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The First Step

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VoicenData Bureau
New Update

Maj Gen (Retd) L Tahiliani is managing director, PComIndia became an independent country more than 50 years ago,yet more than 3,60,000 villages do not have a telephone connection. Thisconstitutes nearly 50 percent of the villages in India. On the one hand we saythat India lives in its villages. 50 percent is out of the mainstream of Indiansociety. This has been so because DoT, the only agency providing the connectionhas not found it economically viable. As long as village telephony is consideredan economic activity, the end goal of providing a telephone to every villagewill remain a dream. It has to be looked upon as a social obligation by theGovernment. All studies have proved that one percent increase in tele-densityhas resulted in a three percent growth of GDP.

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To a large extent our poor rate of growth can be attributedto a poor tele-density. The sceptics will argue that when a country does nothave resources to meet the basic needs like potable water, electricity and soon, from where will the money come for this luxury? The answer is that villagetelephony must be viewed as a necessity like health care. Has any one wonderedwhy doctors, teachers and other professionals do not want to go to villages,despite the clean air, no pollution, peace and tranquility? The reason is thatthey do not want to be totally cut off from the rest of the world. I can statewith certainty that those villages, which have telephones, will have regularteachers, better health care and

so on.

The approach to village telephony has to be totally differentfrom the one followed for extending basic services by the DoT so far. Newtechnology, lighter equipment, with very low power consumption now makes itpossible to engineer low capacity systems which provide one or two voicechannels plus a data circuit. A PCO could be set up at the village level, whichwould provide Internet connectivity also.

Existing Scenario

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The DoT had introduced the MARR system in the early ninetiesto provide village telephony. However the system did not perform for variousreasons:

  • The equipment at the village end needed expert handling; i.e. it was more like a radio with a telephone handset. Certain tuning of the radio was involved.

  • It was an analogue system and was prone to interference; as a result the quality of voice was not good.

  • Only one connection was available at the village.

  • The system worked on the basis of sharing a radio channel between a number of villages, and thus availability was restricted.

  • The project was an experiment and the service was free. When the equipment failed to work the project was abandoned as far as that village was concerned. The equipment never came back duly repaired. It is believed that a large number of such systems are lying in DoT warehouses across the country.

System Requirements

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Learning from past experience, the system selected forvillage telephony should comply with the following:

  • Should be digital and preferably free frominterference.

  • Should be dedicated for that village, not on sharingbasis.

  • Once installed, there should be no need to switch itoff. In other words should have very low power consumption and need no airconditioning.

  • The end instrument should be a plain telephone, whicheveryone is familiar with.

  • Should be capable of having more than one channel, sothat the needs of a PCO plus other users like police, healthcare, etc. can bemet.

  • Should have a data channel for Internet connectivity.While extending telephony, can also bring in Internet to avoid additionalexpenditure at a later date.

Methodology

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All district and tehsil headquarters have a telephoneexchange. What is required is to extend one or more lines to a desired village.Low capacity spread spectrum radios are available today, which can cover rangesupto 50 kms. These radios cost about Rs 2.5 lakh per hop. These need to becoupled with a small multiplexer, a pair of which would cost about Rs 1-1.5 lakh.A large percentage of this is custom duties. If the Government wants the customduty could be waived, thus considerably reducing project cost. If largequantities are purchased the cost could be further reduced.

Thus all villages within a 50-km radius from the nearestexchange in the country can be linked through this method. The following pointsneed

attention:

  • There should be a radio line of sight availablebetween the two points proposed to be linked.

  • Electricity should be available. If not, a solar panelsystem could be installed. The radios can work off batteries, however, thereshould be arrangements for battery charging.

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Procedure

The operation has to be conducted in phases for the simplereason that over three lakh villages cannot be connected simultaneously. Thesuggested sequence of action is:

Phase 1

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  • Identify villages without telephone but havingelectricity and are within 50 kms from the nearest telephone

    exchange.

  • Carry out a path survey to determine availability of aradio line of sight.

  • Appoint a person to man the PCO. A responsible personliving in the village is preferable.

  • Install the radio link.

  • Derive the number of channels based on requirement. Tostart withthis could be restricted to twovoice plus one data.

  • Train the PCO operator and determine charges to belevied. Anything, which comes free, is seldom appreciated.

Phase 2

  • Identify villages, which are upto a distance of 50 kmsfrom villages, which have been provided telephones in phase 1.

  • Carry out a path survey to determine the availabilityof Radio Line of Sight (RLOS) from one village to the desired village. Theconnectivity can be engineered by setting up a repeater at the village in phase1.

  • Carry out all other actions as applicable as outlinedin phase 1.

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Most villages could be interconnected like described above.There would however be villages, which cannot be covered in the mannersuggested. Such villages should be provided connectivity through satelliteterminals.

We in India will do well to remember that countries in theWest are developed because they have an extensive communication network and notvice versa.

Maj Gen (Retd) L Tahiliani

is managing director, PCom

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