The telecom industry is the base of all new-age communications and connectivity. At present, India is the world’s second-largest telecommunications market with a subscriber base nearing 1.2 billion. The industry’s exponential growth over the past few years is primarily driven by affordable tariffs, wider availability, roll-out of mobile number portability (MNP), expanding 3G and 4G coverage, evolving consumption patterns of subscribers, government’s initiatives towards bolstering India’s domestic telecom manufacturing capacity, and a conducive regulatory environment.
The rapid growth of the telecom sector necessitates the building of digital infrastructure comprising fibre, mobile towers and stable bandwidth to support the demand for data. There were 658 million internet users in India in January 2022. Also, India’s internet penetration rate stood at 47 per cent of the total population at the start of 2022. Given the rapid rise in internet usage across the country, the government is taking active steps with regard to penetration of broadband connectivity to the remotest parts of the country. The government’s BharatNet and Prime Minister Wi-Fi Access Network Interface (PM-WANI) initiatives are key to expanding the digital outreach in India.
A look at the progress across these government programmes…
BharatNet
BharatNet is a flagship project of the government, providing broadband connectivity to rural India. Under the project, the government aims to connect 265,000 gram panchayats (GPs) along with 379,000 villages beyond the GPs, primarily on high speed fibre. Through this move, the government is trying to bridge the rural-urban digital divide and unleash a plethora of opportunities for rural India.
The BharatNet project is being executed in two phases. At present, 583,000 km of fibre (Phase I – approximately 310,000 km fibre; Phase II – 273,000 km fibre) has already been laid under the project. By May 2023, approximately 700,000 km of fibre is expected to be laid.
Under Phase I, approximately 120,000 GPs were connected, covering 99 per cent of the planned work. Meanwhile, of the total 265,000 GPs, roughly 145,000 will be connected under Phase II. So far, about 59,000 GPs have been connected while work is on in about 44,000 GPs, adding up to 103,000 GPs. The remaining 42,000 GPs of Phase II will be connected in accordance with the new mandate of connecting all the 379,000 villages of the country. Plans for providing connectivity to 42,000 GPs and 379,000 villages are currently at an advanced stage.
Among states, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of GPs with Wi-Fi infrastructure in place, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Punjab. Uttar Pradesh also accounts for the highest number of active users, approximately 0.8 million. However, the average data consumption per active user lies well below the national average of 1.18 GB.
Chhattisgarh has 3,664 service-ready GPs, of which 3,662 have operational Wi-Fi hotspots. Further, 96 per cent of service-ready GPs in Punjab provide operational Wi-Fi services, with the average data consumption crossing 10 GB. Karnataka, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, Chandigarh and Kerala are some of the states/union territories where over 50 per cent of the service-ready GPs have operational Wi-Fi services.
The state governments have been pushing the pedal on expanding their fibre coverage. Recently, the Tamil Nadu government inaugurated the commencement of work for laying optical fibre cable (OFC) for the BharatNet project at an estimated cost of Rs 16.28 billion. Moreover, in April 2022, the Goa government announced that the fibre-to-the-home project to provide internet connectivity to each household in Goa will recommence soon. Meanwhile, Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited (HFCL) has completed OFC roll-out in the state of Jharkhand under the BharatNet project. HFCL has completed connectivity of 1,789 GPs through gigabit passive optical networks (GPON), wherein 7,765 km of the OFC network has been laid out, thereby providing broadband connectivity to all the GPs of Jharkhand. HFCL has provided broadband connectivity by deploying 7,869 km of the OFC network, connecting 3,209 GPs with the GPON network in Punjab. Apart from deploying networks in Punjab and Jharkhand, HFCL is supplying OFC in Maharashtra, Telangana and Chhattisgarh under BharatNet.
PM-WANI
Public Wi-Fi has emerged as one of the most promising means of enhancing broadband proliferation among the masses globally. For India, too, public Wi-Fi can be seen as a low-cost option for reaching unserved citizens. To this end, the recently launched PM-WANI initiative is a big leap towards providing Wi-Fi ubiquity in India. Under the initiative, public Wi-Fi networks will be set up by public data office aggregators (PDOAs), which will provide these services through public data offices (PDOs). The PM-WANI ecosystem will be operated by different players, including PDOs, PDOAs, app providers and the Central Registry. The PDOs, PDOAs and app providers will need to get themselves registered with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) through an online registration portal, without paying any registration fee.
According to latest data on the PM-WANI Central Registry website, the government has deployed almost 113,918 Wi-Fi hotspots as on September 21, 2022. Karnataka has the highest number of PM-WANI hotspots to the tune of 18,117, while Maharashtra and Delhi have 14,379 and 12,210 public Wi-Fi hotspots respectively. As of September 21, 2022, the states with the lowest number of PM-WANI Wi-Fi hotspots include Mizoram (1), Manipur (9) and Sikkim (13). As of the aforesaid date, the total number of active PDO aggregators was 120, whereas the number of active app providers stood at 72.
In order to explore sites for public Wi-Fi hotspots under the scheme, Tamil Nadu has commenced a feasibility study to provide Wi-Fi connections at nominal rates to residents living within a 200 metre radius of ration shops. The initiative is in line with the PM-WANI scheme, which envisages converting ration shops into hotspot hubs to provide affordable internet connections to the general public. In a similar move, Uttar Pradesh plans to introduce PDO booths at all authorised ration shops. The PDO booths are expected to be useful in providing public Wi-Fi in congested and densely populated areas.
Besides, the RailTel Corporation of India has launched public Wi-Fi services across 100 railway stations having 2,384 Wi-Fi hotspots. These stations are spread across 22 states and include 71 stations under categories A1 and A and 29 stations under other category. With this development, RailTel’s Wi-Fi network is now spread across 6,102 railway stations having 17,792 Wi-Fi hotspots. In fact, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has also unveiled its plan to migrate 30,000 of its Wi-Fi hotspots to the PM-WANI framework. Meanwhile, the ITU-APT Foundation of India,
along with Qualcomm, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless World Research Forum, has proposed to the government to follow the global trends and delicense the 6 GHz and 60 GHz spectrum, in order to support PM-WANI.
The proliferation of public Wi-Fi hotspots will create employment opportunities for small and micro-entrepreneurs, and provide them with an additional source of income. Telecom and internet service providers (ISPs) will also benefit due to the sale of bandwidth to PDOs. Under the project, businesses interested in offering Wi-Fi services can use their physical location to provide Wi-Fi to anyone who is nearby. This will be done through internet connectivity by telcos such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, or other ISPs.
The bottom line
With the emergence of 5G, fibre-intensive networks will be crucial for supporting the deployment of cutting-edge technologies and solutions such as internet of things, machine-to-machine communication, artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality, Industry 4.0, sensors and autonomous vehicles. In this regard, projects such as BharatNet and PM-WANI are expected to play a crucial role in providing data connectivity to rural areas.