Creating a robust digital infrastructure

Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA) conducted their Annual Flagship Event on January 21, 2022. The theme for the virtual event was “Robust Digital Infrastructure – Key to Digital Transformation”.

Communications Today was the media partner.

The speakers were Devusinh Chauhan, Minister of State for Communications; Dr. P.D. Vaghela, Chairman, TRAI; K. Rajaraman, Secretary, DoT; Dr. R. S. Sharma, CEO, National Health Authority; Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman, Federal Communications Commission, USA; Jeanette Whyte, Head of Public Policy-Asia Pacific, GSMA; Jack Haddon, Head of Research-APAC, TowerXchange; Niranjan Kumar Arya, Chief Secretary, Govt. of Rajasthan; Tejveer Singh, Principal Secretary Industries & Commerce, Punjab; Akhil Gupta, Chairman, DIPA and Vice Chairman, Bharti Enterprise; Amit Sharma, Vice Chairman, DIPA, and Former Executive Vice President, American Tower Co.; and Prashant Singhal, TMT Emerging Markets Leader, EY. The session was moderated by Parul Malhotra, Senior Associate, EY.

Excerpts from the presentations

T. R. Dua     
“Telecom, being an ever changing dynamic industry has always been quick to respond to the demands of the nation. As the world has adjusted to the new normal, the requirement of the consumers has changed as well. Aligned with the fast-developing and digitisation, our association has rebranded itself as DIPA, an industry representative of digital infrastructure providers. I would like to thank DoT, TRAI and all the state governments for their constant cooperation, support, understanding and prompt response regarding the issues faced by IP-1s. What we are today, and what we stand as an association would not have been possible without our members, who I thank profusely for their constant support and faith.”

Prashant Singhal
“We have seen a data revolution, hugely accelerated by the pandemic in India. And thanks to the digital infrastructure, which was already on ground, we are all surviving and the economy is thriving.

Over the next three years, India is poised to be a digital superpower needing a huge digital infrastructure in place, both, physical infra and intangible infra. Physical infra is the towercos, transforming themselves into digital infrastructure companies. And this would require a USD 20 billion investment over the next three to five years.

We expect to add 300,000 towers, with an outlay of USD 6 billion; ensure 70-75% towers are fiberized, from the current 30 percent, and make FTTH available and double the laid fibre, needing a further outlay of USD 10 billion. The small cells too will need to grow 15-20 times, at an estimated investment requirement of USD 4 billion. The revenue opportunity for TowerCos or digital InfraCos is USD 1 billion.

Investments on a similar scale will be required for DAS, and dark fibre leases. This is imperative for accelerating 5G services, IoT and finally becoming a truly connected digital nation.

Other opportunities as managing multiple sensors for Smart Cities, increasing EV charging stations from 2000 stations to 3 million by 2030 abound for the digital InfraCos.

No doubt, success would be hugely dependant on government support and policy interventions.”

Akhil Gupta
“The critical role that the telecom industry and the digital infrastructure providers today play in every country and every economy is now unanimously acknowledged, globally.

As a representative body for tower infrastructure providers from 75,000 towers in 2010, when the association was formed, the current tally in the country is over 650,000 towers. Out of that, over 450,000 are operated by our members.

Our basic theme of sharing infrastructure with all the service providers on a completely transparent and non-discriminatory basis has already resulted in savings of billions of dollars in CapEx and OpEx over the last decade. Besides of course, contributing immensely, and very significantly toward the environment. Our members continue to be actively engaged in investing in renewable energy, and other energy saving solutions.

Our members have collectively invested over USD 15 billion, over the last decade, in enabling deep and robust digital infrastructure networks across India. With our commitment to infrastructure sharing, the infrastructure providers will continue to provide the much needed CapEx and OpEx savings to the service providers as they roll out 5G networks. The infrastructure industry is poised for big growth with the advent of 5G and thus we have expanded our scope from towers to complete digital infrastructure. This is reflected in our new identity at DIPA. We are now Digital Infrastructure Providers, instead of TAIPA.

There are so many adjacent opportunities that await us, including fiberisation and small cells, microwaves, backhaul infrastructure, Wi-Fi, IBS, and more. These would, on a fairly realistic estimate require USD 15 to 20 billion investment over the next four to five years. Our members are fully prepared to make these investments in the coming years. They are fully equipped with their infrastructure.

On their behalf, I reiterate our very deep commitment to contribute toward ensuring a truly digitised India, in collaboration with telecom service providers, DoT, TRAI and the state governments and with continuous support and learnings from GSMA, industry bodies like TowerXchange, and industry experts like E&Y.”

Devusinh Chauhan
“The government recognises the role of every stakeholder for their contribution in phenomenal growth of telecom services, including that of infrastructure providers. The telecom reforms made by the government are not a one off exercise. The Modi government will continue to charter the path of reforms in the sector, which will take the entire industry to the next level.

It is expected that by third quarter of this year, we will have indigenously designed, developed and manufactured 5G mobile network. The ministry expects 31 companies to invest more than Rs 3,300 crores in next 4 years, under the PLI scheme launched recently. It will generate incremental employment for more than 40,000 people and an incremental production of around Rs 1.82 lakh crores over the next 5 years. The scheme also boosts domestic research and development.

I am aware that Right of Way, RoW charges, support from the local government, protection of telecom installation are some of the worries of the sector. We have taken cognizance of the same and therefore the department has been instructed to take necessary steps to address the worries of the infra providers. The government is committed to take care of concern of all stakeholders including infra companies.

I would like to ask you to deliberate on best practices to ramp up the quality of telecom infra and make it the best in the world.”

Dr. P.D. Vaghela
“If India’s advantage of huge skilled manpower in IT is adequately supported by robust digital infrastructure, we can fix all the missing pieces, which are required to usher in Industry 4.0 for success of AtmaNirbhar Bharat dream and it is necessary that the new generation production facilities be based on a host of new age technologies. Indian infrastructure providers in India have done very well over the years with innovative initiatives as infrastructure sharing. And DoT also has come out with positive policy changes and programmes for facilitating infrastructure growth in the country.

There are four important challenges that the industry is facing- overhauling, adoption and legal enforceability of RoW Rules-2016, using street furniture for digital infrastructure, creation and co-sharing of infrastructure and last and very important, creation of ecosystem to facilitate faster rollout and deployment of digital connectivity inside a building.

These are individually being addressed between TRAI, DoT, industry associations and the stakeholders.

It is now a well-accepted fact that telecom infrastructure is as essential as electricity, water and gas and for 5G capability, creating a strong telecom infrastructure is a must.”

K. Rajaraman
“The next decade will be full of opportunities with 5G and 6G ushering in new use cases, technology solutions based on IoT, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, machine to machine communications, etc. On tackling solutions based on IoT, Industry 4.0, robotics and automation would create huge requirements for upgradation and augmentation of telecom infrastructure.

Going forward, we hope that DIPA will continue to support the government in new policy initiatives like the National Broadband Mission, Broadband Readiness Index, privatisation of towers, GIS mapping of optic fibre cables and connectivity infrastructure among others, which will be a backbone for success of programmes like the Gati Shakti.”

Dr. R. S. Sharma
“India has done a tremendous amount of leapfrogging, when it comes to digital things, be it creating a digital identity way back or introducing horizontal platforms like Aadhaar, electronic KYC, digital payment, and electronic signature. Co-Win is a platform that has ensured a transparent and orderly way of vaccinating people, 1.6 billion doses have been administered so far. Connectivity is a very, very critical ingredient to the success of any programme, including Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, National Digital Tourism Mission, PM-WANI programme and so many others.

Digital infrastructure is ultimately responsible if India has to leapfrog. Moving forward, we will have to have more densification of the networks that are more ubiquitous. The throughput will go up, latency will go down. And of course, there will be a huge machine to machine communication. A lot of areas of artificial intelligence, machine learning, everything will develop, and these will all develop around interconnectivity.”

Jeanette Whyte
“While 2022 will see some existing trends continue to run their course, new scenes will also emerge. I would like to highlight five trends to watch in 2022.

First, the highest number of spectrum assignments in a single year took place in 2021, since 2017 when the first 5G auctions took place, and this momentum is highly likely to continue in 2022. Second, Open RAN will make remain one of the highest profile network technologies of 2022, albeit against a massive install base of proprietary blanket, it will take Open RAN many years to make a significant impact. Thirdly, network slicing has been heralded as an prominent feature of 5G. As slicing is possible on 4G LTE and 5G non standalone, its benefits can only be fully realised with 5G standalone. The fourth one, edge computing as moved from concept to deployments of new use cases demand a more decentralised approach to computing and networking than a traditional fully cloud based model. And finally, climate related activities in the telecom sector have accelerated markedly over the last 18 months. However, setting a company on a downward path of energy consumption and ultimately net zero emissions is complex. A range of new technologies to lessen energy consumption have reached commercial deployment stage, which we can expect to see in 2022.”

CT Bureau