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Technology Options
n SDH: Optical
fiber has vast capacity and it needs to be accessed by a protocol that can
support high data rates of up to 10 Gbps per wavelength or 40 Gbps in future.
The protocol also provides reliability and an extensive range of network
monitoring and management functions. The protocol used in modern networks to
satisfy the above features is called Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH). SDH is
placed at the bottom of the protocol stack in the physical layer, along with the
very fiber upon which it transmits its signal. The fundamental principle of the
SDH protocol is time-division multiplexing (TDM). TDM ensures that there is a
constant stream of data travelling through the network and taking advantage of
the fiber bandwidth available. Lower bit-rate streams of information are
combined, or multiplexed, up into higher bit-rate streams at the native bit rate
of the SDH system. The fundamental SDH frame is known as STM1 (synchronous
transport module). Each provides a bit rate of 155 Mbps with a total frame size
of around 20 kbps.
n DWDM: Called
dense wavelength division multiplexing, technology increases bandwidth over
existing fiber optic cable by multiplexing (communicating two or more signals
over a common channel) several optical signals on to one fibre, turning it into
a virtual multiple fibre and thereby increasing its load-carrying capacity by
many times over. SDH and DWDM are complimentary in nature with DWDM at the
backbone and SDH at the
access.
n CWDM: Coarse
Wavelength Division Multiplexing is an older WDM technology and is now emerging
as a low-cost alternative to DWDM especially in metro network access and
enterprise applications. It is a simple device enabling quick rollout of network
services without compromising on the performance of the network. It provides all
kinds of services like TDM services, data services, data center services, and
cable video services. CWDM is 50 percent cheaper than DWDM.
n ASON (ION):
Called Automatically Switched Optical Network or Intelligent Optical Network,
the technology provides the best features of all the technologies presently
available. It provides the best network architecture and one also has the
provision to deploy the services quickly.
Buying Tips
n Understanding
One’s Requirement: Service providers planning to deploy transmission equipment
for their network should first evaluate their network. First, they should decide
whether they plan to do the deployment on their own or they plan to take the
help of equipment manufacturers. Second, they should be clear what to deploy and
not as vague requirement can lead to additional costs, thereby increasing the
capital expenditure. Third, the operator should interact with the vendors to
know how are they going to fulfill the company’s requirement (technical as
well as operational).
n Flexible
Design: The network should help in providing connection through multiple rings
so that if one ring goes down it does not affect the network and the traffic can
be routed to other rings. The flexibility should be in terms of cross
connection, availability of types of interfaces/services, and support technology
and application evolution. Vendors should provide powerful cross connection
capabilities. In terms of interfaces, the equipment should provide prevailing
TDM capabilities–E1, DS3, STM-1, STM-4, and STM-16; emerging technologies–ESCON
and FICON; and IP technologies–ATM, IP, Ethernet, and gigabit Ethernet. All
these features will vary depending on metro, regional, or backbone
infrastructure.
n Network
Management: The service provider should see whether the network management
supports multiple vendor interconnects or not and ensures reliable and
consistent service. It seems ITU is developing a network management system that
can manage equipment of any vendor in a given network. This platform requires
two key interface such as CORBA and Q3. These platforms are evolving. If one can
guarantee these platforms then it is future proof for a multivendor scenario.
n Scalability and
Upgradability: Generally, all vendors in the transmission space provide
scalability and upgradability but one has to look at what prices and compare
them. Also, one should be aware about the upgradability of the equipment and
whether high-end equipment supports all the features provided by its earlier
counterpart. One should also be able to expand the network without making the
existing equipment redundant.
n Protection
Features: The vendor should provide both equipment and network protection. The
vendors should specify if the network is cut how to make the make hardware
operational. The service provider should check whether protection mechanisms are
built in the product or not. If not, the carrier should consider additional
investment that will be required for this facility.
n Financial
Backing: In the last two to three years lot of companies have mushroomed in the
transmission equipment segment. But with things slowing down lot of companies
are hardly making any significant investment in R&D. Before buying any
product, carriers should look into the R&D investment of the company and its
future commitment. One should also look at future roadmap of the company before
opting for any product.
Market Information
India is moving closer to the NTP ’99 dream of achieving a teledensity of
seven by the year 2005 and 15 by year 2010, from the present level of five.
There has been a good growth on the wireless front but even wireline has grown
pretty well. The basic services has grown by around 18 percent (in terms of
number of subscribers) in FY 2002. It seems in India one will witness a higher
growth on the wireless front now that we have two technologies, GSM as well as
CDMA and both of them have a good reach in terms of number of circles.
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To realize that dream, all the telecom service providers as well as utility
companies in India are deploying large scale OFC in the country for building the
telecom infrastructure in the country. Most of the players have already deployed
a major portion of their network and some of them have started rolling out OFC
deployment to catch up with other service providers. Reliance is planning to
deploy 60,000 km, Bharti is opting for 24,000 km, and VSNL is opting for 17,000
km. On the other hand in the utilities sector, PGCIL has plans for 15,000 km,
and Railtel for 25,000 km. There is no doubt that, to deploy such massive
infrastructure in the country, one expects an increased demand of optical
transmission equipment and the demand will continue for couple of years.
The optical transmission market in India has been on an upswing with the
placing of orders by private companies–Tata Teleservices and Reliance and
utility companies–PGCIL, Railtel, and GAIL. It seems the upswing will continue
to be there for a couple of years as presently all the companies are either
augmenting their network or creating a nationwide infrastructure on which voice
and data services will be deployed. It is difficult to forecast the optical
transmission equipment market in India for FY 2002-03 as projects are under
different stages. In some of the projects, the companies are still in the tender
or RFP stage. In some cases, the orders have been finalized but not delivered
and in some cases the orders have been delivered but still under implementation
stage and there is a possibility that it might spill over in the next fiscal.
So, there are all kinds of probabilities.
In FY 2002-03, the optical transmission equipment market in India is
estimated to be in the range of Rs 750—800 crore and the growth has been
estimated at around 7-14 percent. The above value does not include optical
transmission equipment deployed by i2i submarine cable network connecting
Chennai and Singapore. As most of the optical transmission projects run for 2—3
years we have tried to take only the fiscal figures in our estimation.
Nortel is currently the number one player. Even new entrants like Huawei and
ZTE have done pretty well. All the major multinational players are present in
the country either directly or indirectly. In terms of geographies, Nortel,
Tellabs, and Sycamore represents the American continent; Alcatel, Marconi, and
Siemens represents Europe whereas Huawei and ZTE represent Asia. Huawei is
represented through HFCL, ZTE is represented through UTL and ARM, and Sycamore
is represented through Tejas. Also in the space are Indian players like Fibcom,
ITI and HTL, a HFCL Group company. The Indian players except Fibcom are mostly
focussing on SDH technology whereas Nortel, Huawei, ZTE, Sycamore, Siemens,
Alcatel, and Marconi are focussing on both SDH and DWDM technology.
The growth of transmission equipment in the country is dependent on growth of
DELs, geographical spread of DELs, increase in Internet usage, increase in BPO/call
center operations, increase in software development centers, percolation of
e-governance to taluka level and others.
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Infrastructure Deployment by Service Providers
With the competition creeping in, BSNL, the leader in optical transmission
deployment in the country, has been trying to upgrade its network to cope up
with the emerging demand of voice and data in the country due to decrease in
cost of STD and ISD services in the country. At present, the company has an
overall capacity of 326,271 rkm (as on 31 March 2002) and has been buying large
amount of SDH equipment. However, it is expected that the focus will now be more
on enhancing the delivery network and opting for more of STM-1 and STM-4
equipment. Even MTNL has upgraded its network to carry any increase in traffic
and it seems there would be only a small incremental value in this fiscal.
Tata, the integrated telecom player in the country is planning big as the
company has to deploy backbone both on the basic services and DLD fronts. Tata
Teleservices is planning to spend around Rs 80 crore in a three-year timeframe
in all the four new circles. It seems that for all the circles, Marconi was
awarded the contract but the company was unable to fulfill its promise and so
the Delhi contract was awarded to Fibcom. Another Tata Group company, VSNL is
implementing the domestic long distance project for Tata and the company is
planning to deploy a mix of SDH and DWDM. Plans are to deploy around 5,000 km of
OFC in this fiscal and around 7,000 km of OFC in the next fiscal.
Reliance is really planning big and plans are to launch broadband network in
2,000 odds town and cities by deploying 60,000 km of OFC in the country.
Regarding optical transmission, the company is planning for DWDM in the core and
SDH in the delivery and distribution network. The company is thinking of
deploying 64 channel STM-64 for the core backbone and SDH equipment like STM-1,
STM-4, and STM-16 on the delivery and distribution network. The company has
opted Nortel for the core network and Fibcom for the delivery network.
Bharti, the first company to launch DLD service in the country has deployed
around 18,000 km of OFC in the country and plans are to deploy another 6,000 km
in years to come. Initially for DLD, Bharti was planning to deploy DWDM
technology but seeing the demand projections the company opted for SDH. The
company has signed a long-term contract with Nortel whereby the company has been
supplying the equipment depending upon the demand. On the basic services front,
the company opted for Siemens for Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, and SDH order for
Delhi and Haryana was awarded to Alcatel.
In the utility sector, GAIL has been very active and the company has
commissioned the second phase of the project. The company, in the first phase,
is planning to deploy around 2,700 km of which 700 km is underground and the
rest is overhead. In the second phase, the company is planning to deploy another
12,000 km. Railtel, another utility company is planning to deploy around 25,000
km of OFC connecting around 2,500 cities by March 2003. The company has deployed
around 12,000 km of OFC. The company is planning to deploy STM-1 and STM-4 for
the delivery network and STM-16 for the backbone network.