Time to Celebrate

March 2011 is a landmark month for SAARC countries as they have achieved 1 billion mobile connections. This is a big achievement considering the fact that this has been achieved by emerging economies like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives who have a common culture across the region.

Presently, worldwide mobile subscription stands at 5.3-5.4 bn and SAARC contributes around 19% of the total world mobile subscribers, and this percentage is bound to increase as we move forward.

The mobile subscription for SAARC stands at 1,030 mn of which India contributes the majority ie, 812 mn, followed by Pakistan which has just achieved its 100 mn landmark. The two contribute a large chunk of mobile subscriptions and will be the prime movers for increasing numbers in the future. On the other hand, Bangladesh has 72.96 mn lines and Sri Lanka has 17.3 mn, Afghanistan has 12.5 mn and Nepal 10.3 mn. Maldives and Bhutan have also made small contributions of 0.5 mn and 0.4 mn, and these are not small considering their population and terrain.

This is not a small achievement considering that the mobile revolution started only in 1994 in India and it took 17 years to achieve the 1 bn mark for SAARC nations. India is also expected to achieve the 1 bn mark in FY 2012-2013.

With a large mobile base on the ground-this being the bigger base vis-a-vis any technologies-the mobile developers should now focus on innovations which will help in bringing efficiency and productivity on the enterprise front.

Seeing the growth of mobile in SAARC countries, everybody is now gung ho about mobile broadband technologies, be it 3G or BWA, and they feel it will create a bigger impact in these emerging economies as and when they get deployed in respective countries. The impact of these technologies on education, health, government, and the private sector will be enormous and it will benefit everybody.

But the big question is: how do they make their wireless network ready for large data play? The task is not easy since it needs lots of investments for providing a better quality of experience.

The investment for creating an IP network is not easy since these countries lack good quality wireline broadband network as the emphasis was not to create an OFC network connecting all regions. I believe the government should come forward and create a nationwide fiber backbone as done by developed economies worldwide. Individual operators can ride on this backbone by leasing bandwidth thereby providing better quality of experience for new technologies. If the government does not focus on it, the operators should come together and form a consortium. And I believe this model will help emerging economies to catch up with developing economies by providing affordable high speed connectivity to enterprise and consumers.

Pravin Prashant

pravinp@cybermedia.co.in