Fiber to the home: Reaching out to the masses

Pooja Sharma

New Delhi

15 October 2007

Broadband services are increasingly becoming important to bridge the
urban-rural digital divide globally. In countries like India, which are
grappling with spectrum issues coupled with limited bandwidth offered by copper
wire, Fiber to the Home (FTTH) is emerging as the best possible solution for the
network providers to cater to the demands of the end-users.

This was what Japanese vendors expounded on at a seminar organized by
Sumitomo Electrical Industries and Mitsubishi Electrical Corporation in
association with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Association in Delhi. Other
vendors who were also part of the seminar included Furukawa Electrical Co and
Fujikura Ltd.

Though at nascent stage, today fiber is ready to take over copper lines as
the next infrastructure within India. Keeping the same in mind, a lot of issues
related to FTTH were discussed at the seminar.

Elaborating on the Indian broadband policies, K Sridhara, Member Technology
and Ex Officio Secretary to the Government of India, Department of
Telecommunication stated that today customers demand for services such as
broadcast video, video on demand/pay per view, interactive gaming, high-speed
Internet access, IP Centrex/IP PBX, VPN, VoIP, e-commerce, tele-medicine and
tele-shopping.

“In the contemporary scenario the customer demand for high speed data
transmission and Internet and video services have also seen an exponential
growth per year. The new network needs to take care of the traffic demand
generated by the Web and related multimedia applications. The requirements of
the new network is not the volume and speed alone rather it is the same
information content required by millions of users simultaneously from all parts
of the country. This has necessitated the multifold increase in the bandwidth at
all the layers — backbone, regional, metro and also in the access,” said
Sridhar.

He further added that in order to provide the services demanded by customers
and with the network bandwidth doubling every year for almost all the service
providers, fiber-based FTTH technologies such as G-PON, E-PON shall play
significant roles in the access layer.

“Presently majority broadband connections in India are using DSL
technologies based on copper as last mile loop. FTTH technologies should pick up
in near future as there are no limits on Bandwidth,” he opined.

On the other hand, Wataru Kambe, GM-Global Business Department of Sumitiomo
Electrical Industries said that the demand for fiber globally will be around 20
million kms in China, followed by 15 million in the US and 10 million in Japan.
Accordingly demand from India would be around four million, which has also seen
an increase of 40 percent to —50 percent.

He also informed that at present his company was studying the Indian market
and since they have the technology and experience they would combine it with the
experience India has and then through the sales channel try and target cable
manufacturing companies.

“India is the toughest market in the world and hence we are not looking to
compete with the local companies. Rather we respect them. We are focusing on a
long term relationship with cable manufacturing companies and if we are able to
locate them, we will supply the required components for them to make good
quality cables,” he noted.

Adding to this, Takatosh Arai, GM-Global Communication Strategy and Marketing
Division, Fujikura Ltd said, “FTTH is drifting up in countries like Singapore,
Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia and hence this is the right time to introduce
FTTH as India looks a promising market.”

Fujikura has been working with Vidya Telelinks, a Birla group company and
Virgo Consultants for the past 30 years and had also tied up with BSNL, MTNL in
the last two years for innovations in FTTH. However Arai mentioned that the
challenges in India were immense and revolved around price levels and the
procurement policy of the government.

He also informed that since Fujikura is one of the major suppliers of
broadband world over, therefore using its technologies and expertise in products
it would promote its business further in India. The company is keen to educate
the Indian market about FTTH and has been holding a number of meets and seminars
and inviting delegations to learn more about fiber and related technology.