Digital India is good, but can we achieve it without good connectivity?

Connectivity is great for growth, jobs and prosperity. The benefits of connectivity are well established — it improves productivity and offers better access to everything from education to healthcare. Doubling broadband speeds can increase Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 0.3%.
Additionally, 2.6 new jobs are created due to Internet connectivity, for every job that might be lost. The country’s vision for a connected future is indeed grand. In the recently concluded `Digital India week’, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid out the contours of that vision – from setting up digital lockers to starting an eSign framework — which will eventually transform India into a digital economy.

India’s goal of 100 smart cities can’t happen without connectivity. The app economy, the smartphone economy, the Internet economy et al can thrive and grow when connectivity is great — not just in India’s large cities but across all villages, districts and towns.

The benefits of connectivity and its positive impact in improving lives of people are well documented. Despite this awareness most of India’s 1.2 billion people are among the digital have-nots. They have not experienced the liberating and economic benefits of being connected — to be able to use Facebook, WhatsApp or do shopping, pay bills or look for information online.

Out of India’s 300 million Internet users, only about 75 million have broadband. And quality of that connectivity remains patchy. Besides, for India, broadband means 512 kbps while the world is already moving beyond 2 Mbps kind of speeds for broadband connectivity.

For those few who can afford, migration to the faster 4G networks might be easy, improving their connectivity. But for the rest connectivity remains a big challenge. It’s not only the cost and quality of access but penetration of networks itself. Though mobile networks cover most of the country about 40,000 villages are out of reach of mobile signals. Spectrum is in short supply. And what is available has come at a huge cost for the telcos in the recent auctions. Call drops are frequent and 85 percent of the country’s broadband users who use smartphones for access could do with better quality.

Public internet access by creating free WiFi hotspots, connecting 250,000 panchayats via National Optic Fiber Network (NOFN) are great ideas. In fact Digital India aims to have broadband networks that will cover Indian cities, towns and villages in the next 18 months. But implementation so far has been fraught with delays. It’s about time we follow strict deadlines and root out bottlenecks on the way to achieving complete connectivity.

The National Telecom Policy 2012 envisages 175 million fixed broadband connections by 2017 and 600 million by 2020 at minimum of 2mbps download speeds and making available higher speeds of at least 100 mbps on demand. While directionally this is great, when compared with other countries India is lagging. For example, UK has a mission of providing superfast broadband speeds of 24 Mbps or more for at least 90% of its population by 2016 and basic broadband speeds for all in the same time frame.

Connectivity increases social mobility. It leads to better healthcare and education. Incomes would rise by about US $600 per head lifting 160 million people out of extreme poverty. Online healthcare could save several million lives and help improve educational outcomes for 600 million children.

Connectivity will bring businesses closer to global markets. Out of the about 48 million Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) less than one million are online. Offline SMEs aren’t able to reap the benefits of online era — that includes improving productivity, cutting wastage and faster access to local and global markets for their products and services. Connectivity will change that, create more jobs, increase exports and lead to overall development of the country.

India needs to speed up development of its digital infrastructure. The country can look at best models around the world to achieve goal of complete connectivity. India is the second largest telecommunication market in the world.

To ensure faster rollout of infrastructure the bureaucracy must respond with speed and agility. It is indeed surprising that the country does more than US $100 billion worth of technology and business services exports to practically all countries in the world, but can’t speed up development of its own digital infrastructure. Indian engineers are today among the best known to deliver services for global clients which includes some of the largest Fortune 500 companies. India has the capability to build the world’s best connected digital society.

Current industry estimates show that broadband in India will contribute US $90 billion to India’s economy by 2020. It took 20 years from the introduction of the Internet to reach 100 million users in India. The second 100 million came in about three years, and the third in less than a year. Even as more users get connected India must ensure reliable, high speed broadband connectivity for a true digital revolution to take off.

(About the author: The article has been written by Nigel East wood, CEO- New Call Telecom)

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