There are close to 400,000 telecom sites spread far and wide within the country – densely located in urban India and sparsely in the rural hinterland. The ability to monitor, engage and control equipment and its performance is limited not by technology but the inadequate applications. The extent to which technology has been deployed is largely for alarm monitoring which indicates a failure that has already taken place. The real need is for alerts and trending “before” the failure alarm.

There is an acute need for remotely watching over the performance and taking corrective actions to avert a crisis. The sheer size of this spread demands a more pragmatic look at  how much pilferage can be curtailed, operational efficiencies introduced and OPEX reduced. It is not a case for mass deployment nationwide. Nor is to defer to a later date those regions that seek redressal now - the business case for remote management is based on fundamentals of prioritisation towards high gains from most demanding sites and poorer the performance and grid conditions- greater the yield of OPEX reduction.

This domain of expertise is with a few and experimentation with those not having learnt it from the field experience the hard way – will be detrimental to the initiative which alone can save the telecom industry billions of rupees every year. Tower companies can no longer ignore the importance and imminence of this initiative and those who do – will choose so that at their own peril.