Need of Broadband Internet Access for Educational Purposes in India

1
Need of Broadband Internet Access for Educational
Purposes in India

• Kalyan K Mallik
• Jadavpur University
• Kolkata 700032, India
• kkmallik_at_jdvu.ac.in

2
Objective

• How to provide Internet connectivity to rural
  sector
• Provide quality education
• Spread benefits of Information Technology in
  public life
• How to build relevant infrastructure

3
Contents

• Essential components of Internet Infrastructure
  development
• Background in the Indian Context
• Telecom Scenario in the past
• Telecom Sector Reforms
• Role of Private Sectors in Telecom
• Connectivity Reaching the Unreached
• Technology issues
• Growth in the use of Internet and rural
  applications
• Case study West Bengal
• Networking for Education
• Conclusion

4
Essential components of Internet Infrastructure
development

• Resolve Last Mile connectivity problem
• Select appropriate switching technology
• Develop strong backbone infrastructure
• Connect to International Gateway
• Develop quality ISPs
• Develop good IDCs
• Reach the rural people thro Internet Kiosks

5
Background in the Indian Context

• India is a country of 1 billion people
• It is a multi lingual country
• 74 of the population lives in rural areas
• Bridging the digital divide is a massive
  challenge

6
Telecom scenario in the past

• Scenario mid 90s -late 90s
• 17 million telephone
• 24 in 4 metro cities
• 1 in rural areas
• Investment per telephone Rs 30000
• Breakeven cost per anum Rs 9000
• Affordability per anum
• Metro city Rs 4000 8000
• Town Rs 2500 6000
• Rural areas Rs 2000 5000

7
Scenario started changing

• Backbone Network
• F.O SDH ring on Optical Fiber introduced
• Laying cost per Km reduced from Rs 200000 to Rs
  40000
• Microwave Point-to-point links
• Data rate 8, 34, 140 Mbps, SDH1
• Freq band 2, 7, 11, 13,15, 18 GHz
• Backbone cost reduces to Rs 1500 per telephone
  subscriber line

8
Switch Technologychanged

• Switch Technology
• T-S-T switch with IN services introduced
• Introduced RLU, V5.1,V5.2 protocol software to
  enable 3rd party access unit (AU)
• Introduction of RLU and RSU reduced Main exchange
  cost to Rs 1000 per subscriber

9
New wire-line Access Technology Introduced

• Wire-line Access Technology
• Introduction of RLU and RSU reduced length and
  gauge of last mile copper line to 3 4 Km
• Digital Loop Carrier System (DLC) further reduced
  copper length to 500-800 m
• Fiber access network was considered, a better
  choice
• Last mile cable cost reduced drastically
• Wireless Access Technology based on CorDECT was
  developed for WLL applications
• Internet was introduced
• Reform of Telecom Sector started

10
Telecom Sector Reforms

• Telecom revolution in India was ushered in after
  the economy opened up and the business became
  globally competitive
• Gradual reform process through selective
  privatization introduced competition in value
  added services and NLD services
• Direct Exchange Lines increased many fold
• Opening up Cellular market unleashed real
  dynamism in the market
• 24.649 million Cellular subscriber- 33.27 of
  total users- reached by Feb, 2004
• DoT was corporatised, and VSNL privatized

11
Role of Private Sectors in Telecom

• Participation of Reliance and Bharti in infocom
  business made significant impact
• Reliance planned to lay 68000 Root Km FO cable
• Introduced CDMA based limited mobility based
  Wireless in Local loop
• Bharti Laid Submarine FO cable jointly with Sing
  Tel

12
Connectivity Reaching the Unreached

• Rural Telephony
• Out of 607000 villages, 450000 villages have been
  covered by VPTs by January 31, 2001
• Efforts are also on to cover all the villages by
  VPTs by this year
• Number of VPTs reached 0.52 million
• total number of DELs provided in rural areas were
  also increased from 6.69 million as on March 31,
  2001 to 11.99 million by the end of January,
  2004
• WLL phones (PSU Pvt) alone reached 8.8 million
  by Feb,2004
• Growth rate of WLL in last one year was 94.50
• Total No of phones (Fixed and cellular)reached 74
  million by Feb,04 with a growth rate of 40 and
  tele-density 6.93
• Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) technology has been
  introduced for providing telephone connections
  promptly in urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

13
Technology

• This millennium experience a turn from wireline
  to wireless telephone networks. The technologies
  for last mile connectivity are essentially
• Wireless in Local Loop (WLL)
• C-DOT TDMA/PMP
• Satellite based telephones for remote accessible
  villages
• Wireless local loop (WLL) is becoming
  increasingly important for providing service to
  densely populated urban areas, as well as
  sparsely populated remote and rural areas
• advantages for WLL
• quick installation,
• small initial investment,
• fast return on investment,
• cheap and easy maintenance,
• Quick and easy substitution of faulty equipment,
• possibility of removing and installing the
  system in other places,
• gradual growth and expansion according to local
  demand,
• insensitivity to exact location of the subscriber
  

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WLL Access Technology (continued)

• Mobility in WLL is also an advantageous feature
• BSNL and Reliance introduced CDMA 2G and 3G
  Technology for Limited mobile communications
  connectivity
• BSNL followed it and made country wide massive
  CDMA based network (called cell one) for both
  limited mobile and fixed WLL network based on IS-
  95 and CDMA 2001x technology
• Data rate achieved in CDMA 2001x based WLL is
  sometimes 70kbps

15
Backbone improved

• Current status
• DWDM network is under development
• Above 0.1 million Root Km optical Fiber
• 3 International Gateway Landing Station at
  Mumbai, Chennai and Cochi
• Another to come (smw4 in 2005)
• Circuit switches operational 59 million

16
Growth in the use of Internet and its rural
applications

• Internet service was introduced by VSNL in August
  1995
• . As on December 31,2001 VSNLs own customer base
  was 0.55 million
• Another 150 ISP started service and growth rate
  is encouraging
• BSNL also provides Internet account in the brand
  Sancharnet
• Also provides access to browse Internet thro
  dialup connectivity from any phone, a
  breakthrough achievement for spreading Internet
  in the village
• Reliance also provides similar service

17
Internet Access Technology using WLL (IS95/CDMA
2001x)

• Rural Scenario
• Dial up connectivity through DEL (fixed WLL)
  connected to local (at nearest district exchange
  level at present) Remote Access server via
  non-blocking switching exchange
• RAS needs to be integrated to switches at all
  BSCs shortly thus minimizes circuit switch path
• All RASs are connected to ISP through Leased line
• It was possible as SDH rings have reached at
  Block level
• Subscriber density is scalable with sectoral cell
  size
• Initial cell radius is 25 Km

18
Internet Access Technology Alternative Case
Study in West Bengal

• Webel-ISP Model
• Cable TV operators infrastructure is used as
  distribution system
• MSOs develop interconnected network on FO
  backbone
• WiFi point-to multipoint network connect MSO to
  Webel-ISP
• ISP is located close to PoP , connected thro
  layer-3 Ethernet switch and delivers Internet
  through the same to WiFi
• Good performance achieved upto 3 hops
• Model was found to be cost effective for
  semi-urban and thickly populated villages

19
Spreading connectivity and Internet in rural
Sector A novel business initiatative in West
Bengal

• Grameen Sanchar Society (GRASSO) Model
• BSNL launched the GRASSO, Wireless in Local Loop
  (WLL)-based public call offices in Rural Areas
• For the first time in India A PILOT SCHEME TROUGH
  BULK FRANCHISEE for rural PCOs with limited
  mobility and STD / ISD FACILITIES has been
  executed under the supervision of an NGO
  throughout the State of West Bengal.
• The West Bengal Government has agreed to
  facilitate the initiative and provide assistance
  in setting up Rural PCOs and Internet kiosks in
  the rural areas through GRASSO
• 600 PCOs are operational and profitable in this
  scheme
• GRASSO is in the process of setting up Internet
  Kiosks spreading across remote villages.
• They also plan to be ISP and provide web based
  service to the rural people

20
Reliance Network An example

• Nationwide broadband fibre optic network covering
  over 60,000 km across 600 cities and towns
• Deployed DWDM and SDH transmission technologies
• switching technology deployed in the network is
  based on a combination of wireline and wireless
  switches. While state-of-the-art digital
  feature-rich wireline switches will meet the
  growing needs of Indian corporates
• Besides circuit switched technologies, the
  backbone also has an IP architecture and uses
  MPLS technology to carry data on an overlay
  network. In addition gigabit ethernet will
  provide broadband services on wireline access.

21
Reliance WLL Network

• The CDMA 1X based wireless switches used are
  advanced enough to provision not only quality
  spectrum efficient voice services but also 144
  kbps of data rates besides SMS and MMS services.
• CDMA 1X provides an in-built connectivity to
  internet which gives users the power of accessing
  internet and data services anytime
• 2,588 Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) across the
  country, for wireless network

22
Reliance Internet Data Centre

• The IDC in Mumbai houses the largest computing
  power in a single location in India with 300
  high-end Sunfire servers, 50 other Servers and
  necessary network equipment
• The servers in Mumbai deliver approximately 6500
  Ghz processing power, which is expected to grow
  to 10,000 Ghz. Today, the data centers provide
  storage of 95 terabytes on SANs which may be
  enhanced to 250 terabytes shortly
• Reliance Infocomm, would provide the most
  comprehensive Internet solutions
• It offers speed efficiency of up to 100 Mbps on
  ethernet

23
Reliance Network Map
24

• Networking for Education

25
Many issues with education sector

• Widely varied quality of infrastructure and
  teaching
• Does not provide holistic education
• Curriculum is vast and boring
• Emphasis on information rather than knowledge
• Searches for talents, but ignores critical skill
  development
• High dropout rates
• Inadequate adult and continuing education
  facilities
• Information bottleneck and uneven distribution
• Inadequate training facilities for teachers

26
Some Technology assisted approach

• Computer, Information and Communication
• Technology has a major role to play
• Role of computerization
• Role of information management
• Role of communication technology

27
Need For Computerization

• On line learning solution using portals provides
  ability to search for
• on line courses
• Contains self contained interactive exercises,
  illustrations,photographs, animation module with
  narrations, assessment questions and hyperlinks
• Resources that accompany text books with
  essential services like
• Tutorials, web-links, tip sheets, checklists for
  students
• Test banks, Power point slides, image
  collections,Instructors manuals, teaching tips,
  FAQ-s for instructors
• Course management system
• Provides communication access to both students
  and instructors through discussion boards,
  e-mail, chat rooms, task organizers etc
• Provides exclusive access to teachers to
  customize course content, build on line tests,
  create assignments, enter grades, post
  announcements,manage student groups
  
  

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Role of Information management

• Digital library
• Large storage of information (terra byte order or
  more) requires
• Light weight data management system
• Storage management
• Capable of handling very large information flow
  through I/O ports
• Library automation
• Services
• On line catalog search
• Record issue and return
• Links distributed departmental libraries to a
  central library
• Management of mirror sites

29
Role of communication Technology

• Networking for distance learning
• End user connectivity
• Fixed reachable
• Inaccessible location or mobile
• Streaming bandwidth
• Networking schools
• Institutional Intranet
• Wide area backbone
• Educational network
• International backbone

30
Educational Infonet

• Scalable architecture to grow from Universities
  to affiliated colleges
• Terrestrial FO backbone
• Integrated satellite WAN support
• Comprehensive Network Management
• Data security
• Dedicated Data Centre
• Broadband multimedia and video channels for
  distance learning

31
Network Implementation Issues

• In India UGC, Inflibnet along with ERNET has
  developed an educational information network to
  serve 150 universities currently
• Many universities have multi campuses and
  affiliated colleges to be networked
• Broadband connectivity is the basic requirement

32
Broadband Connectivity Technology Options

• Leased Line
• VPN solution for more than two campuses
• ADSL based broadband connection to come
• WiFi point to multipoint and point to point links
  development using 2.4 GHz ISM band
• Free Space Optics (FSO) Technology in restricted
  environment
• 802.16 WiMAX may be the future solution for
  spreading distributed educational network

33
Spreading Internet to Remote Schools

• School infrastructure requirements
• Computers
• Minimum 10- 15 PCs, 1 Server, scanners, printers
• Connectivity
• Local area network (ethernet 10/100Mbps) using
  switch or hub
• Modem connecting Server to the telephone/ISDN/ADSL
  /WLL
• Contents
• Lessons,
• software
• Content navigation tools for teachers
• Coaching
• 3-5 trained teachers per school
• Infrastructure may be reused for info Kiosk
  purposes besides school hours
• ISPs with distributed infrastructure for rural
  portal service may deliver the educational
  content from Data Centres to be developed for
  school
• Use of regional language portal to be encouraged
  for better penetration

34
Conclusion

• Indias growth in telecommunication sector is
  many fold in the last decade.
• How appropriate selection of appropriate
  technology reduces infrastructure cost, along
  with 4.35 fold growth in 6 7 years, has been
  discussed.
• Gradual Migration towards data Network has been
  pointed out with Reliance Network example
• Various technology options for distributing
  Internet for educational purposes, village
  schools and to people at large has been suggested
• Spreading of Internet in the schools of remote
  villages will be a key to transform a country to
  a developed nation.

35
Thank You