There is little doubt that the internet is poised to emerge very differently in the future compared to the existing scenario. The evolution of the internet is important in the business context because the internet is not only a future network, but a highly dynamic communications platform, linking humans with computers, machines and data to achieve smarter services.
This was the key focus of the two-day ‘International Conference on Next Generation Networks’ —2010, held between September 24-25 in Mumbai, organised by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the IET Mumbai Local Network.
Distinguished speakers and well known industry experts from leading operators included;
• Professor Marwan Al-Akaidi, Director of International Relations—Faculty of Technology—De Monfort University
• Vimal Wakhlu, Director Technical of Tamil Telecommunications Limited
• R. K. Bahuguna, Director (Network Planning & Marketing) of RailTel's Network
• Prakash Bajpai, Chairman and founder of Tikona Digital Networks
• Dr. Kumar Sivarajan, CTO and co-founder of Tejas Networks
• Mohan Tambe of Innomedia Technologies
They shared their perspectives along with top-notch Internet service providers, telecom engineers, mobile operators and broadband wireless operators.
The conference also discussed the global migration towards Next Generation Networks (NGN), which is expected to usher in major changes in network architectures and services. The conference also set the stage for an incisive deliberation on the key issues of networking technologies, with the focus on development of the internet and the role of communication networks in the future. These included broadband, wireless, IP telephony, network convergence, new broadband technologies, storage networking, new switching/routing techniques, network security and many more.
According to Prakash Bajpai, Chairman and founder of Tikona Digital Networks, India’s mobile penetration is fast catching up with China’s. India’s mobile penetration is approximately 50% of the population. Similarly, China ranks second to India’s fixed line penetration, which is estimated approximately 40% of the population.
He also said 4G WiFi is expected to play a major role in India. Heavy investment is required in both 3G and 4G networks. Bajpai also feels that while the traditional mobile operators are facing the heat of network congestion, 4G technology will be the only way out. In the context of broadband connectivity, Bajpai strongly feels that WiMAX will be the next twist in the wireless landscape.
Kartik Parikh of Fastech Telecommunications spoke on the ‘service quality measurements for mobile broadband’. Parikh said mobile broadband applications are rising in popularity very fast. Hence, mobile broadband usage must be carefully monitored, analyzed and trended. According to Parikh, the data growth month-over-month is estimated around 16-18%. To keep on top of wireless data growth with increasing data use, there is a need for active testing, including random drive test and subscriber emulation.
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Haridev Khosla, Country Head, Wireline Technology of Tata Teleservices Limited said that the entry of private operators (currently over 12 operators) has led to fierce competition with each operator offering multiple services - fixed, mobile, internet, broadband, IPLC and VAS. This has almost reduced the long distance tariff to 35%, increased subscriber 20 fold from 27 million to 621 million (till March 2010). The current teledensity has also increased 23 times from 2.3 million to 52.74 million. Similarly, the rural teledensity also increased 49 times from 0.5 million to 24.29 million and urban teledensity increased 17 times from 6.9 million to 119.73 million.
An estimated 1.23 million class 4 NGN ports have been installed and further 13.7 million Class 4 NGN ports are in the pipeline. By 2012, the NGN capacity deployed in the country is expected to reach 18.9 million class 4 lines and 17.6 million class 5 lines, informed Khosla.
The key challenges for NGN are regulatory reform, which is moving at slow pace, traditional carrier - huge investment in conventional equipment, writing off of un-depreciated asset, new carrier - all IP network and technology not yet proven, low broadband penetration and availability of spectrum for growth of wireless broadband connectivity.
The development and operation of innovative ideas within NGN will have a huge impact on the society. Furthermore, new applications with a dynamic deployment may support rapid development of new services even better than before. Does this lead to new revenues as well? Simplifying the process, Ashutosh Vasant, Group GM Marketing of RailTel Corporation of India Ltd said that NGN is a broad term to describe key architectural evolutions in telecommunication core and access networks that will be deployed over the next 5–10 years.
The key driving forces for NGN is integration of network resulting in huge network cost savings (up to 50 percent), bandwidth charges reduction by 90 percent, point-to-point E1s not required, ageing networks in need of new equipment, reduction in operational costs, reduced time to roll out new services, ease in offering new services (VoIP, IP-TV), fully mesh flat IP transport layer, centralized network management, end-to-end call tracing and trouble shooting, extensive report generation and migration to all IP IMS-based services in the future, said Vasant.
