ITV

Tag: Digital India

  • Spectrum sharing and trading guidelines on the anvil: Ravi Shankar Prasad

    Spectrum sharing and trading guidelines on the anvil: Ravi Shankar Prasad

    NEW DELHI: The Government is in the process of finalising the spectrum sharing and trading guidelines and is working towards creating an enabling ecosystem to make India a digitally-enabled society, according to Communications & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

     

    Addressing a CEOs Roundtable on ‘Investment in the NexGen Digital Infrastructure’ organised by FICCI in collaboration with the Ministry to give an impetus to the recently launched ‘Digital India’ programme, Prasad said in the last 15 months, the government has been able to set a benchmark with its approach in spectrum auction. He added that the private sector has a pivotal role in driving the ‘Digital India’ programme.

     

    Prasad said the government is working towards ‘Digital Inclusion’. In this regard, the process of digitally linking services such as healthcare and postal with community centres in rural areas have already begun. ‘Digital India’ programme needs massive investments, said Prasad and urged the industry to take advantage of the opportunities in the sector.

     

    Prasad said electronic manufacturing has been one of the neglected sectors, which holds great promise. His ministry has been pursuing this vigorously and has been able to take the entire county onboard to drive this initiative. He added that the success of ‘Digital India’ would lead to employment generation, both primary and ancillary, and enhancing digital literacy of the citizens.

     

    While highlighting the initiatives of the government Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg said harmonization of spectrum had begun and by the yearend this process would be complete for majority of bandwidth. He added that Mobile Number Portability is now possible throughout the country and Bharat Net by way of National Optic Fiber Network, would connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats in India.

     

    Garg underlined cyber security, local testing labs for cyber security and cloud computing as some of the promising areas for private sector investment. He added that with the expansion of digitization services such as e-health would become a reality where a person from rural area would be able to consult doctors in cities through a virtual platform. 

     

    Electronics & Information Technology Additional Secretary Tapan Ray said, “Digital India programme aims to provide a seamless communication between the government and its citizens. For this, the government in its ‘Digital India Week’ launched services like Digital Locker and E-sign to enable every citizen to seek services from the government.”

     

    “India is marred by a digital divide,” said Ray and added that there is a need to bridge this gap with the creation of digital infrastructure. He called upon the industry to invest in digital infrastructure as the sector required massive funding which the government alone could not provide. Highlighting the areas for investments, Ray said that cyber security is one of the biggest challenges for the sector, which provides a huge opportunity to the private sector to explore as continuous vigilance would be needed to safeguard systems against cyberattacks.

     

    FICCI President Jyotsna Suri said public-private partnerships would play a major role in shaping the future of ‘Digital India’ programme, by bringing efficiency along with much needed funding required for sustainability and scalability. She added that industry needs to understand the nature of the opportunities being offered by the government programmes like ‘Digital India’ hence FICCI has initiated the ‘Digital Bharat’ series as a platform for having transformative exchanges and deliberations.

     

  • Square Yards to ride the Digital India wave

    Square Yards to ride the Digital India wave

    MUMBAI: Real estate advisory firm, Square Yards and builder from North India, Antriksh Group have joined hands to promote an upcoming project – ‘Urban Greek’ with the help of augmented reality and an online booking engine.

     

    Square Yards will introduce its augmented reality innovation ‘Scapes’, to home seekers in Delhi by showcasing the homes and project layout via augmented reality. Home buyers can then book homes of their choice through an Online Booking Engine developed by Square Yards. 

     

    On the launch, Square Yards founder and CEO Tanuj Shori commented, “In sync with the Government’s ‘Digital India’ campaign, Square Yards is bringing in innovative digital discovery tools to facilitate the ease of real estate transactions for its customers and to stay in tune with the fast evolving world.”

     

    Shori further added, “With Square Yards currently leading the transactional space in India, we hope to also lead the property search, shortlisting and experiential space with ‘Scapes’. Our partnership with Antriksh Group reaffirms our belief that a unique hybrid of online and offline process is the ideal way to erase the pain points that home buyers face by opting for either pure online or offline models.”

     

    In an event christened as ‘No Loan Day’, Antriksh Group is offering luxury apartments in the Delhi smart city (Delhi-Dwarka L-Zone) at an investment of just 0.9 per cent per month for all home buyers who opt for the online route.

     

    The developer has set up augmented reality zones that is powered by Scapes in various parts of the city to offer a 360 degree augmented reality experience of its brand new project in Delhi L-Zone.

     

    Antriksh Group MD Abhishek Singh Goyat stated, “Square Yards ‘Scapes’ is an innovative marketing tool that very well complements our initiative to build modern infrastructure by launching our project in the first smart city of the National Capital. This state-of-the-art technology will enable potential property buyers to take a virtual tour of our project before shortlisting any home and also our existing clients can share the experience with their family and friends.”

  • BSNL partners Bangladesh cable co. to bolster broadband reach in NE India

    BSNL partners Bangladesh cable co. to bolster broadband reach in NE India

    NEW DELHI: In an effort to strengthen Digital India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has partnered with a Bangladesh company to improve internet connectivity in the northeast part of the country.

     

    BSNL will provide international bandwidth for internet from Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh to Agartala, while the Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) will provide the international port (IP) transit service from Cox’s Bazar Cable Landing Station.

     

    The terrestrial route in Bangladesh will be Cox’s Bazar-Chittagong-Comilla-B.Baria-Akhaura for primary link and Cox’s Bazar-Chitagong-Comilla-Dhaka-Narshindi-Bhairab-Akhaura the secondary link.

     

    The Bangladesh Telecommunications Company has to lay optical fibre cable (OFC) of the 30 km approximate distance from Brahmanbaria to Akhaura, which adjoins Tripura.

     

    BSNL will set up international long distance (ILD) gateway at Agartala along with associated equipment.

  • TRAI Chairmanship: An onerous responsibility fraught with delicate diplomacy & balancing acts

    TRAI Chairmanship: An onerous responsibility fraught with delicate diplomacy & balancing acts

    NEW DELHI: For any bureaucrat assigned to an autonomous organization under any Ministry, the biggest problem is to ensure smooth functioning between the Ministry and the organization.

     

    Even as Ram Sewak Sharma, a 1978-batch IAS officer of Jharkhand cadre who is currently serving as secretary in the Department of Electronics and Information Technology appears to be the favourite for the hotseat of chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), he is one of over seventy-five contenders who reportedly include Information and Broadcasting secretary Bimal Julka.

     

    Erstwhile chairman Rahul Khullar had taken charge of the regulatory body on 14 May 2012, and demitted office earlier this month on 13 May.

     

    TRAI had been established under an Act of Parliament to deal with telecom issues, but was given additional charge of broadcasting just over a decade earlier. Even though it appears to have handled broadcasting issues with fair competence, the bent of mind of the officials in the regulator is still towards telecom.

     

    Convergence: A delicate balancing act

     

    The task for the seventh chairman of TRAI becomes even more onerous: he has to ensure smooth coordination with two Ministries. Even though TRAI technically falls under the Communication and Information Technology Ministry, it has to also work at tandem with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. 

     

    This balance between the two Ministries becomes crucial, considering that the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government is again talking about convergence at a time when two of the primary players who were involved on this issue a decade earlier when the matter had come up – to utter failure – are still in the cabinet. Arun Jaitley then headed Law and now heads the Finance and I&B Ministries, whereas Sushma Swaraj, who was then in charge of I&B Minister is now in External Affairs. In that round, the late Pramod Mahajan as Communications Minister was also part of the Group of Ministers headed by then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha.

     

    The fact remains that convergence is bound to become a hotly debated subject during the tenure of the new chairman, and a lot of diplomacy will be required to balance the demands of the two ministries.

     

    Digital India and Broadband

     

    Even as a lot has been heard about programmes on Digital India and Make in India with little tangible showing so far in telecom and broadcasting, one of the greatest challenges the new incumbent will have to face is ensuring the growth of broadband.

     

    At present, India is at the 89th position in Network Readiness Index with countries like Singapore, Finland and Sweden having become leaders and by TRAI’s own admission the broadband connectivity is abysmally low with just 99.2 million subscribers by March this year. 

     

    In view of this, the government’s ambitious national broadband plan to connect as many as 2.5 lakh villages through optic fibre appears to be too far-fetched and even came in for sharp criticism from outgoing chairman Khullar, who termed the move as “impossible” to implement and something that is bound to “fail.” In fact, he said a plan to connect the entire country at one go is not the right way of providing broadband connectivity to all.

     

    Broadcasting Sector

     

    Expectedly, TRAI will need to not only strengthen its broadcasting team but also ensure greater coordination among officers in both broadcasting and telecom. This is also obvious from the number of policy decisions with regard to broadcasting, which have been taken to the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Addressable System and the Courts.

     

    The primary challenge that TRAI faces in broadcasting is to establish its credibility of being impartial and not playing into the hands of the broadcasting lobby. The cable operators and independent multi-system operators have been crying hoarse over this issue, often leading to litigation.

     

    In fact, the regulator has had to backtrack several times in the recent past, either on its own or because of Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and court decisions and hopes the Supreme Court will come to its aid.

     

    A day after Khullar laid down office, TRAI on 13 May announced that amendments to its tariff orders issued on 1 October, 2004 and 21 July, 2010, which had been set aside by TDSAT earlier this month would be subject to the outcome of the appeal filed by the regulator before the Supreme Court.

     

    The two amendments made by the TRAI to its tariff orders that aimed at preventing broadcasters from giving their channels directly to the subscribers and putting commercial subscriber at par with ordinary subscribers were struck down by TDSAT on 9 March.

     

    TDSAT said TRAI must now undertake a fresh exercise ‘on a completely clean slate. It must put aside the earlier debates on the basis of which it has been making amendments in the three principal tariff orders none of which has so far passed judicial scrutiny. It must consider afresh the question whether commercial subscribers should be treated equally as home viewers for the purpose of broadcasting services tariff or there needs to be a different and separate tariff system for commercial subscribers or some parts of that larger body. It is hoped and expected that TRAI will issue fresh tariff orders within six months from to-day.’

     

    On 16 May, TRAI failed to get a stay from the Supreme Court of the order of TDSAT setting aside the amendments in two tariff orders, which had sought to put an inflation-linked hike of 27.5 per cent on addressable and non-addressable systems.

     

    The regulator also failed to get permission to take action against television channels violating its diktat of a total of 12 minutes of commercial and promotional advertisements every hour, though all broadcasters were asked to keep records of this by the Delhi High Court.

     

    Despite announcements, there has been little progress in the Make in India campaign as far as indigenous set top boxes for digital addressable systems go and most consumers have to put up with Chinese or other boxes.

     

    Similarly, analogue transmission continues in many parts of the cities and towns that have gone digital and the Government failed to get the stay of Digital Addressable Systems (DAS) in Chennai vacated.

     

    The subscription charges for the average consumer under DAS still continues to create confusion as far as free to air and pay channels go and that is the primary reason for the LCO’s inability to do proper billing – giving a reason for the broadcaster to complain.

     

    The Direct-to-Home (DTH) sector also complains about the fee charged by the Ministry, which they say makes it difficult for them to continue or earn profits.

     

    Both Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) and headend-in-the-sky (HITS) are still considered nascent technologies despite having been around for some years, and TRAI will have to find ways to encourage their growth, particularly in the face of smartphones which can receive live TV signals for which they often pay nothing.

     

    While the nation is talking about digital technology, Prasar Bharati feels that Frequency Modulation, which is an analogue technology, should be promoted until the nation is read for digital radio sets. This seems to militate against the crores of rupees spent by All India Radio (AIR) in Digital Radio Mondiale technology. Though TRAI has not interfered as it is a matter between the I&B Ministry and the public service broadcaster, it may have to do so if digitization has to succeed.

     

    Both the Government and TRAI have been announcing that e-auctions of the first batch of Phase III FM would begin in May but the month is almost at an end and no date has been fixed yet.

     

    Telecom Sector

     

    The new chairman would be taking charge at a time when the telecom sector is facing major turmoil with the emergence of over-the-top (OTT) operators. While the broadcasting community appears to be happy as the communication OTT will help popularize its programmes, the cellular operators feel OTT will affect their revenues adversely. The TRAI consultation paper also touched upon net neutrality, which is bound to gain controversy in the era of convergence.

     

    If the successor is Sharma, then his task will become even more challenging as it is bound to militate against the post he has been holding until now and where he had in fact set up a committee on the same subject even as a Parliamentary Committee is also considering this issue.

     

    Spectrum and the inability of the government to auction the entire spectrum available in the last e-auction – with 12 per cent remaining unsold – is bound to trouble the regulator. Added to that is the fact that despite the fact that the last e-auction was held in the tenure of the present government, Minister Prasad recently assuring the industry that the auction of spectrum in the future too would be conducted in a timely, fair and transparent way.

     

    Even as 3G is still to become a success, the regulator has been asked to look at 4G at a time when many telecom service providers are facing problems.

     

    Other challenges in telecom include extending the mobile network to rural India, and a debate whether India is ready for Virtual Network Operators.

     

    Clearly, the new chairman has to burn the midnight oil and at the same time avoid heartburn as he goes about his task of resolving the multifarious tasks before him.

  • Digital India fails to impact growth of broadband subscribers

    Digital India fails to impact growth of broadband subscribers

    NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is working on programmes like Digital India, there has been an increase of a meager 1.88 per cent in the number of broadband subscribers between February and March this year.

     

    According to a Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) report, the number rose from 97.37 million at the end of February to 99.20 million.

     

    As in previous months, the largest increase was in the mobile devices users (phones and dongles) segment from 81.48 million to 83.24 million, showing an increase of 2.17 per cent.

     

    The increase in fixed wire subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point to Point Radio and VSAT) was from 440,000 to a little above that figure. The rise in wired subscribers was from 15.45 million to 15.45 million to 15.52 million.

     

    The top five service providers constituted 83.39 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of March. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (22.01 million), Vodafone (19.37 million), BSNL (18.88 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (14.52 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.94 million).

     

    Some wireless service providers exclude incidental data users from their subscriber base, based on minimum usage decided by them.

     

    As on 31 March, the top five Wired Broadband Service providers were BSNL (9.96 million), Bharti Airtel (1.43 million), MTNL (1.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.67 million) and YOU Broadband (0.44 million).

     

    The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (20.58 million), Vodafone (19.37 million), Idea Cellular (14.52 million), BSNL (8.92 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.83 million).

  • COAI’s net neutrality campaign garners support of 40+ lakh Indians

    COAI’s net neutrality campaign garners support of 40+ lakh Indians

    MUMBAI: Cellular Operators Association of India’s (COAI) campaign – ‘Sab ka Internet, Sab ka Vikas’ – for net neutrality, net equality and consumer choice, has received support from over 40 lakh Indian mobile users in under a week.

     

    Launched on 22 April, 2015, the campaign is about making the internet accessible and affordable for every Indian. In addition, it is about ensuring that everyone has the right to choose what they want to access, ensuring access to solutions that make the internet affordable for all, and applying the same rules for the same services to all. 

     

    The campaign was announced by CEOs and representatives of the member companies of COAI on 24 April in New Delhi. 

     

    COAI members had reaffirmed their commitment to the government’s ‘Digital India’ programme and to promote net equality, so as to facilitate an open, inclusive and affordable access to the internet for every Indian.

     

    COAI director general Rajan S. Mathews said, “The campaign championed the cause of customers choosing what they would like to access in the web space, benefitting from affordable internet packages and with the same rules being applicable to services as well. COAI started the outreach effort to ensure mobile customers have the freedom to benefit from the power of the internet in the way they would wish to. This includes the choice of platform, device and technology.”

     

    “We respect the choice of our customers and support the Prime Minister’s vision of ‘Digital India.’ #SabkaInternet has always been the essence of our philosophy and the billions of dollars investments made by all the telecom operators in the space,” added Mathews.

     

    SMSes and voice calls were leveraged to promote the core thought of the campaign and to garner the support of a large number of people across the country. To ensure ease of understanding, the messages were conveyed in 12 local languages across India. This medium was intentionally selected so as to be able to reach out to and include the views of the millions of mobile customers who are yet to be connected to the internet.

     

    In the past week, more than 40 lakh people showed their support for the cause, while about 10 per cent chose to opt out.

  • Indian brands look to ride the Augmented Reality wave

    Indian brands look to ride the Augmented Reality wave

    MUMBAI: Gone are the days when brands would be happy putting a campaign on TV or printing an ad in newspapers to grab their target audience’s attention. At a time when consumers are looking for greater engagement and connect with brands, Augmented Reality, which provides just that, is slowly making inroads in India.

    In today’s typical life of massive information overload, Augmented Reality breaks the monotony and intelligently places the brand in the perspective of real world surroundings creating a solid Human-Brand-Interface.

    Buoyed by the new model of advertising, Wowsome founder Vishal Reddy and co-founder Karan Bhangay, use mobile Augmented Reality to help brands engage with their consumers by offering real time, enticing and interactive visual content on their mobile devices. Instead of interrupting the consumers, Augmented Reality provides relevant situation based content that urges the consumer to share it with their friends and family.

    Wowsome was born when Reddy and Bhangay witnessed a sea change in advertising with the digital wave in India. “Coming from a print background, we saw that social media was taking over all the print revenues for most of the publications. We thought we should add more life to the dead content that was there in print. We wanted to add more layers of digital content. That’s how Vishal came up with the idea through, which content could be more creative,” informs Bhangay.

    While the industry was undergoing a digital revolution, it was unstructured and disconnected. “Publications were struggling with stagnation in print readership and digital was trying to connect both. And Wowsome broke that disconnect and connected both the mediums,” says Reddy.

    Wowsome, which started a year back, currently boasts of over 50 clients including brands like L’oreal Paris India, Omega Watches, Apollo Hospitals, Being Human, Aston Martin, The Collective, Ballantines, Jaguar and Budweiser among others.

    L’oreal and Omega Watches were the first brands to hop on to Wowsome’s Augmented Reality bandwagon. “Brands in the niche market, that are not typical advertisers and are very creative with their ads, were the first to experiment with Augmented Reality,” informs Bhangay, adding that brands, which have an eye on reaching their client innovatively, are the ones who will pounce on Augmented Reality first.

    The duo feels that the reason why Augmented Reality hasn’t kicked off in India so far is because the technology is difficult to explain. Reddy says, “Augmented Reality is very complicated to explain and the best way is to show clients what it actually does: its immersiveness, the awe factor and the kind of emotions that it puts. In a very natural way, it is a brand engagement medium, which offers very targeted and customized advertising. We got the positioning right and got a product, which is easy to use and hence the penetration happened. The model we created was able to excite most businesses.”

    Reddy and Bhangay are keen to see Augmented Reality grow as an industry in itself. “We want Augmented Reality to become an industry. Of course we have a brand, which serves brands and consumers, but we would want to set a standard for what Augmented Reality could actually do for the industry. On the consumer front, we want to tell people how it works and what all one can do with it,” asserts Bhangay.

    Wowsome, as part of its engagement strategy for consumers, is not just offering goodies, but working on interesting content, which would force the customers to stick to the brand. “A whole season of Augmented Reality is waiting,” opines Bhangay.

    While Wowsome is enrolling brands, the brands in turn are bringing in the customers. “Compare this with e-commerce. People complained that it wouldn’t work, but with the kind of drive and investments, we have become the most promising e-commerce nation. We hope the same will happen with Augmented Reality,” says Reddy.

    Wowsome, according to Reddy, is very economical and provides a great Return on Investment (ROI). “Our business model broadly is to offer 10 to 15 per cent incremental cost on the existing print spend to add an interactive Augmented Reality feature. From that perspective, brands find it economical. It is being used as a sales story by many,” adds Reddy.

    Great Augmented Reality campaigns deliver a seamless experience where users cannot differentiate between the real world and its virtual augmentation. With 160 million smart phone users in India braced by steady 3G data, expected to grow by a staggering 225 million before the end of 2015, Augmented Reality will soon be ubiquitous as the ultimate mass medium of advertising.

    While currently Augmented Reality is sharing the revenue pie with the print or digital spends, the duo is hopeful that in the next two years, brands will set aside separate budgets for the medium. Another advantage of Augmented Reality is that companies can get real time data on customers who are interacting with the brand, which gives them a better chance to convert visitors into buyers.

    Brands that hop on to the new medium soon will benefit, according to Reddy and Bhangay, while those who are applying the wait and watch philosophy could just miss the bus when the medium sees an explosion in the next few years.

     

  • COAI reaffirms support for net neutrality; industry speaks in favour too

    COAI reaffirms support for net neutrality; industry speaks in favour too

    MUMBAI: While the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has reaffirmed its support to net neutrality, the body has also made a strong pitch for ‘Net Equality’ that will enable access to Internet for a billion Indians as part of the Government’s Digital India vision.

     

    The Association has urged all stakeholders to have a comprehensive and informed debate on the subject of net neutrality keeping in mind the requirements of India and its citizens. “An important and complex subject such as this, which is still being debated in many countries, and has taken years to conclude in many other countries, is the subject of litigation in some, should not be left to the opinion of a few,” COAI says in an official statement.

     

    Clearing misconceptions that have arisen from the recent public debate over net neutrality and concerns over operators who are trying to control the consumers’ access to the Internet, COAI said, “We support an open Internet and believe that consumers should decide what to do online. Our job is to enable consumers to benefit from that freedom. We offer choice and do not block or provide any preferential access to any web site or app.”

     

    COAI also underlined its commitment to the ‘Digital India’ story and has called for an open, inclusive and affordable Internet access for every Indian. The industry association added that India’s telecom revolution has empowered over 950 million citizens through affordable services and the Internet revolution must now touch every citizen of the country.

     

    The Association has said that its members are fully committed to investing in the Government of India’s ‘Digital India’ vision and need an enabling environment that promotes the growth of the entire Internet ecosystem.

     

    Create an enabling and equal environment

     

    COAI has pointed out that without infrastructure and investment, there will be no Internet access. “The operators have invested billions of dollars in license and spectrum fees as well as network roll-outs. Yet the industry still makes negative return on the capital employed,” read the statement.

     

    The industry estimates that the country would need an additional capital outlay of Rs 300,000 – Rs 500,000 crore over the next 10 years in spectrum, new technology, equipment, towers, optical fibre backbone, etc., to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Digital India’, and connect one billion Indians to the world of Internet. The need of the hour, therefore, is to have a sustainable industry that has the ability to invest in growth of data services and connectivity to all.

     

    Promote innovation to enable Internet for all      

     

    India has over 950 million mobile subscribers, which is the second largest in the world. This growth was enabled by innovation across the ecosystem – in the ever expanding complex networks, outsourcing models, infrastructure sharing, innovative pricing structures – that allowed operators to offer customers some of the most innovative and affordable call rates in the world.

     

    “We need the same spirit to connect a billion Indians to the Internet. This means innovations across the ecosystem – affordable smartphones, more efficient networks, even more broad ranging applications (especially in areas such as education, health, governance) and pricing flexibility – that promotes greater digital inclusion. Only then can our citizens in rural India, or from a lower economic strata, be empowered through Internet access,” said COAI.

     

    Industry Speak

     

    Earlier last week, Times Group committed to withdraw from Internet.org and appealed fellow publishers to follow suit and support net neutrality.

     

    The Times of India and its language websites like Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times, Ei Samay and Nav Gujarat Samay, who have together been spearheading the movement for net-neutrality in India, appealed to all publishers to jointly withdraw from Internet.org.

     

    The group’s properties such as TimesJobs and Maharashtra Times, where its competitors are not on zero-rate platforms, will also pull out of Internet.org. As forThe Times of India itself, the group has committed to withdraw from Internet.org if its direct competitors – India Today, NDTV, IBNLive, NewsHunt, and BBC – also pull out.

     

    The group, through a letter, also encouraged its fellow language and English news publishers like Dainik Jagran, Aaj Tak, Amar Ujala, Maalai Malar, Reuters, and Cricinfo to join the campaign for net neutrality and withdraw from zero rate schemes.

     

    “We support net neutrality because it creates a fair, level playing field for all companies – big and small – to produce the best service and offer it to consumers. We will lead the drive towards a neutral Internet, but we need our fellow publishers and content providers to do so as well, so that the playing field continues to be level,” said a Times official.

     

    Meanwhile, Airtel has come out in open to explain Airtel Zero. Through a statement, Airtel said, “Airtel Zero is a technology platform that connects application providers to their customers for free. The platform allows any content or application provider to enroll on it so that their customers can visit these sites for free. Instead of charging customers we charge the providers who choose to get on to the platform.”

     

    “Our platform is open to all application developers, content providers and Internet sites on an equal basis. The same rate card is offered to all these providers on a totally non discriminatory basis,” it further said.

     

    Airtel said that it stands fully committed to net neutrality to ensure the goals of the Prime Minister’s vision of digital India are met.

     

    On 22 April, the Indian telecom regulators are preparing to recommend changes that are required in the current telecom regulatory framework. Telecom operators are concerned primarily because of the excessive use of Internet leading to congestion and bandwidth difficulties. About 10 per cent of mobile users consume 90 per cent of operators’ bandwidth. Internet companies are not in favour of regulation that could tilt the balance in favour of telecom operators, but are advocating legislation to keep the Internet open.

     

    Expressing his views on net neutrality, TRA CEO N Chandramouli said, “The crux of the situation is simple – the idea that Internet service providers give their customers equal access to all lawful websites and services on the Internet, without giving priority to any website over another. At one level, it is being linked to the right to freedom of expression and the right to information and correctly so. From a brand point of view we can already see it is impacting and hampering the equation with telecom brands such as Airtel, which decided in December 2014 to charge more for calls made through services like Skype and Viber, but had to roll back the decision after outrage on social networks.”

     

    Shoptimize & Cooliyo co-founder & CEO Mangesh Panditrao believes that it is important to not let differential pricing and performance creep into the Internet. “Budding online brands in India are already struggling to reach the target audience due to the huge marketing and advertising barriers created by large players. It will become even more difficult for them if they have to pay to maintain a level playing field in terms of bandwidth. One of the things that has really worked well for our app Cooliyo is the fact that we show products purely on the basis of their merit and popularity thus keeping away any bias. It would be quite ironic if we now suddenly have to face a bias while we try to reach our own community. It would be a massive setback for several startups such as ours.”

     

    Internet is an essential service and should be provided without any discrimination, feels Askme group CMO Manav Sethi. “Zero rating platforms can seriously affect the freedom and growth of the billions of entrepreneurs, quite against the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ vision of our government. Any violation of Internet neutrality can have a serious bearing on effective and fair competition in the market place. We feel it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure a level playing field for home grown entrepreneurs and at the same time protect the interests of netizens,” he opined.

     

    Speaking in support of net neutrality, OYO Rooms CEO Ritesh Agarwal said, “Net neutrality is absolutely essential for a free and competitive market especially now since there is a start- up boom in the country particularly in the online sector. Most importantly Internet was created to break boundaries and as concerned industry players, we should maintain that. We support net neutrality and will do all needed to build this further.”

     

  • Broadband usage in India sees just over 5% growth between Jan-Feb

    Broadband usage in India sees just over 5% growth between Jan-Feb

    NEW DELHI: At a time when the government is stressing on Digital India and using social media over the Internet to the full, there was a growth of a mere 5.11 per cent in the number of broadband subscribers between January (94.49 million) and February (97.37 million).

     

    The number of subscribers using mobile devices (phones and dongles) went up from 78.66 million to 81.49 million, showing the largest growth of 3.59 per cent.

     

    In comparison, the growth of wired subscribers was 14.45 million in February as against 15.39 in January and the growth of fixed wireless subscribers (Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, Point-to- Point Radio & amp; VSAT) went up from 440,000 to just over that same figure, thus signifying an increase of just 0.63 per cent.

     

    The top five service providers constituted 83.53 per cent market share of total broadband subscribers at the end of February. These service providers were Bharti Airtel (20.88 million), BSNL (20.67 million), Vodafone (17.93 million), Idea Cellular Ltd (14.08 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.78 million).

     

    The top five Wired Broadband Service providers were: BSNL (9.98 million), Bharti Airtel (1.43 million), MTNL (1.14 million), Atria Convergence Technologies (0.65 million) and YOU Broadband (0.44 million).

     

    The top five Wireless Broadband Service providers were Bharti Airtel (19.45 million), Vodafone (17.92 million), Idea Cellular (14.08 million), BSNL (10.69 million) and Reliance Communications Group (7.67 million).

     

    Wireless subscribers with less than 1MB and 5MB data usage in a month have not been considered as internet/broadband subscribers by Reliance Communication Group and Idea Cellular Ltd respectively. 

     

  • FICCI Frames: Internet has increased distribution pipe but lacks monetization

    FICCI Frames: Internet has increased distribution pipe but lacks monetization

    MUMBAI: India is going through a sea change when it comes to content and technology and the country is still grappling with the changes. With sudden boom of multiple distribution systems, the internet and satellites have started playing a larger role in distribution of content. The traditional distribution system has also undergone change and this is not only in the area of production and distribution, but also in the space of marketing.

     

    With the increase in the number of distribution platforms, what the country is witnessing is convergence of businesses. “While we have been talking about convergence in telecom and entertainment for over two decades, it is now that we see it is becoming more relevant,” said Department of Telecom, Government of India special secretary Rita Teaotia in her opening remarks, on day two of FICCI Frames 2015.

     

    According to Teaotia, one of the most important feature of convergence is the heightened significance of the internet in actually delivering content. “This has led to increased choices to consumers, which in turn has led to changed consumer behaviour. They are no longer captive audience,” she said, while addressing the keynote for the session ‘Dancing or Dueling? – the Interplay of Content and Carriage in a Converged World.’

     

    Convergence has also seen a fragmentation around the value chain. While there are a number of players, including the telecom, cable TV, broadcasting stations, equipment vendors, content distribution owners, content owners among others, one can see blurring of boundaries of those in the value chain.

     

    Teaotia pointed out that the huge explosion for demand of data had led to the transformation of existing networks. “So broadcasters are looking at broadband to offload content, mobile networks are converging with fixed networks and alternate platforms are being developed to speed up the process of delivering content,” she said, adding that there was increasing competition between mobile, fixed network operators and broadcasters for content delivery.  

     

    With convergence has come challenges. “One of the major concerns is how to respond to the new regulations and regulatory challenges emerging from convergence and ensure that customers continue to obtain full benefit of the emerging technologies,” questioned Teaotia.

     

    While traditionally there has been a clear division for regulation of telecom networks and broadcasting content with separate regulatory regimes, content regulation has been focused largely to address movie and TV content over traditional broadcasting platforms. “The blurring which we are seeing now of the vertical supply chains for production and delivery of content and new business models for monetizing it have generated new and complex regulatory issues and questions about how effective our current regulation are,” pointed out Teaotia.

     

    Content Monetisation in Converged Environment

     

    Even with more and more content being distributed using different pipes, there is little or no monetization opportunity in the country. “Monetization is still a suspect in the short term, in the long term we have to see how traditional media evolves in India. The big money is still in traditional media and if you want to monetize the content, you will have to rely on traditional media,” said Indiacast Media Distribution group CEO Anuj Gandhi.

     

    According to Gandhi, the industry needs to evolve. “We need to get a structure to the windowing business we do. Everybody will need to have access. As we see more screens and content, we will have to monetize the content on each window opportunity and I think that will become a reality,” he opined.

     

    The industry, needs to come up with a formula for clever windowing. “The west has done it effectively where consumers pay a premium to watch content first and then the cost keeps coming down with advertisements,” pointed out Gandhi. 

     

    India: A Global Entertainment Superpower

     

    With the huge amount of content being created in India, IT industry establishing a strong footprint globally with almost 55 per cent market share globally and the entertainment industry growing from Rs 1 lakh crore in 2014 at 40 per cent to Rs 2 lakh crore by 2019, India is right on the path of becoming a global entertainment superpower. However, while this seems a very natural ambition, is it that simple?

     

    Answering the same was NASSCOM president R. Chandrashekhar. “With convergence, there is blurring of lines between businesses. But with this, you have to worry about competition not just within your business, but from other businesses as well, which can wipe out everything,” he said.

     

    The advent of internet as an extremely dominant medium for distribution of content, has lowered the many barriers that content producers faced in the past to distribute their content.

     

    According to 9.9 Media CEO and founder ISB Ashoka University founder Pramath Sinha, convergence has helped in bringing down the barriers to distributing content. “Not only this, it has also led to lowering of the cost of distribution,” he said.

     

    Chandrashekhar, however said that while distribution of content has become easier, its discovery in the huge space could be a challenge. “We need to find out who the gatekeepers are who are standing between finding that content and how is interplay between the gatekeepers being managed,” concluded Chandrashekhar.