5G

DoT activities-August 2021

October 01, 2021

The Department of Telecommunications had a busy August. Some of its activities are:

Augmentation of Satellite Bandwidth to Lakshadweep Island:
Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications and Hon’ble Administrator to Union Territory of Lakshadweep, on 14.08.2021, launched and dedicated to the nation, the high capacity satellite-based connectivity for Lakshadweep for providing broadband services. Under this Satellite project, the bandwidth has been enhanced from 318 Mbps to 1.7 Gbps for Lakshadweep Island. Agathi, Androth, Minicoy & Kavaratti Islands are connected with 200 Mbps, whereas Amini, Chetlat, Kalpeni, Kadmath, Kiltan & Bitra islands are connected with 100 Mbps.

Workshop on “5G and Cyber Security” for Central Government Officers:
National Telecommunications Institute for Policy Research, Innovation and Training (NTIPRIT), the capacity building arm of this Department, organized a one-day workshop on ‘5G and Cyber Security’ on 27.08.2021 to create awareness among officers of various Ministries/ Departments of Central Government about ways and means to leverage the power of 5G and to develop a culture of cyber security. The workshop was inaugurated by Secretary (Telecom). The programme was attended by over 65 participants of the level of Joint Secretary and above from more than 25 Central Government Ministries.

Instruction issued for Proof of Concept (PoC) of Self-KYC (S-KYC):
Instructions have been issued for PoC of S-KYC on 31.08.2021 as an alternate process for issuing of new mobile connections to Individual and Outstation category customers. In this process, the issuing of mobile connection to the customers is done through an App/Portal based online process wherein a customer can apply for mobile connection sitting at home/office and gets the SIM delivered at his door step using documents electronically verified by UIDAI (Aadhar) or DigiLocker.

Facilitation of Integration of Indigenous 5G Products, Solutions and Use-cases with TSP’s 5G Technology Trial Network:
An interactive session was organized on 19/08/2021 with 5G Indian stakeholders, SMEs/Start-ups/Academia/Industries/individuals having 5G products, solutions and use-cases. The objective of the session was to facilitate and enable Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) to integrate Indigenous 5G products/solutions/use-cases in 5G Technology trials. This session was attended by 33 Ecosystem stakeholders, including Startups/SMEs/Academic Institutions along with TSPs and several ideas were thrown up for being taken forward.

ADGSOM-ATRC JWG Meeting with India:
The 2021 ADGSOM-ATRC Joint Working Group (JWG) Meeting with India (ADGSOM-ATRC JWG+India) was virtually held on 4^th August 2021. The Meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Mano Verabathran of Malaysia as the ADGSOM JWG Chair and a representative from DoT. In the meeting, progress of cooperation activities/projects under the ASEAN-India ICT Work Plan 2021 and the proposals for ASEAN-India ICT Work Plan 2022 was briefed.

Work done by Telecommunications Engineering Centre (TEC):
The achievements of TEC, an attached office of this Department for this month are as follows:

(a) 5G Pilot Trials: TEC has finalized Test Schedule and Test Procedure (TSTP) for 5G

Trials in consultations with all stakeholders.

(b) BSNL 4G Proof of Concept (POC) for Atmanirbhar Bharat: The Committee on the issue met twice in August, 2021 and carried forward the work of finalizing test schedule for the POC.

TEC has released a Technical Report on `loT/ICT Enablement in Dmart Village & Agriculture’ that focuses on diverse issues related to IoT/ICT infrastructure and in verticals such as agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, healthcare, education, water management etc. in rural areas.
TEC has released ‘Code of Practice for Securing Consumer Internet of Things (IoT)’ in August, 2021. This Code of Practice defines baseline requirements in the form of 13 principles, for securing consumer IoT

(d) Adoption of TEC National Standards for IoT in Smart Cities: NITI Aayog vide its letter no. NI/SCM/24/2021-MU/FTS-36120 dated 27.08.2021 has directed MoHUA to issue guidelines to Smart City SPVs to adopt TEC National Standards for IoT (one MTM standards) for deploying standard based solutions for Smart Cities.

COVID-19 monitoring & mitigation:
The Covid-19 Quarantine Alert System (CQAS) continues to be useful in monitoring quarantine cases more than a year after its launch at the end of March,2020. As on 31.08.2021, the total number of target cases covered under CQAS for 18 States / UTs that are so far part of the system was 33,55,978 including ‘active cases’ as well as cases where quarantine monitoring period has been completed. Apart from this DoT’s CQAS is being used for Oxygen Digital Tracking System (ODTS) Project of Government of India for tracking real time transportation of Oxygen across the Country. Total Target provisioned for ODTS till 31.08.2021 is 29,667.

PERFORMANCE OF PSUs OF DOT

BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD. (BSNL)

Gross SIM sale for the month: 11,55,388
Gross Bharat Fiber (FTTH) Achievement (Data): 1,12,005 connections.
Gross Bharat Air Fiber Achievement (Data): 1808
Gross Landline Achievement: 24,337 connections.
Gross ADSL Broadband Achievement: 8,873 connections
Total 2G BTS added during the month of August, 2021: 3 (Redep-3)
Total 3G Node-Bs added during the month August, 2021: 2 (Redep-2)
140 GB of Caching and 120 GP of peering links have been added (cumulatively 870 GB links in current FY 2021-22) making the cumulative capacity of 2450 GB Caching and 2297.05 GB Peering link capacity.
For upgrading of old legacy wireline exchange, out of planned 4.76 M capacity NGN port migration, 0.0065 M capacity is migrated in the month of August, 2021 (cumulative 3.862M migrated).
The data traffic from WiFi has increased from 492.31 TB (April-2021) to 559.47 TB for August, 2021.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANTS INDIA LIMITED (TCIL):

Provisional Operating Turnover upto July, 2021, for the Financial Year 2021-22 is Rs. 470,91 crores against Rs. 377.08 crores for the Financial Year 2020-21 in the comparative period.
TCIL have secured orders for a total of approximately Rs.50.00 Crore from foreign clients in the month of August, 2021.

INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRY (ITI): The performance of the Company in the month of August, 2021 is Rs. 25.16 crore (provisional). The cumulative turnover for the period upto 31′ August, 2021 for FY 2021-22 is Rs. 391.72 crore. The turnover is mainly constituted from Execution of NFS project, Spare Algorithm, Defence AMC, SMPS, OFC Cable manufacturing, Solar Panel manufacturing, supply of Solar Street lights, Mini PC, AMC for ASCON, Defence Equipment, NGN equipment, OCB, Business from Data Centre, Test labs services, Start-up Hub, VSSC Business, business by Corp MSP’s, FTTH rollout for Airtel project, Third Party Audit Services (TPA) for implementation of BharatNet phase-II project in the States of Odisha and Jharkhand etc.

BharatNet: BharatNet project is being implemented in a phased manner to provide broadband connectivity to all the Gram Panchayats (approx. 2,50,000) in the country. The cumulative status of the BharatNet project, as on 30.08.2021 is as follows:

Optical Fiber Cable laid	5,41,469 KMs
GPs connected by Optical Fibre Cable (OFC)	1,72,210 (GPs)
Total GPs Service Ready (OFC + Satellite)	1,61,498 (GPs)
As part of this flagship project, the Last Mile connectivity, through Wi-Fi or any other suitable broadband technology to access broadband /internet services is to be provided at all the GPs in the country. Wi-Fi hotspots have been installed at 1,04,220 GPs and out of them, services are being provided at 64,798 GPs, catering to more than 16,05,371 subscribers with a data usage, about 4,429.97 TB per month.

As part of this flagship project, the Last Mile connectivity, through Wi-Fi or any other suitable broadband technology to access broadband /internet services is to be provided at all the GPs in the country. Wi-Fi hotspots have been installed at 1,04,220 GPs and out of them, services are being provided at 64,798 GPs, catering to more than 16,05,371 subscribers with a data usage, about 4,429.97 TB per month.

Extension of BharatNet connectivity upto villages: The scope of BharatNet has now been extended upto all inhabited villages beyond GPs. On 30.06.2021, Union Cabinet accorded approval for a revised strategy for implementation of BharatNet through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model in 16 States of the country covering about 3.61 lakh villages (including 1.37 lakh GPs). The estimated maximum Viability Gap Funding (VGF) approved for the above PPP model is Rs. 19,041 crores and the targeted date for completion of the project is August, 2023. The Cabinet has also accorded in-principle approval for extending broadband to all inhabited villages of the remaining States and Union Territories (UTs).

For implementation of the PPP model in 16 States, the Request for Proposal (RFP) has been floated on 20.07.2021 through global biding for selection of the Private Sector Partner(s) and two pre-bid meetings have been held.