THE
FIRST PRINCIPALS
Five
topsy turvy years have just gone by. What do the next five years portend for
Indian business? An analysis by the
pioneers who shaped their sectors
THE NEXT FIVE YEARS FOR BUSINESS (1) TELECOM
Smooth Operators
The voice phase is over. Telecom revolution
2.0 will be based on data
Telecom is all-pervasive, a tool
being used by everybody. To understand the future of telecom in India, you have
to understand its disruptive impact on other sectors, vocations and
communities. The first phase of the telecom revolution based on voice is over.
The competition here has been brutal and driven by price. The next phase will
be data-driven broadband. Nobody is really focused on data since there is a
huge deficit of applications across a spectrum of activities - health,
agriculture, education, financial service and the whole electronic commerce
platform, from couponing to ticketing. Naturally, applications will drive data.
I have about 100 patents here and 30 have been filed so far.
One part of application is training. Video training has the potential to become the bandwidth-hogger. It can be used to train anganwadi workers, farmers, unskilled labour. . Recently, a carpenter came home and started drilling a screw into our wall. After I explained the physics to him — that a screw needs to be screwed and not hammered like a nail — the carpenter confessed he had never been told. So apps on video can be the next leap and telecom has to take that plunge.
Earlier, telecom operators were focused on subscriber base. In the process, they failed to upgrade their networks. So the quality of service has come down, with call drops, poor reception, and a host of inefficiencies. Somehow, they have to move to data and develop applications. Today, India has 900 million phones. On average, people change their phones in 14 months the world over. If India changes its phones every year, you will need 300 million phones annually. Now, all phones are becoming smart. Add to this at least 100-200 million tablets each year. Now just think of the traffic. Arguably, data traffic needs to be geared to mirror such an environment.
We need to look at data bearing in mind the Indian model of development. Take agriculture, for instance. IT can come in handy all the way from planting seeds to delivery in the farming landscape. Another example is our obsolete learning model. The Web has moved in a way that makes learning redundant. Everything is available online. Teachers are required for mentoring, not imparting knowledge. Similarly, we have to computerise our prisons, courts, railways. Only then will you be able to democratise information.
Technology exists today to link up primary healthcare centres, schools, bus stands and a host of public utilities on a GIS platform. When President Barack Obama came to India, I spoke to him for half-an-hour on this. When data is available, why is the government not opening up such data? Simply because there are too many intermediaries. The benefits of technology can percolate only by cutting down on middlemen.
By SAM PITRODA, one of the architects of the Indian telecom revolution
(As told to Moinak Mitra) CDET130104
One part of application is training. Video training has the potential to become the bandwidth-hogger. It can be used to train anganwadi workers, farmers, unskilled labour. . Recently, a carpenter came home and started drilling a screw into our wall. After I explained the physics to him — that a screw needs to be screwed and not hammered like a nail — the carpenter confessed he had never been told. So apps on video can be the next leap and telecom has to take that plunge.
Earlier, telecom operators were focused on subscriber base. In the process, they failed to upgrade their networks. So the quality of service has come down, with call drops, poor reception, and a host of inefficiencies. Somehow, they have to move to data and develop applications. Today, India has 900 million phones. On average, people change their phones in 14 months the world over. If India changes its phones every year, you will need 300 million phones annually. Now, all phones are becoming smart. Add to this at least 100-200 million tablets each year. Now just think of the traffic. Arguably, data traffic needs to be geared to mirror such an environment.
We need to look at data bearing in mind the Indian model of development. Take agriculture, for instance. IT can come in handy all the way from planting seeds to delivery in the farming landscape. Another example is our obsolete learning model. The Web has moved in a way that makes learning redundant. Everything is available online. Teachers are required for mentoring, not imparting knowledge. Similarly, we have to computerise our prisons, courts, railways. Only then will you be able to democratise information.
Technology exists today to link up primary healthcare centres, schools, bus stands and a host of public utilities on a GIS platform. When President Barack Obama came to India, I spoke to him for half-an-hour on this. When data is available, why is the government not opening up such data? Simply because there are too many intermediaries. The benefits of technology can percolate only by cutting down on middlemen.
By SAM PITRODA, one of the architects of the Indian telecom revolution
(As told to Moinak Mitra) CDET130104
No comments:
Post a Comment