Speaking at the international
advertising convention, 'Future Shock', Professor Ashok
Jhunjhunwala, Head of the Department, Electrical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, threw up questions
on the impact of technology on Indian lifestyle and how far the new
technology has reached the masses.
 In
India, the 90s saw rapid enhancement in Telecom and Information Technology.
The impact will be even more dramatic in the coming decade. What can
be expected from technology? Backbone network, access while on move,
access while at home and office and user interfaces. In this scenario,
the key Indian imperatives are affordability and market penetration
levels. The biggest impact of technology in the Indian household was
brought about by black and white television. Then came colour television
and then digital television. From terrestrial broadcast we moved on
to satellite broadcast, then to cable television and now we are talking
about Direct-to-home (DTH). But all this is one-way communication.
Soon we can look forward to video on demand, video specially edited
for a group, video-based newspapers and newsletters, content-based
retrieval and play (MPEG 7 and MPEG 21). We are essentially talking
about access while on the move, access at homes and offices. It could
be through your personal computer, television, car screen or mobile
phone. Which means connected homes, offices and the world.
What will make this possible?
- Optical backbone networks.
- Getting the fibre within a KM of urban homes.
- Bringing terabit per second capacity to street corners.
 India
has 1,000 million people and 180 million households, but what is the
market size and affordability? India has 30 million telephones and
two million internet connections. In 1992, there were no cable TV
connections in Indian homes, but today 40 million homes have cable
connections, while 80 million homes have television. What has made
cable and TV affordable in India? Firstly cable TV charges are anywhere
between Rs 60/- to Rs 150/- per month, whereas in the US, its $ 15.
Secondly, innovative buy-back schemes have made possible widespread
use of second hand television. A black and white TV is available at
Rs 1,200/- in rural areas, and is affordable to 60% of Indian households.
Cable TV operators use a dish antenna and cable to serve in about
700 m radius. And their operation cost is about a third of that of
the corporate sector. So, the benefit of lower operation cost is passed
on to the customer.
Telecom affordability for Indian households
But the afforesaid scenario is not the same for telephone and internet.
Telephones cost about Rs 32,000/- per line to install, requires Rs
12,000/- per year or Rs 1,000/- per month, which is not affordable
to more than 2 to 3% of households. Telecom and internet in developed
countries costs $ 900 to $ 1000 per line, it requires $ 350 per line
per year to service. It is affordable to over 90% of households in
the west. R&D focus there shifts from cost reduction to enhancing
the basket of services. In India our task becomes more of how to use
R & D to bring down the costs. Technology developed for the western
market is affordable only in the west. Its affordable to only 1 to
5% of people in developing countries.
Technology is making a major impact on our lifestyle, but will it
change all the 1,000 million homes in India? The R & D task for
developing nations is that the cost of the product needs to be brought
down by a factor of 3 to 5. By doing so we can not only bring down
costs, but will also become technology leaders.
Author : Anuradha Sriraman
Photographs : V Ganesan |
