By Partho Banerjee, President and Managing Director, Hughes Communications India Limited

The latest to join the “broadband for all” chorus is Elon Musk, billionaire entrepreneur and chief executive officer of Tesla Motors. A couple of weeks ago, he announced via Twitter his plans to use a constellation of satellites to provide internet connectivity to those on the wrong side of the digital divide. He joins the likes of tech giants Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg who have been in the news for their work to bring cheap broadband to parts of the world that are still not connected to the grid. Musk plans to use SpaceX, his start-up that “manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft”. Google, on the other hand, has Project Loon, which intends to use a network of high altitude balloons up in the stratosphere (or “near space”) to power broadband for all.

The first takeaway here is that greater access to the internet directly benefits companies such as Google and Facebook, as more users imply more advertising revenue for them. The second takeaway is that these tech titans (unlike most others) have realised that the “internet for all” dream remains a distant possibility given the existing terrestrial technology.

For instance, as part of the government’s ambitious Digital India initiative, around 3 million km of fibre is being purchased for connecting 600,000 villages (6,000 blocks connected to 250,000 panchayats that connect to 600,000 villages) to link the next billion Indians without internet access (150,000 post offices, 400 universities and 1 million government schools will also be connected as part of this initiative). However, 3 million km of cable is not going to be readily available in the market and neither will it be easily deployable (estimates suggest the deployment of about 46,000 km each year as a realistic target). Even increasing this rate of deployment by ten times, meaning about 500,000 km of cable laid each year, implies six years for deployment. 

Wi-Fi, by its very nature, works best only when it is used for last mile access. Thus, the fibre optic route to connectivity is incorrect and does not take into account geographic and demographic constraints. It stands to reason that terrestrial networks work best in places where private service providers can recoup their high capital investments. They work in high population areas such as cities and towns where people need to access data. But the same does not hold true for remote areas. The time taken to establish networks and the costs incurred work against all economic logic.

Satellites are probably the most obvious answer when you look at important considerations such as deployment time and service roll-outs, the capital costs involved, and the reliability and assurance of services. Satellite broadband is also completely comparable with DSL broadband in terms of both performance and costs, with commercial offerings of 20 Mbps download speeds, often with triple play (internet, TV and voice). Currently, high throughput communication satellites use Ka-band spectrum, which allows unfettered download speeds of 10 Mbps and more. High throughput satellites (such as those using Ka-band) are now deployed extensively in the US, Europe, the Middle East and China, among other regions, to augment terrestrial broadband networks.

Another important point to be noted is that terrestrial spectrum is not an infinite resource. It is a scarce commodity globally and many governments are trying to convince their respective military establishments to relinquish spectrum for civilian use. In India, operators barely have adequate spectrum to service their existing subscriber base (which is approximately 143 million at present). They are trying their best to offer anything between 2 Mbps and 4 Mbps and are usually falling short. The creamy layer of this subscriber base, which is at the forefront of data usage, is in the metro regions and Tier I towns. This segment provides the bulk of telecom operator revenues and accounts for their marketing budgets. It stands to reason that given the price of spectrum, service providers have no choice but to allocate the maximum bandwidth to this segment while neglecting communities in rural and semi-urban India. Of the 4 billion people worldwide who do not have internet access, 25 per cent (or 1 billion) reside in India. Thus, it makes business sense for Larry Page, Elon Musk and others to tap this unserved segment.

Broadband becomes financially viable only when there is availability of broadband, relevance for broadband (when there is a demand for data consumption), and the capital costs can be offset. At the village level in India, these three issues – of availability, relevance and cost – are unresolved. A viable and sustainable business model relevant for a rural ecosystem is therefore missing or has been ignored. Even when it comes to data services, it is not just about creating services that address latent demand, but also those that help rural communities in income generation.

“Broadband for all” may be a utopian concept, but when examined rationally, satellite connectivity can make it possible.