize these applications anywhere in the network, it is necessary to design and implement a network that will support the end user’s requirements in terms of the underlying layers that we described in the previous paragraphs. A Service Provider with an IP backbone may provide VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) which itself provides IP service to its customers.  MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) is used for forwarding packets over the backbone. The BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) is used for distributing routes over the backbone.  The twin goals of this method are to support the outsourcing of IP backbone services for enterprise networks and for back-hauling mobile or broadband traffic. It does so in a manner, which is simple for the enterprise, while still scalable and flexible for the Service Provider, and while allowing the Service Provider to add value.

MPLS technology places labels on IP packets in a router. It categorizes or monitors the packets that traverse different routers in the network. MPLS is an overlay protocol MPLS is not designed to replace IP. Rather, it is designed as an overlay protocol that adds a set of rules to IP so that traffic can be classified, marked and policed.

MPLS-equipped networks use MPLS-aware devices known as label edge routers (LERs), positioned at the network’s edges. These devices are designed to inspect IP packets entering the network and add MPLS headers, as well as removing the headers from packets leaving the MPLS network. Inside the boundaries of the MPLS network, devices known as label switch routers (LSRs) look for an MPLS label on each packet that passes through them, looking up and following the instructions contained in those labels, routing them based on a list of instructions. Thus edge-to-edge Label Switched Paths (LSP) can be configured from one LER to another, through a series of LSRs, across the MPLS network. LSPs are pre-assigned and pre-engineered paths that packets with a certain label should follow without requiring the use of any dedicated lines such as the traditional SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy) links. These are virtual circuits very similar to the circuit-switched paths in ATM or Frame Relay. One of the most obvious advantages of MPLS is that it provides network administrators with a number of tools for traffic engineering. An administrator, for example, can define a LSP that ensures VoIP traffic will be routed through the most reliable, highest performing sections of the network while less critical traffic, such as email, is sent across the slower sections.

Carrier Ethernet Aggregation Infrastructure

The IP Transport network is segregated into two parts –  (i) A Core Layer-3 IP-MPLS based network that covers major cities and hubs in the country connected through DWDM systems through the north side interfaces and (ii) An Aggregation Layer-2 Ethernet based network terminated at the IP-MPLS Edge node. An aggregation network as the name suggests, aggregates traffic over an area of say 100 km radius through a three tier architecture. The Hub of the aggregation network, called the Central Office Aggregation Unit (COAU) is collocated with the Next Generation Central Office (NG-CO) which houses the national level IP-MPLS Edge node.

The aggregation transport architecture in three tiers is indicated in the schematic in Figure 4.2. The COAU consists of the Tier-1 Carrier Ethernet (CE) switch which will handle traffic from STM-16 as well as the 10GE/100GE rings. The DWDM core is used to interconnect IP-MPLS core nodes, as well as directly interconnecting COAU Tier I switches / L2PE in case collocation is not possible. Tier-1 aggregation unit would generally utilize MPLS/RPR/100GE and would be planned for around 256 thousand users. The Tier-2 nodes are medium sized aggregation nodes called Next Generation Access Nodes (NG-AN) and would generally utilize MPLS/RPR/10GE with a plan for around 40 thousand users.

Tier- 3 nodes designated as Remote Access nodes are collocated with existing GSM towers and serve to provide backhaul for both mobile and fixed access traffic emanating within a radius of one to two kms. Enterprise traffic is also backhauled from Tier-3 nodes. The aggregation network could extend to neighbouring telecom centres through DWDM or other planned media. Tier-3 nodes would generally utilize MPLS/RPR/1GE with a plan for around 2 thousand users.

Synchronization standards for Ethernet called SyncE, defined in ITU-T G.8261, provides SDH-grade timing over lower cost 1GE and 10GE interfaces. This timing is important to ensure that time sensitive signals like voice and video do not suffer from slips beyond acceptable limits thereby preventing signal degradation. In WiMAX and LTE based mobile access that utilize OFDMA modulation techniques, phase synchronization becomes critical. In packet based networks, this can be achieved through providing an IEEE1588v2 clock.

The Next Generation Central Office at the Tier-1 location will house all the major functional systems as indicated in Figure-4.3.

Service deliverables

The integrated IP-MPLS and Carrier Ethernet Aggregation networks together would enable end-to-end MPLS services using FE, GE and 10GE interfaces from any node to any node in the country. Layer-2and Layer-3 VPN services would be available to enterprise customers. Backhaul services for mobile and broadband traffic as well as multicast services shall be available for the operator’s own use. The nodes would support classification of the traffic according to the port, VLAN, IEEE 802.1p bits or TOS/DSCP bits. Each classified Class of Service would be mapped to different EXP-bits in the MPLS header. In addition, there should be VLAN Tag support (IEEE 802.1Q) on the User Network Interface. These capabilities would allow the service provider to have reasonable degree of control over traffic engineering.

A schematic of the overall network comprising of a number of Layer-2 Carrier Ethernet-MPLS aggregation networks also referred to as ‘Converged Packet Aggregation Networks (CPAN) connected together through Layer-3 IP-MPLS network capable of delivering end-to-end MPLS services using FE, GE and 10GE interfaces is indicated in Figure 4.4.

The New Paradigm of Connectivity

The New Paradigm of Connectivity

Communication is multi-dimensional

Audio communication has been the primary means of interaction between human beings for ages. Communication can in general be categorized into more than just the physical dimension – it has an emotional dimension too. Modern Telecommunication technologies brings about an integration of video and imaging with the conventional voice, commonly known as multimedia which has been instrumental in bringing about a paradigm change in the quality of experience in communication. For instance, an application to bring about easy interaction amongst communities, an application that provides information on the location of its members, their status in terms of being available or wanting privacy, helping them with their day to day needs in identifying shops, health club, entertainment center or a school could go a long way in the entire concept of networking becoming a part of their life style. In all this, the service is not restricted to just the physical voice interaction but gets enhanced through video and imaging to bring about a rich experience. The customer feels empowered.

Birth of a new network paradigm

The previous generation network can best be described as a ‘Circuit based voice network’ that primarily catered to transport of voice signals over end-to-end nailed-down circuits or channels. There was very little flexibility in configuration of channels within a network. The ‘Time Division Multiplexing’ technology as it was called was more voice-centric, with the result that it was more expensive to transport data. The old paradigm gave way to the new one described as a ‘Packet based network’ that catered to voice, video or data in a seamless manner. The packets were governed by protocols at as many as seven layers or levels of communication – the physical layer, the link layer, the network layer, the transport layer, the session layer, the presentation layer and the applications layer. Such layer-based Packet networks afforded tremendous flexibility in specialized development based on universal standards. For instance, the Internet protocol in the network layer enabled packets to be routed in a dynamic fashion depending upon the prevailing condition of the network. Services over the new network could be offered ubiquitously. The same network could be utilized by different users on a shared basis. Packet based networks thus became far more economical as an overall business case for communication than the TDM based networks.

Role of Internet

The Internet protocol in the network layer became universally accepted as the new paradigm that was to govern global networks of the future, so much so that the resulting network was christened by the name ‘Internet’.  So much has been the popularity of Internet that the entire telecom industry had to move with the so called Internet wave. New standards were developed to adapt the use of the Internet protocol that could carry any kind of signal – voice, video or data, at mind boggling speeds to replace the conventional telephony and mobile services. The new networks that were created were christened as “Next Generation Networks” (NGN) capable of providing customers with high speed broadband. The technologies permitted hitherto unheard-of scaling factors to serve millions of customers from a single server instead of the conventional tens of thousands. Developments in mobile access technologies started surpassing those in the fixed access technologies in terms of speeds. These developments represented a unique opportunity for the Telecom Service Provider (TSP) to reduce capital expenditures by being able to offer all the three services – voice, video and data, over a single integrated IP-based (Internet Protocol based) infrastructure.  Also, core infrastructures, hitherto installed in central offices scattered over the geography, could now be consolidate on centralized basis. The operational expenditures in terms of power, space and manpower savings as a result of fewer buildings for housing equipment has reduced enormously by a minimum factor of 10. Access to the global and ubiquitous Internet combined with mobility has become an essential service offering within the NGN environment. The NGN is thus well positioned to orchestrate any access technology, and through such access, facilitate delivery of any service, at any place, through any device and at any time permitting many more new services to be offered and consequently increase new revenue opportunities for the TSP. All this has made NGN an important imperative for adoption for most service providers.

Complimentarity is critical to Communication

Through NGN, different broadband access services under land-line and mobile become complementary to each other rather than acting as substitute to each other. Such an integrated approach permits service providers to leverage on both their land-line subscribers as well as mobile subscribers by bringing on board the strength of both land-line and mobile networks through what is known as Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC).

FMC technologies provides the customer with an opportunity to link and synergize the capabilities of the Fixed and Mobile services, while the service provider finds therein the solutions to the problems of scarcity of spectrum as well as that of customer churn. For instance, when a mobile subscriber comes within the building premises, there is loss of wireless signal strength due to absorption by the concrete walls. The in-building signal losses cause a drop in voice quality and consequent call drop.  FMC allows the calls on the mobile network to be automatically transferred to the land-line using technologies such as the Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) using the open free-for-all WiFi spectrum. The UMA utilizes dual band devices for the purpose – one band using the normal mobile spectrum allotted to the service provider, and the other using the free WiFi band.  Effectively, the voice is first carried over the WiFi thus solving the problem of poor in-door mobile coverage. Thereafter it is back hauled over wired broadband.

Another variant of FMC provides a ‘single number’ service to multiple devices, including the mobile, the home phone, a connected home hub, a Personal Computer or a laptop while retaining the speech quality at the same level as that which we have been used to over the conventional home phone.

Indoor coverage is also provided by technologies referred to as ‘Femto-cell’, ‘Pico-cell’ or ‘Nano-cell’ utilizing part of the licensed mobile spectrum to achieve the same objectives. 

The service provider can offer bundled wire line phone and broadband services and position FMC to churn in calls generated by customers using mobile connections of its competitors, thereby offering better coverage and “always connected” services to its subscribers, independent of device.

IMS to govern the future of Communications

At this time, Mobile network operators the world over are planning to leverage emerging IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) service platforms to deliver not only true “one phone, one number” telephony over both fixed and mobile infrastructure but also extend the plain phone service to multimedia service through what is known as ‘Voice-over-IP’. Multimedia service thus combines the voice, video and data into a single contextual session.

The one phone, one number concept enables a mobile handset to use 2G/3G mobile infrastructure and the associated 2G/3G spectrum when it is operated outdoors and ‘VoIP over WiFi’ or ‘Femto-cell’ when it is operated indoors at work or at home. Global standards for IMS and associated FMC have been developed by the 3GPP Standards body and ratified by 3GPP2, ITU, ETSI, TISPAN and others. It has become clear that the immediate benefactors of IMS shall be those operators who already have both fixed and mobile deployments in good measure.

A two pronged approach was followed by service providers whereby the first approach would bring about convergence at the device level.  The existing mobile network was optimized with IP architectures and adapted to directly support IP devices.  There was, of course, an obvious dependency on devices such as dual-mode handsets, integrated residential communication hubs, etc. that became increasingly prevalent in the market.  The second approach was a deeper and more meaningful transformation of the core network into IMS that would bring about true convergence based on transformation towards the all-IP core network.  The essential component in this approach was the preservation of existing mobile services. The service provider would then use an IMS platform to transparently combine regular mobile service on their 2G or 3G mobile networks with VoIP services over WiFi and/or fixed broadband access. Since the mobile portion of FMC used the existing mobile number and existing mobile switching systems, mobile operators with significant fixed deployment would obviously derive a distinct advantage.

Bringing Societies together

The business of connecting a nation with over a billion population is about connecting a diversity of entities having interest with each other, popularly known as social networking. It is not about merely connecting individuals on a one-to-one basis. We are connecting communities of citizens with a lot of expectation. We are connecting people with common interests – societies, organizations, markets, banks, economies, schools, colleges, universities, hospitals or simply friends, families and relatives. There is a pattern in each such connecting construct upon which an application can be weaved. It is these applications that dive deep into the emotions and behavioural pattern of individuals that create a need which was hitherto dormant. For example, the Facebook brought about very old, almost forgotten friends together. The future of communications would be intimately tied with scores of such applications working seamlessly not only across networks but also between different devices.

The convenience of the triple screen has been spoken about in technological circles quite at length – screens formed on television, the mobile handset and the personal computer. Tremendous convenience of the touch Pad, also called the I-Pad or simply the ‘Tablet’ would address the choice of ‘Quad’ screen. Seamless communication would mean that a set of common friends share their presence over these screens without any restrictions whatsoever. They could chat with each other on instant messaging, share pictures or documents around which a discussion could be centered. The chat mode could be transferred to voice or even video as need would suggest.

Cloud computing is seen as a major technology that could actually off-load much of the processing power from the PC. The price points of simple touch screen tablets could come down drastically and customers could be offered applications on “pay-as-you-use” model.

Vision for a Connected Society

The ultimate vision for a connected society would have to thus evolve out of the present day ‘cut-and-dry’ connectivity plane into the societal plane, delving very much into applications that meet emotional expectations, while enrichening and enhancing their interactive experiences. Convergence of a wide range of fragmented technologies known by the acronyms such as 2G, 3G, GPON and DSL has shown how these objectives could be technically met. The challenge really lies in bringing about such convergence through an economical model that renders several of the more common and relevant services affordable to the masses. 

From the customer’s perspective, what is needed is a broadband pipe working on Internet protocol. If however, public-Internet service is all that is provided over the broadband pipe, such a situation can impose severe limitations on the quality of service. This is because the traffic in the public-Internet space, what is often referred to as the cyber media, is handled by routers belonging to different entities the world over and as such becomes uncontrollable and is understandably termed as ‘unmanaged network’. Traffic bottlenecks in the unmanaged network often result in packet drops or packet delays, both of which cause severe impairment to the quality of service. The traffic in the public Internet space is also susceptible to cyber crimes. 

The Telecom Operator can however offer broadband through Gateways that are capable of providing the customer the choice of accessing the global Internet on one hand or any of the services provided over the managed IP network of the operator on the other, as shown in Figure 1 below. These gateways are called Broadband Network Gateways (BNG) in the case of Fixed Access networks and the combination of Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) and Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN) in the case of Mobile networks. The broadband access channel is partitioned into two Private Virtual Circuits (PVCs) thus creating separate paths for the global Internet and for the Managed services.

The voice services provided over the managed IP network, also referred to as VoIP services, can match the PSTN voice services in terms of quality and other parameters and will therefore be superior to the ‘Internet-telephony’ services provided over the public Internet. Likewise, the managed IP network can be used to offer video services in comparison to similar services delivered over ISDN of PSTN. The Services provided over the Managed IP network can be operated under the Basic Service and the Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS) licenses whereas the Internet service can be operated under the Internet Service Provider license. Alternatively, the same set of services can also be provided under the Unified Access Service license (UASL). The security conditions relevant to the respective licenses will become applicable.

The operator as a matter of strategy can configure all its broadband customers to receive free incoming Voice and Video calls, thereby bringing its new ‘Voice & Video over IP’ (VVoIP) subscribers at par with any other subscriber in the network in terms of diversity of access. Such next generation techniques significantly enhance the propensity for growth of VVoIP services. The growth of telecom industry would no longer be measured by the conventional “tele-density” but by a new parametric called “tele-service density” that will ad-measure the aggregate number of application service users taking into account all the applications per 100 population.

Convergence of old and new networks

With so many new technologies, it is expected that the networks using these technologies inter-operate seamlessly not only with each other, but also with the older technologies which it bids to replace, thus protecting older investments. Thus the new NGN switches inter-operate with the older TDM switches through what are known as ‘Media Gateways’ (MGW). Similarly in the Transmission space, the new Carrier Ethernet networks inter-operate with the older SDH equipment through ‘Ethernet over SDH’ interfaces or through the use of ‘SDH emulation over Carrier Ethernet’. We would need to adopt a seamless migration methodology to migrate from the old CMTS networks to the new IMS networks. The emphasis will be from customers using disparate networks to customers using convergent networks which have platforms that enable the operator to view the customer as a single entity with a single face though using a variety of services.