DoT activities- February 2022

The Department of Telecommunications had a busy February. Some of its activities were:

A. Important events in DoT HQ:

High Level Committee for utilization of 5% USOF Fund for R&D:
As announced in the Union Budget for 2022-23, 5% of annual collection of USOF can be now utilized for specified R&D funding. To operationalise this announcement, a High Level Committee, chaired by Dr Bhaskar Ramamurthi, ex-Director IIT-M, comprising members from Academia, Government and Industry met on 18 Februaury 2022 & 25 February 2022 to deliberate and recommend a suitable framework in this regard. The overarching objective of such R&D funding would be to facilitate commercialization of technologies/solutions to enable affordable broadband and mobile service proliferation in rural and remote areas.

5G/IMT- Usecases Engagement
Mining sector:
As a part of 5G Inter-Ministerial Committee on 5G Use case Lab and applications, the Department facilitated a sector specific interaction with mining stakeholders i.e. M/o Mines, PSUs, CoEs, Mining Institutions, Mining agencies, TSPs, Use-case industries/solution providers, OEMs etc. on 18 February 2022. Establishing of a Usecase lab in partnership with the Indian Bureau of Mines and exploration of other pilot projects are being considered.

Healthcare sector:
A focused interactive session was organized on 04 February 2022 to discuss 5G/4G Use Cases in smart & Remote Health. Participation from MoH&FW, CoEs, Use-case Industries (TCS, Infosys, WIPRO, Tech Mahindra, Easiofy, Vizzbee, Ambupod), TSPs etc. was there. It was also decided that developers would present a demonstration of their ready to deploy use-cases (in virtual mode) to Ministry of Health.

Agriculture sector-Field visit to ICAR-IARI campus:
DoT & DoA&FW Team undertook a field visit to ICAR-IARI campus on 03 February 2022. Relevant Use-cases including Precision Agriculture Experiments (Chickpea and Mustard- Rainfed System and wheat-irrigated system) and Vertical Farming/Protected Cultivation at locations such as CPCT Center, Nanaji Deshmukh Plant Phenomics Center, Drone Remote Sensing Lab were discussed. A team has started working on an approach paper to position IARI as a Digicom CoE and as a Use Case Lab on smart Agri-tech Farming.

First Inter-Ministerial Committee meeting on Quantum Communication:
The first meeting of the Committee, consisting of Industry, Academia, and Government Members was held on 07 February 2022 to develop a roadmap for the development of Quantum communication technologies in India. Targeted task forces were created amongst the committee members to drive specific Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Committee. These ToR include building synergies across institutions, identification of Use cases & Applications, IPR facilitation, standards development, and measures for commercialization of the technology etc.).

Guidelines for registration of Machine to Machine Service Providers (M2MSP1 and WPAN/WLAN Connectivity Providers
Guidelines for registration of Machine to Machine Service Providers (M2MSP) and WPAN/WLAN Connectivity Providers have been issued on 8 February 2022. These guidelines attempt in addressing concerns such as connectivity with TSPs, KYC, traceability and encryption for service providers and also facilitate proliferation of M2M use cases. Task Forces have been formed to consult industry and recommend policy reforms for M2M/IOT services industry. This is expected to support PM Gati Shakti significantly.

Activities of Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC)
TEC has submitted a report on ‘Roll out of street infrastructure and small cells in 5G – to facilitate a standard approach for the proliferation of Dense Small Cell Infrastructure’. The report has been prepared after extensive deliberations with concerned stakeholders including Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), to enable Right of Way for 5G small cells.

TEC organized webinar on ‘Standard Based Solutions in Smart Cities’ on 24 February 2022 in association with MoHUA. The interactive webinar was well attended by more than 100 participants and experts across the globe. Eminent speakers from C-DOT, Interdigital USA, Qualcomm, Sensorise technologies and International university of Japan made their presentations on TEC initiatives in IoT/ ICT domain; IoT standards and Smart Cities etc. This webinar is in line with the Government’s initiatives for the development of Smart cities in India.

Activities by National Telecommunications Institute for Policy Research, Innovation and Training (NTIPRITl)
NTIPRIT organized 2 workshops on “Broadband for all: Handling RoW in the execution of projects” on 03 February 2022 and 25 February 2022.

Achievements of Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF)
BharatNet Project: Under this project, 5,67,941 km Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) (including 3,506 Km in February, 2022) has been laid and total, 1,72,361 GPs (including 1,654 GPs in month of February, 2022) have been made Service Ready.

Mobile Services in Uncovered villages of Meghalaya and seamless coverage along National Highway: Under this project for mobile coverage in 1,164 uncovered villages and 11 sites along National Highways, the survey work has been completed and 161 towers have been installed and 215 villages have been covered.

A visit have been made of the villages on Border area in Pithoragarh district by Administrator, USOF and action plan is being prepared to provide mobile coverage in these villages.

Tender for providing 4G based mobile service in 7287 uncovered villages of 44 aspirational districts of 5 states namely Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Odisha as per Cabinet approval in its meeting held on 17 November 2021 has been called on 07 December 2021 and opened on 24 February 2022. The tender is under evaluation and likely to be finalised soon.

Hon’ble PM has announced the new initiative to improve selected KPIs in selected districts on 20 January 2022. 10 aspirational districts with KPI of improving mobile coverage to uncovered villages in absolute numbers have been selected by DoT under this initiative. Nodal officers of USOF and DoT field levels have been identified and close monitoring have been started. Meetings are being held with District Administration by nodal officers to get the necessary help to the implementing agencies in terms of land allotment, RoW clearances etc.

Submarine OFC connectivity between Mainland (Kochi) and Lakshdweep Island (KLI Project) is targeted to be completed by May, 2023 as per announcement by Hon’ble PM on 15 August 2020. The tendering process has been completed and deep water Marine Route Survey has been completed for all segments and in-shore survey (shallow water survey) on the island side is under progress and same is targeted to be completed by 31 March 2022.

B. Performance of PSUs of DoT:

BHARAT SANCHAR NIGAM LTD. (BSNL)

•  Gross SIM sale for the month: 21,96,468.
• Gross Bharat Fiber (FTTH) Achievement: 1,03,126 connections.
• Gross new leased Circuits: 1,576 and upgradation: 892. Total provisioning including upgradation: 2,468.
• Gross Bharat Air Fiber Achievement (Data): 3,047.
• Gross Landline Achievement: 20,689 connections.
• Gross ADSL Broadband Achievement: 4,981 connections.
• 150 GB of Caching links have been added (cumulatively 1717 GB links in current FY 2021-22) making the cumulative capacity of 3110 GB Caching and 2484.05 GB Peering link capacity.
• MNP Ratio (Po/Pi): 0.65 {Port In = 568037, Port out = 370487}
• Total 2G BTS added during the month of February, 2022:1 (Redep-1).
• Total 3G Node-Bs added during the month of February, 2022: 5 (Redep-5).
• The data traffic from wire line broadband has increased from 118.2 PB (Apr-2019), 155 PB (April-2020) and 278.6 PB (April 2021) to 374.7 PB in the month of February, 2022
• For upgrading of Old legacy wireline exchange, out of planned 4.76 M capacity NGN Port migration, 0.0438 M capacity is migrated in February, 2022 ( cumulative 3.96 M migrated).

TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANTS INDIA LIMITED (TCIL)

• Provisional Operating Turnover up to January 2022 for the Financial Year 2021-22 is Rs. 1169.96 Crores.
• TCIL have secured orders for a total of approximately Rs. 335.76 Crores from foreign & inland clients in the month of February 2022.

INDIAN TELEPHONE INDUSTRY (ITI):
The performance of the Company in the month of February 2022 is Rs. 89.67 Crore (provisional). The cumulative performance for the FY 2021-22 is Rs. 1043.76 Crore (provisional). The turnover is mainly constituted from HDPE manufacturing, OFC manufacturing, SMPS, Solar Panel Manufacturing, Solar street lights, Mini PC, Mini PDO, telephones, Smart cards, 3D Printing, Airtel FTTH Rollout, Execution of ASCON PH-IV, Gujnet, NFS projects, AMC for ASCON, Defence Equipment, NGN equipment, OCB, GSM-SZ & MLLN, 3D Printing, Business from Data Centre, Upgradation of Data Centre for Indian Air Force, Services from Test labs, Reliability lab, Start-up Hub, VSSC Business, SaaS, skill development, Third Party Audit Services (TP A) for implementation of Bharatnet Phase II project in the states of Odisha, Jharkhand and various other states, business generated by Corporate, MSP, etc.

C. 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 28 February 2022 is as follows:

Optical Fiber Cable laid: 5,67,941 KMs
GPs connected by Optical Fibre Cable (OFC): 1,81,669 GPs
Total GPs Service Ready (OFC + Satellite): 1,72,361 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 1,04,288 GPs and out of them, services are being provided at 53,445 GPs, catering to more than 16,25,499 subscribers. Overall data usage on BharatNet is about 5,533 (TB) for the month of January, 2022.

(ii) The scope of BharatNet has now been extended upto all inhabited villages beyond GPs. On 30 June 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) was floated on 20 July 2021 through global biding for selection of the Private Sector Partner(s) and bid was opened on 27.01.2022, with last date of bid submission on 27 January 2022. No bid was received to PPP Model on 27 January 2022. Revised RFP and timelines being worked out with alternative models. Project is likely to be completed by 2025.

D. Telecom sector KPIs:

The details regarding number of telephones and tele-density in the country at the end of December, 2021 are as under:

CT Bureau