Based on the above, a nation-wide network, called National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN), funded by USOF, was planned to provide high-speed broadband to all gram panchayats. A special purpose vehicle, Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL), was created to set up and operate the network. Bandwidth will be provided to all eligible service providers in a non-discriminatory manner to deliver important services such as e-skilling and e-health.
BBNL plans to use existing fibre connectivity of three government-owned units, namely, BSNL, Railtel and Power Grid, for providing backhaul and laying the remaining cabling.
BBNL has completed pilot projects covering 58 gram panchayats in three states, namely, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura. Only 5000 gram panchayats have been connected. The original 2013 deadline for connecting all gram panchayats was revised to March 2017and later advanced to December 2016.
In the meanwhile, a committee was formed to review NOFN project and provide recommendations. It gave its recommendations in March 2015. It has identified the causes for delay of NOFN project, some key reasons being linear architecture followed in laying cables, which will not provide acceptable reliability as expected by service providers, lack of alternatives in cases of difficult and hostile terrain, deficiencies in project management and inadequate planning with regards to how the network will be utilised.
The committee has extended the scope of NOFN keeping the objectives of Digital India in mind and renamed the project BharatNet. Apart from connecting gram panchayats, BharatNet is expected to provide a minimum 2Mbps bandwidth to all rural households on-demand, and on-demand capacity to all institutions on a non-discriminatory basis. It is expected to do this by 2017. Recommendations have been submitted to the government of India and approval is awaited.
To provide online government services, National e-Governance Plan was formulated by the government’s Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). As of March 2014, 133,847 common services centres (CSCs)—a core infrastructure component—have been set up at gram panchayats. Scope of CSCs is being broadened to provide services such as e-education and telemedicine by a village-level entrepreneur.
The Indian government introduced Digital India programme in 2014, to be managed by DeitY. Key focus areas of the programme are:
1. Digital infrastructure to all citizens, including access to high-speed broadband, cradle-to-grave digital identity and bank account
2. Governance and services on demand
3. Digital empowerment of citizens, the first initiative of which is visible on http://mygov.nic.in
In August 2014, the Indian government launched a financial inclusion scheme, Jan-Dhan Yojana (www.pmjdy.gov.in), wherein banks have been directed to open 75,000,000 zero-balance bank accounts along with a debit card for Internet banking by January 2015 in rural and underserved areas. This target has been far exceeded with around 215,100,000 accounts being opened along with a Rs. 366,000 million as total account balance.
To minimise misuse, all government schemes are linked to biometric based 12-digit unique identification numbers called Aadhaar provided to each citizen including infants. The unique identity creation and assignment is managed by Unique Identification Authority of India (http://uidai.gov.in). A little over 1000 million IDs have been issued as of April 2016 covering practically every citizen of the country.
The above initiatives coupled with the rural connectivity scenario indicate that, if rural initiatives have to have their desired impact, then broadband connectivity affordable to rural citizens and economically viable to service providers is a must.
How India is utilising the TV band spectrum
In India, frequency bands are allotted to various wireless services as per National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) 2011, which also provides for future applications such as digital terrestrial broadcasting services, for example, digital TVs, mobile TVs and the like.
The only national terrestrial TV broadcasting service in India, known as Doordarshan, is provided by the government. Only two of the five national programmes of Doordarshan, namely, DD National and DD News, are broadcast throughout India using two channels called DD-I and DD-II via 1416 high-power transmitters.
DD-I is also used to broadcast regional programmes on a time-sharing basis. As each channel is of 8MHz, only 16MHz bandwidth would be in use at any given time and location.
There is a plan to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial TV transmission, and band allocation to digital broadcasting services including mobile TVs is 585MHz – 698MHz as per NFAP 2011. Studies undertaken to experimentally determine and quantify the availability of TVWS across the country, taking into consideration the pollution and protection viewpoints, show that TV band spectrum is severely underutilised with an average TVWS availability of more than 100MHz, which is sufficient to provide affordable broadband in rural India.
A model for rural broadband connectivity
A proposed system model to connect villages by utilising NOFN point of presence at each gram panchayat connected to the block level through fibre, and providing last-mile wireless connectivity through CR using TVWS, is illustrated in the figure (right). Every gram panchayat or a cluster of gram panchayats in geographical proximity can share the infrastructure facility for broadband communication through the mobile switching centre (MSC) using NOFN backhaul.
The proposed model requires the MSC to sense or utilise geo-location database service to receive available spectrum information. A multi-user channel-allocation protocol is required to support fair spectrum allocation to neighboring gram panchayats and also among end users under a gram panchayat. The micro-cell concept and the co-existence strategy between primary and secondary users are the key enabling factors in this model.
Challenges in implementing CR-TVWS in India
In order to formulate policies on TVWS, the Indian government will have to act on plans for complete switchover from analogue to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting and set a time frame. A policy needs to be framed to support harmonious co-existence between TVWS users with incumbent TV broadcasting with a guaranteed quality of service for both.
The socio-economic consequences of allocating TVWS using various options such as unlicensed, auction, controlled, licensed shared access (LSA), authorised shared access (ASA), etc have to be carefully evaluated.
For usage of white spaces in licensed bands such as GSM, telecom companies need to be taken into confidence as free and unlicensed access to run mobile networks might give an unfair competitive edge to users of white spaces.
Standards for communications in CRN have to be laid down; transmitting power of customer premises equipment, mobile equipment and base stations in the secondary network will have to be laid down to avoid harmful interference to incumbents’ network. IEEE 802.22 WRAN (wireless regional area network) standard is defined for accessing licensed TV-band channels by secondary users on a non-interference basis.
WRAN standard has to be tested in the Indian context. Global ICT Standardisation Forum for India (GISFI) (www.gisfi.org) has a special working group on spectrum to study TVWS and its utilisation in India. However, there has been no update on the website since June 2012.
Rules need to be formulated to protect other sensitive networks such as military, radio astronomy and healthcare services operating in the same band. A detailed guideline is required on allocation, responsibilities and operation of geo-location database services.
There is no database service in the country as of now. It will have to be set up in cooperation with government agencies throughout the country after identifying indigenous constraints.
Policies to grant licences to use the TV band spectrum to run experimental networks need to be framed. Data regarding TV bands used in each region in the country is required so that interference levels can be checked. There is no easily-available data regarding location of TV transmitters in the country.
Adequate funding needs to be allocated to set up experimental test-beds to conduct research experiments by academia. Mechanisms for tie-ups with private and government telecom players to set up and test real networks in different terrains in rural India on experimental basis to support crucial initiatives such as Internet banking and telemedicine and identify issues, especially related to security, specific to regions are essential for successful deployment of CRN.
In addition to the challenges depicted above, successful deployment of CRN requires well-planned and coordinated functioning of multiple layers of communications. However, technical aspects of communication are beyond the scope of this article and hence not discussed.
Meera S. Datta is PhD scholar, electronics and communications engineering, working as faculty advisor at NIIT University
Dr Sushanta Das is former research guide, NIIT University. He is currently working with Hyundai America Technical Centre, USA
