Co-deployment Initiatives in

Bangladesh and India

Dr K M Baharul Islam

Professor of Communications and Fellow,

Indian Institute of Advanced Study

Rashtrapati Nivas, Shimla, India

Asia-Pacific Information

Superhighway (AP-IS) Steering

Group Meeting

Bangkok, 12 December 2017

AGENDA

• Co-deployment in

Bangladesh and India

• Emerging Opportunities

• Way Forward

BANGLADESH

Co-deployment of OFC along the railway routes in

Bangladesh

BANGLADESH

• Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh’

• BTRC there are currently 54,228 kilometres of fibre optic cable

where the nationwide telecom transmission network

• Co-development of fibre optic has been done along the Highway by

both government organizations and private companies

• ‘Establishment of ICT Network to Remote Areas (Connected

Bangladesh)’

• RHD permitted several government organizations like ICT Division,

BTCL and private companies GP, BL, Summit, Fibre Bangladesh

etc. to install fibre optic work along Highway.

• Bangladesh’s government has undertaken a project to extend fibre-

optic connectivity to an additional 772 union councils – the country’s

smallest rural administrative sub-divisions – by end of 2018

BTRC: GIS Map of Nationwide Optical Fibre

(Aug 03, 2016)

BANGLADESH RAILWAY

• Co-deployment of optical fibre has already been done

along the Railway Route.

• Out of total 2877 km railway route, Bangladesh Railway

has about 2300 km co-deployed with optical fibre

• Part of which have been leased out to Grameenphone

Limited (GP) and Robi Axiata Limited.

• In addition, 380 km optical fibre is being laid along the

construction of new railway lines.

• Bangladesh Railway has submitted Project Proforma to

the planning commission for laying 575 km optical fibre

along the rest secondary railway route.

Total Scenario in BDLicence Holder / Operator OFC

Coverage

NTTN

Summit Communication 20,670 km

Fibre@Home 15,468 km

Bangladesh Telecommunications

Company Limited

4,935 km

Power Grid Company of Bangladesh 4,402 km

Bangladesh Railway 2,105 km

Mobile Phone Operators

Banglalink 3,000 km

Grameenphone 2,500 km

Other operators 1,157 km

INDIA

Optical Connectivity Drivers in India

INDIA

• India’s 200,000 kilometres of highways

• RailTel- a government project started in 2000 to lay fiber optic cables

along the routes of the railyway tracks. With bandwidth upto 400Gbps

and redundancy re-routes they have a network of over 30,000KM

• BharatNet - to provide 1 Gbps (gigabit per second) bandwidth

capacity at panchayat level.

• Targeting to connect 250,000 panchayat under the BharatNet network

by March, 2019.

• Under the Phase I : 100,000 panchayats are targeted to be connected

• Phase II high-speed broadband to all panchayats by March 2019

• Under the Phase II, the government aims to lay 1 million kilometers of

additional OFC & give bandwidth to private telecom players at nearly

75% cheaper price for broadband and wifi services in rural areas.

Description of Work Status

OFC Pipe laid2,54,955 Kms

(1,11,880 GPs)

Optical Fibre laid2,46,161 Kms

(1,05,274 GPs)

Tenders Finalized3334 Blocks /

1,24,757 GPs

Work Started*3268 Blocks /

1,22,178 GPs

Current Weekly performance of Optical

Fibre laying2316Kms

Current Weekly performance of OFC Pipe

laying1008Kms

Optical Fibre Cable Delivered on site 3,10,432 Kms

Service Ready GPs 81,535 GPs

BharatNet as on 3 Dec 2017

EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES

EMERGING OPPORTUNITIES

• BTRC has adopted an infrastructure sharing approach in order to

minimize the cost of network deployment and to protect the

environment by reducing the proliferation of telecom installations like

mobile towers.

• Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC)

2008 Infrastructure Sharing Guideline (ISG)

• Indian Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of

India, in 2013, issued a fresh set of guidelines allowing private

parties to deploy fibre optic cables along the highways

• Indian regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) :

Infrastructure sharing at backend would not damage the sector’s

competitive landscape and in fact, such partnerships are necessary

to make robust infrastructure project successful.

Sajeeb Wazed Joy

Prime Minister's ICT

Affairs Adviser

Bangladesh

Information technology will become

the basic infrastructure for garment

manufacture, shipbreaking, agro-

industry and food in future. Industry

4.0, a name for the current trend of

automation and data exchange in

manufacturing technology, includes

cyber-physical systems, the internet

of things, cloud computing and

cognitive computing.

Zunaid Ahmed Palak

State Minister for ICT

Bangladesh

"We have set a target of ensuring

employment of 2 million people in

ICT sector and achieve the export

income of USD five billion by

…Bangladesh will surely become a

high middle income country by

2021 and high income country by

2041 with the continuous

expansion of ICT sector."

Future Prospects

India’s 200,000 kilometres of

highways can be used for

laying optic fibre and oil and

gas pipes, which will help the

road ministry earn additional

revenues. The Ministry Road

Transport & Highways,

Government of India has

offered the use of this entire

stretch for laying optic fibre

and oil and gas pipes.

Speech at INFOCOM 2017

July 14, 2017

Sri Nitin Gadkari

Minister for

Road Transport & Highways

Government of India

TRAI

Unless you make states partner, nothing will work and that’s why we have recommended PPP (public private partnership) model for BharatNet. The alignment of states’ interest plays an important role, the chief regulator said…We are a very robust mobile market, No 2 in the world and telcos made good job in connecting India and there is a huge improvement in wireless bandwidth

R S SharmaChairman,Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

PARTNERS IN PROGRESS

• According to Road Transport and Highways Department, BD: Department of

ICT, Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) and

Bangladesh Submarine Cable limited (BSCCL) are the major actors in co-

deployment in the country.

• Bangladesh Railway planning to open its optical fiber cable to others

• Department of Telecom says the regulator BTRC, operators and service

agencies all are involved in co-deployment.

• BharatNet: Reliance Jio paid the highest advance subscription fee of Rs 13

crore (approx. Two Million USD) to provide broadband services at 30,000

gram panchayats, with a commitment to buy bandwidth in every panchayat

from the government as it expands the project.

• Bharti Airtel paid Rs 5 crore (USD 740,000) for bandwidth buy to cover

30,500 village panchayats while Vodafone paid Rs 1100,000 and Idea

Cellular Rs 500,000 lakh to buy bandwidth.

Thank You !!

Email: bislam@iimkashipur.ac.in