Centre for Internet and Society

Super WiFi & Shared Spectrum: A Time to Start Sharing

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-11-08T07:00:53Z

Look into sharing spectrum and 'Super Wi-Fi', instead of auctions, refarming and exclusive allocation.

Shyam Ponappa's article was published in Organizing India Blogspot on November 3, 2012 and earlier in the Business Standard on November 1, 2012.

Amidst our preoccupation with internal problems of misgovernance, we’re losing track of long-term technical developments elsewhere. For instance, there’s a buzz about “Super Wi-Fi” technology in other countries that's missing in India. Yet this could make spectrum abundant, while avoiding the problems of private allocation. Here’s why India with its floundering, beleaguered telecommunications sector should stay abreast.

Super Wi-Fi using TVWS

The technology for unused TV spectrum bands, or TV White Spaces (TVWS), is referred to as “Super Wi-Fi”, although it doesn’t conform to earlier Wi-Fi standards, nor does it use the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz licence-exempt spectrum. Super Wi-Fi has its own standards (IEEE 802.22 and 802.11 af) using 470-810 MHz, the “digital dividend” after conversion from analogue broadcast TV. It can be used for long-range rural broadband, and to improve short-range coverage. In the US, where it was pioneered, access is available without a licence to devices registered with a proximate geolocational database. Like regular Wi-Fi, Super Wi-Fi expands the use of available spectrum by sharing access.

The US is also permitting exploration of shared use in defence and security bands from 1755-1850 MHz, extending the potential for sharing spectrum.[1]

TVWS trials

Earlier this month, Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority organised a workshop on TVWS with government and private entities. Organisers included the Institute for Infocomm Research (IR) and other local participants, with presentations from companies from the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa, including Microsoft, Google, Spectrum Bridge, Adaptrum, Ericsson subsidiary Telcordia, Neul, Japan’s NCIT, and so on.[2] Completed or ongoing trials are shown in the diagram below.

Super WiFi Trials


Source: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29678

TVWS and shared spectrum vs refarming

These developments should be of vital interest in India to policy makers, operators and users — not only for TVWS as a shared resource, but as an approach that could be extended to other bands, so that limited spectrum availability doesn’t constrain reasonably priced, high-speed data services. This is a serious limitation in India, unlike in other countries where a few operators have sufficient spectrum; in this sense, the need to share spectrum is much greater in India. For example, sharing could provide a better alternative to refarming of the 900 MHz band, allowing for both 4G and legacy uses.

One difficulty is that dominant operators may oppose sharing because their spectrum holdings provide a competitive advantage: possibly Bharti, Reliance, or an aspirant like Vodafone with access to inexpensive offshore funding. Our collective interests here, however, are likely to be best served not by constraining access through limited, exclusive spectrum, but by making spectrum abundant through sharing, allowing for wide bands (2x20 MHz or 2x40 MHz) that can be aggregated for much higher throughput for data, not just for voice.

For this to happen, (a) the government has to explore spectrum sharing in TVWS as well as in other bands, and (b) stakeholders must be receptive, to co-operate effectively on a workable plan on the lines of revenue sharing after NTP-99, extending to broadband delivery. Everyone will gain: users will get better access, operators can thrive, and the government will collect much more revenue over time. However, dominant operators will need to give up their spectrum for the greater common interest including their own, and for this, they will need compensation — as in production-sharing agreements in the oil sector.

The advantages of spectrum sharing

There are a number of advantages of sharing spectrum. First, and important, it can be non-discriminatory. Second, it avoids private allocation; shared spectrum can be accessed without allocation to private parties. Then there is the fact that capital cost is reduced. There is no deadweight loss from capital tied up in auctions, freeing it all for network development and service delivery. Finally, there’s the general misinformation about auctions, which become academic if spectrum is shared. If spectrum is instead auctioned, the public interest – of users, operators and producers – will be adversely affected. (On producers, while local manufacturing is currently insignificant, there is considerable scope if it is set up right, as telecommunications equipment imports are expected to exceed energy imports in a few years).

The Supreme Court was misinformed about auction fees exceeding revenue-sharing collections, and not informed of its detriments. As evidenced after NTP-99, networks and services proliferated, resulting in much higher collections than auction fees foregone. The Supreme Court’s opinion on the Presidential Reference clarified that auctions were not mandatory for other resources, but not for spectrum, although the reasoning is the same. This needs rectification if spectrum is not shared, because revenue-share collections and tax revenues on profits from more extensive networks and services are likely to far exceed the estimated auction fees of Rs 40,000 crore over three years, quite apart from the major public benefits of access.

Space for constructive decisions

Another requirement for constructive resolution is that policy makers be given the requisite space to frame solutions that are genuinely in the public interest. These solutions can be premised on abundance if it is possible, rather than artificial scarcity and rationing. At present, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, the Department of Telecommunications, and other authorities including the Empowered Group of Ministers are under immense pressure to favour aggressive government collections, instead of what might be genuinely beneficial. This is an odd consequence of the government’s increasing loss of credibility, resulting in the rise of populists, “profit haters”, and ignorant-yet-opinionated sceptics. Uninformed attacks on constructive approaches and alternatives need to be presented and seen in a more balanced way by an informed media, press and public, instead of being fuelled by indiscriminate hype.

Also, we have to learn to distinguish between problems of ideological conviction – those that can be solved through political accommodation – and engineering problems, like network design and service delivery at least cost. Resorting to political accommodation for engineering requirements results in malfunction and/or collapse.

A good way to proceed is to ensure sharing solutions are worked out without incurring exorbitant cost — not only for TVWS but also for legacy operations, such as in the 900 MHz band. These can induce new network build-outs for data services in urban as well as underserved rural areas, and broadband service delivery across the country.

[1]. Other bands being considered for sharing in the US are:
1695-1710 MHz & 3550-3650 MHz; Unlicensed: 5350-5470 MHz & 5850-5925 MHz. For details, see: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57529959-94/defense-department-pushes-spectrum-sharing-as-solution-to-wireless-crunch/
[2]. http://whitespace.i2r.a-star.edu.sg/TVWS_Workshop/Programme.html

Details on the UK (Cambridge) trials at: http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/docs/Cambridge White Spaces Trial - technical findings-with higher res pics.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-in-2012-nov-3-2012-shyam-ponappa-super-wifi-shared-spectrum

TRAI Regulations

snehashish — 2013-03-15T06:35:23Z

This section will deal with all regulations issued by TRAI in the course of its functions.

It issues regulations with respect to various aspects of the telecom industry. TRAI regulations generally, deal with:

Interconnection issues (usage charges, agreement, revenues sharing).
Quality of the telecom services.
Consumer protection and redressal of grievance including unsolicited commercial communication.
Access to essential infrastructure such as cable landing stations.
Mobile number portability.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/trai-regulations

Spectrum Management

snehashish — 2013-03-15T07:07:47Z

Snehashish takes us through the entire process of spectrum management — auctioning and allocation process for all kinds of spectrum, the initial process of auctioning, how the bidders are selected, criterion for allocation, time taken to allocate, selection of band, interference issues, spectrum refarming, and spectrum reallocation.

3.5.1. Unit 1: Auctioning and allocating process for all kinds of spectrum
3.5.2. Unit 2: The initial process of auctioning
3.5.3. Unit 3: How are the bidders selected
3.5.4. Unit 4: Criterion for allocation
3.5.5. Unit 5: Time taken to allocate
3.5.6. Unit 6: Selection of band
3.5.7. Unit 7: Interference issues
3.5.8. Unit 8: Spectrum Refarming
3.5.9. Unit 9: Spectrum Reallocation

3.5.1: Auctioning and allocating process for all kinds of spectrum

Auction of spectrums was introduced in the telecommunication market after the failure of the administrative process of allocating spectrum. In auction theory, an auction takes place when there is a seller who wishes to allocate an object to one of ‘n’ buyers.[1] Auctions use a price mechanism to allocate spectrum. Auction of spectrum can be used to increase efficiency and earn maximum revenue. However, auctions of spectrum also have certain drawbacks such as collusion and higher price of telecom services due to high licence fees.

Some of the different types of auction formats are:

First-price sealed bid auction: The highest bidder wins the auction. Such highest bidder pays an amount equal to the bid amount and it is not essential that the bidder with the highest value will place the highest bid. The bid is based on the speculation what other bidders will be bidding.
Second-price sealed bids auction (Vickery auction): This procedure of auction is similar to first price sealed bid auction. The highest bidder wins the auction but he has to pay the price equal to the second highest bid.
Dutch auction: The auctioneer quotes the highest price for the subject matter of the auction and gradually decreases price. The first one to bid for it wins the auction.
English or Japanese auction: In English auction, the auctioneer quotes the minimum price and the buyer bids an amount higher than the minimum price. The bidding is closed when there is no increase in the amount and the highest bidder wins the auction. The other variant of English auction is Japanese auction. In this format, the auctioneer quotes a low price and gradually increases the price which is pre-determined. The bidders should show willingness to buy at the price quoted by the auctioneer. The bidding closes when only one bidder is left, who is willing to buy the object at the price quoted by the auctioneer.

Minimum Reserve Price

The minimum reserve price is generally fixed with the purpose of increasing revenue. Minimum reserve price is the minimum amount which the auctioneer is ready to auction the object for. The computing of minimum reserve price is a complicated affair. The computing of minimum reserve price requires knowledge about the distribution of valuations of bidders.[2]

Beauty Contest

The other mode of allotment of spectrum is through beauty contest. In a beauty contest, generally a committee is constituted which sets a certain standard and requirements which has to be fulfilled for the allocation of the spectrum. Contenders for the spectrum allocation is then evaluated and decided upon an entity which has the best capabilities to carry out functions.

“In the case of spectrum allocation for mobile services, criteria set out beforehand can include general criteria such as financial resources, reliability and investment in research, as well as more specific criteria such as the speed of network rollout, the requirement for geographic and/or population coverage, pricing, quality, technology and competitiveness.”

In case of auction the price mechanism to be implemented is crucial whereas in a beauty contest it is one of the requirements.[3]

3.5.2. & 3.5.3.: The initial process of selection of operators for allocation of spectrum

This selection will explore the changes in the selection process for allocation of spectrum with changes in the policy. This will look at

Auctioning of spectrum under the National Telecom Policy, 1994
Bundling of spectrum with the service licence
Delinking of spectrum from the licence and return to the auction format for allocation of licence

India had an early start in the field of auctioning of spectrum. Initially, under the 1994 policy, spectrum was included within the telecom licence. The licences were auctioned by the Department of Telecommunication, the incumbent regulator, policy maker and enforcer.

The National Telecom Policy, 1994, acknowledged the fact that it was not possible for the Government, alone to achieve targets under the Policy and there was a need for private participation. As a result, in 1995, the Government invited bids for private investment through a competitive process in the field of basic telecom services sector.

For the implementation of the service the country was divided into 20 circles. It was further categorized in A, B and C on the basis of the potential of the region to generate revenue. The Department of Telecom awarded licences to two operators per service area for cellular mobile telephone services and in case of basic telephone services.

The potential service providers in order to be eligible for bidding for licences had to partner up with a foreign company. It was considered that a standalone Indian company will not have the financial capability and technical know-how to provide cellular/basic telecom services at a large scale.

The bidding was a two stage process for all licences. The first stage was to fulfill the criteria, which was based on the financial net worth of the company (in relation to the category of circle) and the experience of the company in providing telecom services. The second stage was with respect to the valuation of bids. The licence was awarded to the telecom service provider, which has fulfilled the pre-requisites and is the highest bidder for the licence. Single stage bidding process was followed in circles. There were separate licences issued for the four metropolitan cities (Kolkata, Chennai, Mumbai, and New Delhi). The licences were awarded through beauty contest in metros.

The technology preferred for cellular services was GSM and for basic telephone service, a combination of fibre optics and wireless in local loop technology was implemented. In 1995, Government auctioned 2*4.4. MHz of startup spectrum for the GSM based mobile services.

Drawbacks in the mechanism of issuing telecom licence

The problem which arose due to the implementation of the above model is that multiple licences were awarded to a single entity. A single company was able to secure licences for nine circles and had a very high bid. This created problems as to the ability of the company to pay the licence amount for all the circles. In figures the annual turnover of the company was $0.06 billion where as the estimated licence fee was $15 billion. There were also concerns with respect to replacing the public monopoly on telecom services with a private one. In order to counter these problems the Government changed its policy and allowed the winning bidder to choose 3 circles out of the nine circles. There was rebidding in 15 circles with the government specifying a reserve price. This was due to the change in policy as the highest bidder was not able to operate in more than 3 circles. The response to this was very poor and it was perceived by the bidders that the reserve price was too steep.

Spectrum Management under New Telecom Policy, 1999

The policy on spectrum management under the NTP, 1999:

With the immense growth in new technologies there has been an increase in demand for telecommunication services. This has led to increase in demand for spectrum and therefore it is necessary that the spectrum should be utilized efficiently, economically, rationally and optimally.
Transparent process of allocation of frequency spectrum.
Revision of the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) and such a Plan to be made public by the end of year 1999. The NFAP will detail information about allocation of frequency bands.
NFAP is to be reviewed no later than every two years and it should be in tune with regulation under the International Telecommunication Union.
Adequate spectrum should be available, to meet the increase in need of telecommunication services.
Revision of spectrum allocation, in a planned manner in order to make available required frequency bands to the service providers.
Allocation of spectrum of frequency should be in conformity with the ITU guidelines. The following action will be adopted:

Spectrum usage fee shall be charged
Inter-Ministerial Group to be constituted, it will be known as Wireless Planning Coordination Committee. It will be a part of the Ministry of Communication for the purpose of review of spectrum availability.
Computerization of WPC wing

Implementation of the Spectrum Management Policy under NTP, 1999

With the advent of the 1999 Policy, cellular mobile service providers were allowed to provide all kinds of mobile services (voice, non-voice messages, data services and PCOs), which would utilize any type of network equipment that meets the ITU/TEC (International Telecommunication Union/ Telecommunication Engineering Centre) standards. It is also to be noted that the mandate of only using GSM was done away with and the cellular licence was made technology neutral. The New Telecom Policy, 1999 allowed the migration of the licensees from a Fixed Licensee Fee Regime to a Revenue Arrangement Scheme (w.e.f. 1/08/1999). The National Telecom Policy also laid down that the licences will be awarded for a period of 20 years and it can be extended for a period of another 10 years. The Government entered the telecom market as the third mobile operator. It granted licence to MTNL in 1997 for two metros (Delhi and Mumbai). In 2000, cellular mobile operator licence was granted to BSNL, as the third operator for all areas except Mumbai and Delhi. The 900 MHz band was given to the government operator on a pro-bono basis. In 2001, a fourth cellular mobile service operator was allowed in the telecom sector. The licence for the fourth operator was issued through a three stage auction. A start-up spectrum of 2*4.4 MHz in 1800 MHz was allotted to the winner of the auction. The licensees were also required to pay a percentage of annual revenue as spectrum charge. This was collected in addition to the entry fees.[6]

The other licences which were rolled out under the NTP, 1999 are licences for National Long Distance Service operators (without any bar on number of operators), International Long Distance Service and Internet Service Providers.

Unified Access Service Licence

In 2003, TRAI proposed a Unified Licensing Regime which was introduced by the Government in November, 2003. The unified access service licence “permitted an access service provider to offer both fixed and/or mobile services under the same licence, using any technology.” [8] An entry fee was charged, which was based on the bid price paid by the fourth mobile operator.[9]

The TRAI reviewed the spectrum allocation process in the year 2005. It took into account spectrum availability and also considered efficient techniques for the utilization of already allocated spectrum. The consultation paper prepared by the TRAI in 2005 stated that the spectrums allocated by the GSM and CDMA operators are well below the international averages. TRAI recommended that the existing operators should be allocated sufficient spectrum before allocating spectrum to new service providers.

Allocation of 3G and Broadband Wireless Spectrum

Spectrum for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) was auctioned using the simultaneous ascending auction process. It involved a two stage process. A clock stage in order to indentify the winner for each circle which was followed by a assignment stage, for identification of specific frequency band. The auction of spectrum for 3G and BWA generated a gross revenue of Rs. 106262 crores for the Department of Telecom, across the 22 telecom circles.

3.5.4 & 3.5.6.: Selection of Band and Criterion for further allocation of spectrum

This section will go into the details of the allocation of specific bandwidth across various frequency bands and also analyze the change in allocation criterion for allocation of spectrum. This will also look at the process of allocation followed by India which has been quite different from the international practices due to hoarding of spectrum by the defense forces. It will also bring out the concern showed by TRAI as to scarcity of spectrum and shortcomings in the allocation of spectrum as compared to the international practices.

Start-up Allocation of Spectrum (1995- 2001)

Before the liberalization of the telecom sector, the bandwidth intended for commercial exploitation was under the control of the Defence forces in India. This consisted of 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz frequency bands. The commercial exploitation of the spectrum started with the grant of the Cellular Mobile Telephone services in the metro cities.

As discussed in Module 3.5.1(add link), the first round of auction of spectrum was for two CMTS licences in each circles. The DoT auctioned 2*4.4 MHz (paired frequency division duplex spectrum assignment) for GSM technology in the frequency band of 890-915 MHz paired with 935-960 MHz in each circle.

Subsequently, the Government entered the market as the third cellular operator in the 2001. A bandwidth of 2*4.4 was allocated to the start up government cellular operators free of charge in the 900 MHz band. The fourth cellular operator entered the market in 2001 and a start up spectrum of bandwidth 2*4.4 MHz was allocated to the operators in the frequency band 1710-1785 MHz paired with 1805-1880 MHz.

The Department of Telecom also allowed further allocation of spectrum apart from the start up spectrum allocations. This was based on the availability and justification provided by the operator for allocation of more bandwidth. In 2002, the Department of Telecom introduced the Subscriber Based Criterion for the allocation of spectrum. According to this criterion, surplus spectrum would be allocated to the operator, with a certain amount of subscriber base. This was followed by allocation of 2*12.5 MHz bandwidth to each operator within each circle.

However, this method of allocation of spectrum was totally different from the allocation of spectrum in the other countries. A sizeable bandwidth of 2*15 MHz was allocated as start-up spectrum in various countries. This was not the case in India and the Department of Telecom cited that due to non-availability and hoarding of spectrum by defence such a policy had to be adopted.

Table 1: Allocation of Spectrum on the basis of the “Subscriber Based Criterion”, 2002

Quantum of Spectrum Allotted	Minimum Subscriber Base Required (in millions)	Annual Spectrum Charges (per cent of the adjusted gross revenue)
2*4.4 MHz	-	2
2*6.2 MHz	-	3
2*8.0 MHz	0.5	3
2*10 MHz	1.0	4
2*12.5 MHz	1.2	5

*Source: Vardharajan Sridhar, The Telecom Revolution in India: Technology, Policy and Regulation, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 112

Post UASL Regime (2003-2005)

After the implementation of the Unified Access Service Licence, the basic telecom service operators were allowed to provide full mobility service for a payment of a entry fee which was equivalent to that paid by the fourth cellular operator. However, such operators migrating to UASL regime were not promised any start up spectrum but it would allocate as and when available.

Review of Spectrum Allocation Process by TRAI and setting up of new Subscriber Base Criterion (2006-2008)

TRAI reviewed the spectrum allocation process in 2005 with the intent to account for unused spectrum and optimum and efficient utilization of scarce resource such as spectrum. The TRAI found that the maximum spectrum allocated to an operator is 2*10 MHz whereas the international average is around 2*20 MHz.

The main problem faced by allocation of spectrum was due to use of spectrum by defence forces and the railways.

Ministry of Defence and Railways uses sizeable portion of the 900 MHz frequency band for navigation and other purposes. It also uses the 1900 MHz band. The Defence Forces utilize 2*20 bandwidth at 1880-1900 MHz paired with 1970-1990 MHz for fixed wireless local loop technology.
The 1900 MHz could not be utilized because the Air Force uses the frequency band.

The TRAI also commented that in the 800 MHz band only a maximum of 2*5 MHz had been allocated to the CDMA operators whereas the world average standards stand at 2*15 MHz for CDMA operations.

The TRAI while observing that the allocation of the spectrum for both GSM and CDMA operators was way below international average spectrum allocation standards recommended that the existing service operators should be provided with more spectrum than before allowing new players to enter the market as there was already a fair amount of competition in the market.

The 2006, TRAI Recommendations on implementation 3G, noted that the Ministry of Defence will vacate 2*20 MHz frequency band in the 1800 MHz band along with 25 MHz in the 2.1 GHz UMTS band. In its recommendation TRAI suggested that the additional spectrum vacated by the defence forces in the 1800 MHz band should be allocated to the operators providing 2G services and it specifically recommended that the Department of Telecom should not treat the allocation of 3G spectrum as a continuation of 2G spectrum allocation.

TRAI recommendations in 2007 suggested that there should not be any limitation on the number of players in the telecom sector. The grant of new licences resulted in a list of license holders who were to be assigned spectrum as and when available. TRAI in its 2007 recommendation noted that the spectrum allocation criteria should be formulated in such a manner so that maximum and efficient utilization of the spectrum can be achieved. This led to the tightening of the Subscriber Base Criterion previously laid down by the DoT (Table 1).

Quantum of Spectrum Allotted	Minimum Subscriber Base Required (in millions)	Annual Spectrum Charges (percentage of the adjusted gross revenue)
For GSM Services
2*4.4 MHz	-	2
2*6.2 MHz	0.5 – 0.8	3
2*7.2 MHz	1.5 – 3.0
2*8.2 MHz	1.8 – 4.1	3
2*9.2 MHz	2.1 – 5.3
2*10.2 MHz	2.6 – 6.8	4
2*11.2 MHz	3.2 – 6.8
2*12.2 MHz	4.0 – 9.0	5
2*14.2 MHz	5.7 – 10.7	5
2*15 MHz	6.5 – 11.6	6
For CDMA Services
2*3.75 MHz	0.15 – 0.40	2
2*5.0 MHz	0.5 – 1.2	2

*Source: Vardharajan Sridhar, The Telecom Revolution in India: Technology, Policy and Regulation, Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 115

Allocation of 3G Spectrum (2010-Current)

In 2008, the Department of Telecom announced its policy on 3G mobile services. Pursuant to the 2006 TRAI Recommendations on Allocation and pricing of spectrum for 3G and Broadband Wireless Access, the Department of Telecom decided on a simultaneous ascending auction for allocation of spectrum. According to the recommendation, the Department of Telecom would allot 2*5 MHz bandwidth in the 2.1 GHz band.

3.5.5.: Time taken to allocate

This section will look at the issues with respect to time taken by the Department of Telecom to allocate spectrum to the winning bidders. The Department of Telecom on various occasions has delayed the process of assigning specific frequency bands after allocation of spectrum. This has in turn resulted in delay in rolling out of services by the telecom operators.

There has been substantive delay in allocation of spectrum due to various other reasons, which has been listed in the Report on Examination of Appropriateness of Procedures followed by Department of Telecommunications in Issuance of Licences and Allocation of Spectrum during the Period 2001- 2009. However, according to the Report, the main reasons for the delay are:

Deviation from laid down procedures
Inappropriate application of laid down procedures
Violation of underlying principles of laid down procedures[9]

For instance:

Ongoing litigation with respect to allocation of spectrum
During the first instance of allocation of spectrum for the metro cellular licences; the process was marred by litigation which resulted in delay in allocation of spectrum. Subsequently, there was delay in rolling out of service and the operators suffered huge losses and most of the telecom companies were rendered bankrupt.
Lack of availability/co-ordination with the defence for vacation of spectrum
Initial as well as additional spectrum was allocated as per availability. Such delays were sometime more than a year, which amounted in not only loss of profit for the licence holder but also huge losses in revenue for the Department of Telecom.
Delay in processing of application
For example in allocation of additional spectrum for Idea Cellular Limited in the Maharashtra Service Area, there was a delay of four months given that co-ordination with the Defence was done by December 10, 2004. Spectrum was only allocated by April 1, 2005.

3.5.7. Interference issues

This section will deal with the issues regarding interference in the telecommunication sector. Interference can be defined as noise or unwanted signals which are received by a reception device while receiving the wanted signals. Interference causes degradation of quality of service in the telecommunication.

There is no specific policy in India which deals with interference issues. Interference issues in the telecom sector in India, is generally addressed by Wireless Monitoring Organization which functions under the Wireless Planning Coordination Committee. Telecom operator licences also carries covenant which states:

"The licensee shall not cause or allow causing harmful interference to other authorized users of radio spectrum. For elimination of harmful interference to other user, licensee shall abide by all instructions and orders issued by the Government."[10]

Under the Use of low power Equipment in the frequency band 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz (Exemption from Licensing Requirement) Rules, 2005, interference is defined as, "The effect of unwanted energy due to one or a combination of emissions, radiations or induction upon reception in a radio communication system, manifested by any performance degradation, misinterpretation, or loss of information which could be extracted in the absence of such unwanted energy."[11]

A licensee can approach the Wireless Monitoring Organization (WMO) and lodge a complaint if such operator is facing problems due to interference with other radio signals. In such a circumstance the WMO, enquires in to the matter and finds the source of interference addresses the issues accordingly. The WMO also has wireless monitoring stations which look in to and investigates any issue related interference. The WMO has introduced mobile monitoring vans to effectively find out the source of signals causing interference. The wireless monitoring stations intercepts the interfering signal to determine the source of the signal.

3.5.8. & 3.5.9.: Spectrum Refarming and Spectrum Reallocation

This section will look at the process of refarming of spectrum and also analyze the current (2012) debates on spectrum refarming in India.

Refarming of spectrum is defined as a process which is used to bring about any basic change in the use of different frequency band in the radio spectrum. This can be due to

Change in technology
Change in application and used of the frequency band
Change in Government policy on allocation of spectrum.

Refarming of spectrum entails freeing up of spectrum which is in use and reallocation of such spectrum for some other purpose. It can happen due to change in technology which allows more efficient use of spectrum and hence results in vacation of spectrum. The two main instruments which effects spectrum refarming and reallocation are

Market Driven
Policy or Regulation Driven

Market Driven

A need for spectrum refarming may arise due to the changes in the market such a entry of new players in the market. A market driven refarming and reallocation will take in to consideration financial and business related factors. For example a new entrant in the telecom market will always welcome refarming of spectrum in the 800 MHz or 900 MHz because it will bring down the infrastructure costs incurred by the new player in the market.[12]

Policy or Regulation Driven

The policy driven change is an administrative changes. The main aspects which are taken into consideration by the policy maker or regulator are:

Market Structure: The regulator may implement refarming of spectrum to allow refarming and reallocation of spectrum for facilitating competition in the market. The regulator has to take into consideration the costs incurred by the telecom operators or users of the spectrum for relocating to a different frequency band.
Access: The regulator may allow refarming of spectrum in order to implement new technologies which allows for better access and efficient use of spectrum.
Revenue: The regulator may consider refarming and reallocation of spectrum in order to earn revenue and also allow equity in distribution of spectrum. Spectrum being a scarce resource has to be judiciously allocated by the regulator. Spectrum which was previously allocated for almost two decade ago holds more value in the market due to change in technology as well as the market structure. Therefore, in order to earn revenue the government may refarm and reallocate spectrum.

The main challenge with respect to refarming and reallocation of spectrum is that who will bear the cost for such changes in the spectrum usage and allocation and the transition to a different frequency band. Normally, such a change in spectrum usage is compensated by the:

Telecom companies who have to re-buy the spectrum at a higher price
New telecom companies
Government may set up a refarming fund for such reallocation from the spectrum revenue. For example, such a fund exists in France and it is managed by the Agence Nationale Des Fréquences. (National Frequency Agency).

Refarming and Reallocation in India

According to TRAI in its Recommendation Auction of Spectrum, 2012 discusses the concept of spectrum refarming and states:

"Refarming of spectrum involves re-planning and reassigning of spectrum over a period of time for services with higher value. A key motive for refarming of spectrum is to use the refarmed frequency bands for communications services that yield greater economic or social benefit than existing use as well as to enable the introduction of new or emerging technologies." (para 2.6)

Previously the TRAI in its Recommendation on Licensing Framework and Spectrum Management, 2010 had pointed out that 800 MHz and 900 MHz should be refarmed for use of new technology (UMTS 900), which would allow more efficient use of the spectrum.

In the 2012 Recommendation, TRAI has made detailed suggestions by taking into consideration international practices, different methodologies of refarming of spectrum and comments from the stakeholders. The main recommendations are:

Spectrum in the 900 MHz band is a valuable asset both technologically and economically. Use of 900 MHz spectrum should be liberalized and restriction on the use of technology in the licence should be done away with.
It advises the government to take back 900 MHz from the licensees, who were granted licence in 1994-1995 and the two government operators. These licensees should be granted licence for liberalized spectrum at 1800 MHz frequency band at a price relevant in November, 2014
It also recommended that the 1800 MHz is not completely open for commercial exploitation and the government agencies should vacate the frequency band for successful refarming of 900 MHz.
The licence holder in the 800 MHz band should be reallocated to 1900 MHz band and it strongly recommends that the government should make immediate arrangements to refarm 800 MHz and reallocate licence holder to the 1900 MHz band.

Recently in October, 2012, The Telecom Commission under the Department of Telecom has also recommended refarming of all spectrum used by the telecom companies in the 900 MHz frequency bands during the next phase of renewal of licence. The Commission’s recommendation implies that the complete 900 MHz band has to be reallocated.

In the light of the above recommendation, the telecom companies will have the option of shifting from 900 MHz to 1800 MHz, for which auctions are happening in 2012m or it can bid for 900 MHz auctions schedule to happen in early 2013.These recommendations, if implemented may result in huge investments by the telecom companies and would affect the end users. In 2012, the minimum reserve for auction of 1800 MHz spectrum is set at Rs. 14000 crores and the minimum reserve price for auction of 900 MHz would be twice the amount. The existing licence holder in the 900 MHz band, who migrate to the 1800 MHz band would have not only make huge investment to procure spectrum but also have to install 1.5 times more cell sites to ensure adequate coverage. This would result in further investment and in turn affect the tariff rates.

However, this has been welcomed by the new players in the market, who will have the opportunity to bid for 900 MHz spectrum band which economically and technologically more viable and if liberalized it can also introduce new technologies such as UMTS 900 which would ensure better utilization of the spectrum.

Therefore, it is quite evident that the main challenge so far has been who is liable to compensate for refarming and reallocation. On one hand refarming will ensure deployment of new technology and efficient use of spectrum and also create level playing field for all the telecom companies on the other hand, reallocation or re-auction of spectrum would hit the incumbent telecom companies.

Bibliography

TRAI Recommendations and Consultations available at http://trai.gov.in
Ashok V. Desai, India’s telecommunications industry: history, analysis and diagnosis, Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., 2006
Vikram Raghavan, Communications Law in India (Legal Aspects of Telecom, Broadcasting and Cable Services), Lexis Nexis Butterworths, 2007
Varadharajan Sridhar, The Telecom Revolution in India: Technology, Regulation and Policy, Oxford University Press, 2012

Notes
[1]. Andrea Prat, Tommaso Valletti, Spectrum Auctions versus Beauty Contests: Costs and Benefits, Prepared for the OECD - Working Party on Telecommunications and Information Services Policies, (First draft - November 2000) available at http://istituti.unicatt.it/economia_impresa_lavoro_OECD-draft.pdf (last visited on 7/06/2012).
[2]. Consultation Paper on Auction of Spectrum , Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, (7^th March, 2012) available at http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReaddata/ConsultationPaper/Document/consultation paper spectrum of auction.pdf (last visited on 4/6/2012).
[3]. Id.
[4]. Rohit Prasad and V. Sridhar, A Critique of Spectrum Management in India, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 38 (Sep. 20 - 26, 2008), pp. 13-17.
[5]. See, R.S. Jain, Spectrum auctions in India: lessons from experience, Telecommunications Policy 25 (2001) 671–688 available at http://rru.worldbank.org/Documents/PapersLinks/spectrum_auctions_india.pdf (last visited on 05/06/2012) "The bidders could apply for any number of service areas, subject to the fulfillment of the specified entry conditions. The existing licensees could not bid for the same service area. Rollout obligations would be imposed on the winning bidders such as covering at least 10% of the district headquarters in the first year and 50 percent within 3 years of the effective date of the license. Having been criticized for the single round highest bid mechanism that caused inflated licence fee in earlier rounds, the government produced a bidding process which it called the informed ascending bidding process. The bidding process would have three rounds. The highest pre-qualified offer in the first financial bid would be treated as the reserve price for subsequent rounds of bidding. The lowest bidder in any round would not be allowed to participate in the next round, provided there were four or more bidders in any round. In case there were only two short listed bidders, both would qualify. The highest bidder in the third round would be declared successful for the grant of a licence."
[6]. Id.
[7]. Recommendations on Spectrum Management and Licensing Framework, TRAI, 11th May, 2010
[8]. Supra note iv at pp.14, "The fixed fee based licence (as opposed to auction based) theoretically allowed any number of mobile licences to be provided and implicitly de- linked spectrum allocation from licensing."
[9]. Justice Shivraj V. Patil (Former Judge, Supreme Court of India), Report on Examination of Appropriateness of Procedures followed by Department of Telecommunications in Issuance of Licences and Allocation of Spectrum during the Period 2001- 2009. (One man committee report), Published on January 31, 2011, pp. 100 available at http://www.dot.gov.in/miscellaneous/OMC/report.pdf
[10]. Clause 43.6, Licence Agreement for Provision of Unified Access Services after Migration from CMTS.
[11]. Rule 5, Use of low power Equipment in the frequency band 2.4 GHz to 2.4835 GHz (Exemption from Licensing Requirement) Rules, 2005
[12].Lower frequencies bands such as 800 MHz or 900 MHz have a greater wavelength and covers larger areas as opposed to higher frequency bands such 1800 MHz or 2.1 GHz. Therefore the telecom company with lower frequency spectrum has to set up less telecom infrastructure to provide adequate network coverage.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/spectrum-management

October 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-11-08T11:42:01Z

Welcome to the newsletter of October 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis by Ujwala Uppaluri of the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Super Cassettes v. MySpace, announcement of public call for comments for reports on “Banking and Accessibility in India” and “Making TV Accessible in India”, and updates on Indic languages.

Jobs
CIS is seeking applications the posts of Research Manager and Programme Officer – Internet Governance. To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org.

HasGeek HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of October: Droidcon 2012 (CIS, Bangalore, October 27 – 28, 2012).
Accessibility India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies: Public Call for Comments Banking and Accessibility in India: A Study on Banking Accessibility in India (by Vrinda Maheshwari, October 30, 2012). Making TV Accessible in India (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 8, 2012). Blog Entries The HathiTrust Judgment and its impact on TVI negotiations at WIPO (by Rahul Cherian, October 30, 2012). WIPO General Assemblies Approve Road Map on Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Rahul Cherian, October 11, 2012).
Access to Knowledge The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge: Analysis Super Cassettes v. MySpace (by Ujwala Uppaluri, October 31, 2012). Blog Entry ICOMM2012: International Communications and Electronics Fair (by Jadine Lannon, October 31, 2012). Event Organised A Workshop on "Exploring the Internals of Mobile Technologies" (TERI Southern Regional Centre 4th Main, Domlur II Stage Bangalore, October 27, 2012).
Openness The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software: Wikipedia Education Programs Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012). Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012). Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). Wikipedia Workshops Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012). Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012). Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012). First Pune Odia Wikipedia Organized! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012). Wikipedia Event Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012). Wikipedia Press Coverage Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012). Wikipedia Team Updates The A2K team consists of three members based in Delhi: Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval. We are seeking applications for the post of Programme Director (Access to Knowledge) for the New Delhi office. Shiju Alex, Program Manager, Access to Knowledge is leaving the organisation. November 16, 2012 will be his last working day. We wish him success in all his future endeavours.
Internet Governance The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes: Column Rethinking DNA Profiling in India (by Elonnai Hickok, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 43, October 27, 2012). Analysis Privacy Perspectives on the 2012 -2013 Goa Beach Shack Policy (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2012). Upcoming IGF Events At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop: National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m). Pranesh Prakash is a panelist in the following workshop: New Trends in Industry Self-Governance (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m). CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops: Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.). Governing Identity on the Internet (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.). Other Upcoming Event DML Conference 2013 (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012): CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central are jointly organizing the DML Conference 2013 in Chicago. Event organised The Public Voice: Privacy Rights are a Global Challenge (Punta del Este, Uruguay, October 21, 2012): Malavika Jayaram was a speaker at this event. Events Participated 3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit (organised by EastWest Institute in partnership with NASSCOM and FICCI, Federation House, New Delhi, October 30-31, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok participated in this event. Fourth Annual Legal Services Conference in India (organised by US India Business Council, New Delhi, October 11, 2012): Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on “Censorship and Content Restrictions: The Future of Internet Speech in India”. Meeting on Lawful Access by Law Enforcement (Brussels, October 3 – 5, 2012): Elonnai Hickok participated in the meeting. Video Arrested for tweeting: Legitimate or Curbing Free Speech? (NDTV, October 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion aired on NDTV along with Shivam Vij, SB Mishra and Sanjay Pinto. Media Coverage On social media, Modi goes soft (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, October 26, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted. Bolstering right to remain private (by Apar Gupta, The Pioneer, October 29, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted. CIS was part of the expert committee even though not explicitly mentioned in these: Panel suggests law to protect individual privacy (Newstrack India, October 18, 2012), Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info (Business Standard, October 18, 2012), Experts' committee moots law to protect privacy (by Saikat Datta, Daily News & Analysis, October 19, 2012), Govt panel wants curbs on phone taps (The Times of India, October 19, 2012), Privacy Act should not circumscribe RTI: expert group (by Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express, October 19, 2012), Nine-point code set out to safeguard personal information (Hindu Business Line, October 18, 2012), Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info (Zee News, October 18, 2012). Court’s approval needed to tap phones: Panel (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, October 18, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted. Could better DNA testing facilities in India have saved the Talwars? (by Pallavi Polanki, October 11, 2012): CIS press statement is mentioned.
Telecom While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum: Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India CIS and Ford Foundation joined hands to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers. The following are the new outputs: Spectrum Management (by Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2012). Cable Television (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 16, 2012). Column in Business Standard The Supreme Court Delivers (by Shyam Ponappa in Business Standard, October 4, 2012 and Organizing India Blogspot, October 11, 2012).
Digital Natives Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South: Newspaper Column The Rules of Engagement (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, October 29, 2012).
Researchers at Work CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Three columns by Nishant Shah arising from these workshops were published in the month of October: Habits of Living: Being Human in a Networked Society (DML, Central, October 22, 2012). Digital Habits: How and Why We Tweet, Share and Like (FirstPost, October 12, 2012). Who’s that Friend? (Indian Express, October 23, 2012).

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin

The Supreme Court Delivers

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-12-21T09:57:57Z

Now, the spectrum and licence issues need resolution. On September 27, 2012, the Supreme Court of India delivered the opinion of a bench comprising five Judges on the Presidential Reference regarding the auction of 2G spectrum.

Published in Organizing India Blogspot on October 11, 2012 and in Business Standard on October 4, 2012.

The Supreme Court’s opinion on the Presidential reference[*]dismissed two preposterous claims. One is that it is beyond the ambit of Parliament and the government to formulate economic policies. The second is that the government must allocate resources only through auctions. It’s like the end of a self-destructive nightmare. True, our heedless kleptocracy as a society of rogue politicians, bureaucrats, defence personnel, and complicit citizens, led to this pass. Even so, the anarchic “destructionism” of these claims is as reprehensible as the kleptocracy they seek to tear down. Fortunately, the Supreme Court opinion rose above the populist clamour.

There’s still a mess to clear. The big picture is that the Supreme Court left its decision on spectrum auctions unaddressed. In matters of detail, some points need resolution based on facts. These are discussed below to dispel prevalent myths.

Myth 1: Auctions maximise govt revenues

"Auctions may be the best way of maximising revenue…": paragraph 116 of the opinion. This contravenes the evidence after the National Telecom Policy -99, that revenue-sharing maximises government revenues as well as public benefits. It also ignores the many auction failures.

Consider the evidence: auction revenues foregone were estimated at under Rs 20,000 crore for 1999-2007, because the sector was mired in losses and was unable to provide services effectively or pay those dues. By comparison, actual collections from revenue-sharing by March 2007 were more than double, at Rs 40,000 crore. Collections by March 2010 were Rs 80,000 crore. Current annual contributions to government revenues may be about Rs 18,000 crore on Adjusted Gross Revenues estimated at Rs 1,40,000 crore, plus taxes, amounting to perhaps Rs 36,000 crore.

Re public benefits, access to telephony grew from a few million users in 1999 to about 700 million today (excluding around 250 million shadow subscriptions).

An ameliorating caveat in paragraph 12 states: "…if the State arrives at the conclusion … that maximum revenue would be earned by auction of the natural resource in question, then that alone would be the process", and this is expanded in paragraph 119:

"Where revenue maximisation is not the object of a policy of distribution, the question of auction would not arise. Revenue considerations may assume secondary consideration to developmental considerations."

This has not prevented erroneous conclusions in the press that auctions are the only valid process, notwithstanding that the conditions stipulated in the order, eg, that government’s actions be “fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory”, were always operative, if not adhered to in instances of abuse, as in the 2G scam.

Myth 2: Maximum govt collections are in the public interest

Government collections as the public interest criterion may work for colonial powers extorting revenues from subject states, or possibly for utopias whose political economy is so balanced that such cross-subsidisation works. Developing economies like India presumably can and should seek the welfare of their people. The same populists crusading for maximum government collections accuse governments of corruption and waste. This doesn’t provide a coherent approach to infrastructure, where each capital-intensive sector is configured to deliver a specific service. For instance, the energy sector has to deliver power, while telecommunications must deliver communications services. Neither can be expected to deliver toilets or water. Yet, many well-intentioned people seem to nurture such irrational expectations.

The spectrum and broadband link

The first prerequisite for broadband is high-speed connectivity. The second is reasonably priced services. Our objectives are, therefore: (a) a broadband network, (b) available anywhere (c) at reasonable prices. Our networks are deficient, however, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas. A host of factors are responsible, ranging from limited public sector network rollout, combined with a private sector focus on the most lucrative urban centres, with incentives skewed to voice telephony. Applications need connectivity based on networks that require spectrum.

Problems and solutions

Consider an application like distance education. The need is for networks and services of high quality (followed by the additional requirement of content). What is apparent is that such applications cannot be effective without the connectivity. So we’re back to the need for networks, of fibre where feasible, and wireless elsewhere. This brings us back to the need for spectrum.

Reviewing facts

As regards the facts relating to the 2G judgment deserving review:
The solution the Supreme Court has not considered is that operators need only to use spectrum, for which they can be charged a fee. The evidence of widely available Wi-fi shows that innovation and usage thrive if spectrum is available. The Supreme Court, the government, and the public need to recognise that allocating spectrum to operators is only one way to use spectrum.

There need be no alienation of spectrum at all, if policies allow open access and charge fees. Then, spectrum could be used like any infrastructure network, eg, airports, highways, or rail, on payment of usage charges. The sharing could be in at least two ways. Operators could pool spectrum for collective use. For this, (i) regulations must allow pooling/active facilities sharing, and (ii) operators must agree on terms and procedures. Another way is for mandatory spectrum sharing using the database-driven systems being implemented in the US by Spectrum Bridge and Telcordia. Similar deployments are planned in the UK, the European Union, and in Singapore. The TV white space is shared because this range is available for sharing, and not because other bands cannot be shared.

There are immense societal costs of duplication in capital investments in multiple networks, including the last-mile spectrum access, of operators using dedicated networks with limited passive facilities sharing (such as towers), compared with the benefits of open-access to common networks, if policies changed. These would employ active facilities sharing (equipment, and not just construction) to reduce capital equipment, construction costs, energy for towers, carbon emissions from a more limited physical network, possibly reduced radiation from a rationalised network with small cells with lower-powered equipment, and the multiplier effect on the finite available spectrum.

Enormous productivity benefits could accrue through ICT applications in infrastructure such as smart grids for energy, transportation, education, healthcare, and government services, as well as many commercial applications.

The Supreme Court could also uphold contractual obligations, by discriminating against actual transgressors in the 2G spectrum allocation, while rehabilitating those who operated within the law.

[*].http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/outtoday/op27092012.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-october-11-2012-shyam-ponappa-the-supreme-court-delivers

Payal Malik

praskrishna — 2012-10-12T05:50:30Z

Payal Malik is currently, Advisor to the Competition Commission of India. She has years of research experience in issues of competition and regulation in network industries like power, telecommunication and water. Her research collaborations have involved TRAI, Competition Commission of India, OECD, World Bank, and many others.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/payal-malik

September 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-10-09T06:48:33Z

Welcome to the newsletter of September 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features a second analysis by Snehashish Ghosh on the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, a research on the issues of internet governance by Smarika Kumar, publication of a report on Accessibility of Government websites in India by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, the Access to Knowledge programme plan and updates from the Wikipedia community in India on Indic languages, updates from the Habits of Living workshop organised in Bengaluru, the events connected to the visits of international DNA experts, Helen Wallace and Jeremy Gruber in India, and introduce you to our Access to Knowledge team members.

Announcements

Office in Delhi
CIS now has an office with a five-member team for the Access to Knowledge programme in Delhi at G 15, top floor, behind Hauz Khas G Block Market, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016, Ph: + 91 11 26536425.

New Team Members

Nitika Tandon: Nitika Tandon is a Program Officer with CIS. She has an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management, Netherlands and is a recipient of Dean's Fund Scholarship Program, Erasmus University.
Shiju Alex: Shiju Alex is a Consultant. His background is technical writing and he is interested in Indic language computing and community building for Indic language Wiki projects. Presently he works out of CIS office in Bengaluru.
Subhashish Panigrahi: Subhashish Panigrahi is a Programme Officer to CIS's Access to Knowledge programme and works out of CIS's Delhi office. His background is Business Development in Corporate Communications. He works on designing and implementing programs to provide on-wiki and off-wiki support for new editors.
Noopur Raval: Noopur Raval is working as Consultant - Communications for the Access to Knowledge team at CIS. Having previously worked in the media, she is currently pursuing her M.Phil in Cinema Studies from JNU, New Delhi.

Jobs
CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the posts of Research Manager, Researcher/Editor, and Programme Officer – Internet Governance. To apply for these posts send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) with three references. Archives of our bulletins can be found here. Click to read the newsletter on our website.

Accessibility

India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:
Featured Research

Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report (by Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal, September 26, 2012): This is a report on the accessibility of government websites in India. It was published in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The report consists of an executive summary, introduction, methodology, findings and recommendations and interpretation and recommendations. Examples of errors are given as appendices.

Project

Creating a National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities: An Introduction (by Anandhi Viswanathan, September 28, 2012): CIS is engaged in a two-and-a-half year project starting from August 2012 to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. This project is supported by the Hans Foundation. The Resource Kit will be brought out in both English and Hindi and disseminated to policy makers from panchayat to ministry levels throughout India. Anandhi gives an introduction to the project in this blog entry.

Blog Entries

WIPO Treaty for the Visually Impaired — Moving from a Treaty on Paper to a Treaty that is Workable on the Ground (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): After many years of hard lobbying by the World Blind Union, it appears that the WIPO Treaty on limitations and exceptions for visually impaired persons/persons with print disabilities (TVI) could become a reality next year.
Breaking News on Electronic Accessibility (by Rahul Cherian, September 28, 2012): The Parliamentary Standing Committee constituted to study the Electronic Delivery of Services Bill has in its report explicitly recognized the concept of electronic accessibility and reasonable accommodation. This is the first time in the country that these two concepts have been reflected at the level of a Parliamentary Standing Committee in relation to a non-disability specific law.

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Submission

Feedback to Draft Copyright Rules, 2012 (by Pranesh Prakash, September 29, 2012): submitted its written comments on the Draft Copyright Rules, 2012 to Mr. G.R. Raghavender, Registrar of Copyrights & Director (BP&CR), Ministry of Human Resource Development. Pranesh does a detailed analysis and provides recommendations on Rules 8,9,10, 29(6), 34(2), 37, 71(3), 72, 74(1), 74(6), 75, and 79 (3) and (4).

Projects

Access To Knowledge/Programme Plan: Pursuant to the announcement made on July 30, 2012 of a 22 months ‘grant’ (beginning from September 1, 2012 to July 31, 2014) of upto INR 26,000,000 and as reflected in the FAQ accompanying the announcement, the Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program will become a project of the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. The prime objective is to support the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects and supporting India-focused efforts to improve the quality of India-relevant content on Indic languages and English Wikimedia projects.
Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace (by Jadine Lannon, September 25, 2012): Jadine Lannon gives an introduction to the new A2K research initiative. Pervasive technologies have flooded the Indian market and are changing the ways in which the average Indian accesses knowledge but very little is understood about these technologies, particularly when it comes to their legality. CIS hopes to do a research that aims to understand how pervasive technologies interact with Intellectual Property laws and what can be done to protect these technologies from being labelled “illegal” and eradicated from the Asian market.

Event Participated

Meeting of the Global Network on Flexible Limitations and Exceptions (organised by American University Washington College of Law, Washington D.C., September 12 to 15, 2012).

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:

Featured Research

An Introduction to the Issues in Internet Governance (by Smarika Kumar, September 23, 2012): Smarika provides a detailed analysis to the issues that we face in Internet Governance today. She tries to canvass the controversies in the areas of internet governance that broadly focus around the institutional structures to govern the internet, discusses the evolution of these models against the historical background of internet governance and then proceeds to present the criticisms of each of these models with an emphasis on the interests of the regular internet user.
Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism and Rioting Edition) Part II (by Snehashish Ghosh, September 25, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh does a further analysis of the leaked list of the websites blocked by the Indian Government from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 (“leaked list”). This analysis was re-posted by Medianama on September 26, 2012.

Columns

The Five Monkeys & Ice-cold Water (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Chronicle, September 16, 2012): “The Indian government provides leadership, both domestically and internationally, when it comes to access to knowledge.”
SMS Block as Threat to Free Speech (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, September 1, 2012): If you could text just one or two people in a day, who would you choose? Many of us have had to make this choice thanks to the order limiting us to five texts a day. Short Message Service (SMS) is not used primarily to send staccato messages like the telegraph was.

Media Coverage

Censorship makes India fall two places on global internet freedom chart (by Dilnaz Boga, Daily News & Analysis, September 27, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.

Pitroda seeks to put govt information in public domain (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 25, 2012): “One government bureaucrat available on Twitter for a fixed period doesn’t make up for the non-existence of the government on social media…they (government) should be available all the time.” — Sunil Abraham.

Govt plans inter-ministerial panel on Internet policy (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 19, 2012): ““The thumb rule with governance, be it international or national, is that coordination policy formulation bodies is a good idea, but we can’t damn or praise them over the process...We have to see what coordination results out of the body.” — Sunil Abraham.

Mind of the millennium teen (by Atul Sethi, The Times of India, September 16, 2012): “We live in accelerated times...The breathlessness of our times is evident in everything — from the kind of movies we make to the ways in which our news and information travel. At the end of the day, our younger generations are also products of our times.”— Nishant Shah.

China outranks India in world’s first ever web index (First Post, September 6, 2012): ““The Internet today doesn’t work according to the idealistic principles of openness, and democracy of information that Berners-Lee envisioned for it, and in India in particular, although the Internet has helped us rethink what the government can do, the attitude is that that Internet can only be used in ways that the government sees fit.” — Nishant Shah.

Need a standard strategy to deal with Web issues: Chandrasekhar (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.

Political war on the web (by Kunal Majumder, Tehelka Magazine, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “The fact remains none of the blockings were politically motivated.” — Pranesh Prakash.

Government to hold talks with stakeholders on Internet censorship (by Shalini Singh, The Hindu, September 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s analysis on blocked websites is quoted.

The state. And the rage of the cyber demon (by Shougat Dasgupta, Tehelka, Vol 9, Issue 36, September 8, 2012): “While some people may see Twitter as akin to friends talking in the pub, others use the service as a bulletin board.” — Pranesh Prakash.

Watch out for fettered speech (by Rohit Pradhan, Business Standard, September 1, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Events Organised

DNA Profiling Bill
International DNA experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States visited Bengaluru and Delhi and shared their experience in DNA sampling and gave feedback to the DNA Profiling Bill. Meetings were conducted with lawyers and the plaintiff in the Pascal Mazurier's rape case and with VR Sudarshan and Hormis Tharakan. There was a coverage of the event in Kannada media. Public lectures were organised in Bengaluru and Delhi:

UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes (organised by CIS and Alternative Law Forum, September 24, 2012): Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States gave a public lecture.
The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices (India International Centre, New Delhi, September 27, 2012): International experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States gave a public lecture. Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.

Blog Entry

A Public Meeting on DNA Profiling Bill in Delhi (by Elonnai Hickok, September 29, 2012): Elonnai has blogged about the public lecture delivered by Dr. Helen Wallace, Jeremy Gruber and Dr. Anupuma Raina.

Upcoming IGF Events
At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop:

National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m.

Sunil Abraham will be a panelist in the following workshop:

New Trends in Industry Self-Governance (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m).

CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops:

Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.).
Governing Identity on the Internet (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.).

Events Participated

Second Freedom Online Conference (organised by the Ministry of Information and Communications, Republic of Kenya in partnership with the government of Netherlands at UN complex in Gigiri, Nairobi, September 6 and 7, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on Access to Internet: Challenges and Opportunities.
Multi-stakeholder Discussion on India’s Position in UN for Internet Governance UN Committee for Internet Related Policies (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, New Delhi, September 19, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist.
Seventh Meeting of the Group of Experts on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi): Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting. This was the final meeting of the series.

Talk

Talk at Yale University (New Haven, September 19, 2012): Pranesh Prakash gave a talk on censorship, intermediary liability, and the way forward.

Video

Internet Governance Plenary (August 28, Tokyo, Japan): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria at this event organised by APNIC on August 28, 2012. Kuo Wei Wu, CEO, National Information Infrastructure Enterprise Promotion Association (NIIEPA) was the moderator.

Openness

The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:
Featured Research

Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report (January – June 2012) (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012): Shiju Alex provides a compilation of the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias from January to June 2012. He provides perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language Wikipedias during the period.

Workshop Reports
Although most of the following workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the report for all of these was written in the month of September, and hence, we are featuring these.

The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): This post is about the first Punjabi Wikipedia workshop held in Ludhiana, Punjab on July 28, 2012. Surinder Wadhawan, a Mumbai based Wikipedian played an important role in designing this workshop and introducing Punjabi Wikipedia to the Punjabi speakers. Long-term Punjabi wikipedian G.S.Guglani also joined this workshop. The event was covered in the Tribune, Hindustan Times, Punjab Infoline, and YesPunjab.com.
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized at the Punjabi University's Punjabi Department on August 16, 2012. Veteran Punjabi wikipedian G.S. Guglani came forward to spread the message of Punjabi Wikipedia among Punjabi speakers.
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012): The workshop was held at the Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar on August 17, 2012. Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop. One of the active and long-time Punjabi Wikipedian Guglani Gurdip Singh led the workshop with the active support from Shiju and Subhasish.
Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012): A Wikipedia workshop was organized in Chandigarh by the British Library over two days on August 24 and 25, 2012. Bipin Kumar, Head of British Library and Christina, Deputy Manager had pivotal roles in designing this workshop with support from Piyush, a wikipedian. The session on Day 1 was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi and the session on Day 2 was conducted by Subhashish and Piyush.
Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012): This was the first Kannada Wikipedia workshop at Tumkur. Prof. Ashwin Kumar from the Department of English, Tumkur University and Kannada wikipedians, Om Shiva Prakash, Hareesh, Tejus and Pavithra played vital roles in organising this workshop. Shiju Alex participated in this workshop. About 30 participants including students and teachers participated in this workshop.

Blog Entries

Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012): Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps.
Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad! (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012): A series of Wikipedia meetings were organized in Hyderabad on September 29 and 30, 2012. These workshops were a part of the larger effort to help Wikipedia contributors in the same city to meet each other and strengthen the local community. There was coverage about this event in the Hindu on September 28, 2012.

Event Organised

Thinking with Data@CIS (CIS, Bengaluru, September 16 – 18, 2012): The course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies was screened in CIS office.

HasGeek HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of September: Cartonama Conference (TERI Complex, Bengaluru, September 22, 2012). The event was organised by HasGeek with support from CIS.

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Newspaper Column

One. Zero. (Nishant Shah, Indian Express, September 16, 2012): “The digital world is the world of twos. All our complex interactions, emotional negotiations, business transactions, social communication and political subscriptions online can be reduced to a string of 1s and 0s, as machines create the networks for the human beings to speak.”

Pathways to Higher Education

The Pathways Project to Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and CIS. The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between Technologies, Higher Education and the new forms of social justice in India. Training workshops were organised in the month of September at Xaviers in Mumbai on September 6, 2012 and in Newman College, Thodupuzha from September 17 to 20, 2012. Each workshop had 25-30 undergraduate students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. They were trained to use digital technologies in order to think through problems of social justice.

Researchers at Work

From 2012 to 2015, the RAW series will build research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Habits of Living: Global Networks, Local Affects is a global collaborative project to renew the conceptual power of networks. It concentrates on changing the habits of living. The Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University is an important locus.

CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Jadine Lannon and Alok Vaid-Menon live blogged about the event:

Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Introduction (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: PechaKucha (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 1 Live Blog: Globalising Lady GaGa (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Deepak Menon on Water in India (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: On Technology and Affective Indian Feminism(s) (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 27, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 2 Live Blog: Radhika Gajjala Lectures on e-Philanthropy (by Jadine Lannon, September 27, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Joshua Neves on Media Archipelagos (by Jadine Lannon, September 26, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Finding and Funding the Masses (by Alok Vaid-Menon, September 26, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 3 Live Blog: Akansha Rastogi's Performance on Exhibition Space
(by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Wendy Chun on Friends (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).
Habits of Living Thinkathon - Day 4 Live Blog: Namita Malhotra on Amateur Pornography (by Jadine Lannon, September 30, 2012).

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India

Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.

The following are the new outputs:

Associations Regulating Broadcasting in India (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): Broadcast regulation in India is currently an intricate web, with multiple agencies involved in formulating and implementing policy, drafting and enforcing legislation.
Optical Fibre (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 11, 2012): This unit tells us what is optical fibre, the types of optical fibres, how does an optical fibre work, fibre-optic relay system, and why are optical fibres uses in telecommunication systems.
Direct to Home (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit tells us about Direct to home television, its history, how it works, the programming, its advantages and disadvantages are discussed in this module.
Cable Television (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 18, 2012): This unit brings you the history and evolution of cable television in India, talks about other cable based services, cable television digitization rule and the end consumer in India.
Private FMs (Commercial, Campus and Community Radios) (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 24, 2012): This unit introduces us to AM and FM, tells us the role of private FMs including what is a community radio and what is a campus radio.
Types of Radio Broadcasting in India (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 28, 2012): This unit tells us what is radio broadcasting, takes us through the history of radio broadcasting in India, explains what is AM and FM in the Indian context.
A History of All India Radio and Its Operations (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, September 29, 2012): This module gives us a picture of the history of All India Radio and its operations.

Newspaper Column

Changing Our Game (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, September 5, 2012): “Adopting 'co-ordination models' like the Stag Hunt could reduce contention and improve outcomes.” This was re-posted in Organizing India blogspot.

Event Participated

Insights India 2012 (organised by MACH, Bangalore, September 26 – 28, 2012): Snehashish Ghosh and Srividya Vaidyanathan participated in this event.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2012-bulletin

Cable Television

srividya — 2013-03-15T08:33:08Z

Srividya Vaidyanathan brings you the history and evolution of cable television in India, how it works, cable television penetration in India, digitization rule and the end consumer in India.

What is Cable TV?

Cable TV (CATV) stands for Cable Television, i.e., a method of providing consumers with access to television programs via coaxial cables or through optical fiber cable located in the subscribers’ premises.

Evolution/History

There were four television terrestrial networks in the United States in the 1950s. One had to have a clear line of sight to the transmitting towers to be able to watch TV. Those living in hilly regions could not watch the TV programs because they could not have a clear "line of sight" over the hills. In 1948, people living in the hilly regions of Pennsylvania solved their problems by putting antennas on hills and running cables to their houses.[1] Using Terrestrial TV only a few TV channels could be broadcast whereas in the case of cable TV it is possible to downlink a good number to satellite TV channels, add local TV content, get TV contents from other sources, form bouquets of the TV channels and transmit it to TV homes using coaxial cables.

How does it work?

The figure below gives a high level flow diagram explaining the working of a CATV.

Figure 1: CATV Architecture – The image above is a pictorial representation of the working of a Cable TV.

TV Network companies beam their TV shows via satellites. Cable operators (or multi-system operators (MSO)) install head-ends (control centres for cable network) for aggregation of TV channels received from different satellites. They can mix this with content received from other sources such as broadband connections, local channels, etc., to form a bouquet of channels and then distribute to homes using coaxial cable (hence, the name cable TV) network installed either underground or hung over utility poles. To access the cable television services, one needs to subscribe to a cable company which will then connect a simple coaxial cable from the wall outlet to the television sets. One has to then program his/her cable ready television sets to receive the cable channels. In case one does not have a cable ready television then one needs to install a device called a converter box.

In CATV, the signals are sent through cables and not through the air, thus doing away with "line of sight" requirement and enabling much better quality of reception. The television signals that come via cable are not disturbed by trees, buildings, or other hindrances.[2]

Other cable based services

Coaxial cables are capable of carrying signals in both directions (to and from the customer’s end) and also the ability to carry large amounts of data. Cable television signals use only a portion of the bandwidth available over coaxial lines. This leaves plenty of space available for other digital services such as cable, internet and cable telephony. Broadband cable internet is made possible by having a cable modem at the customer's end and a cable termination system at the cable operator's end. Cable internet works very well when the distance between the cable modem and the cable termination system is not more than 160 km.

Cable TV penetration in India

The TAM Annual Universe Update – 2012 indicates that India has over 148 million households (out of 231 million) with TVs, of which over 126 million have access to CATV or Satellite TV, including 42 million households which are digital subscribers. In Urban India, 88 per cent of all households have a TV and over 70 per cent of all households have access to satellite, cable or DTH services. Households with TVs have been growing between 8 to 10 per cent, while growth in satellite/cable homes exceeded 9 per cent and DTH subscribers grew 63 per cent. CATV households could be higher because of unaccounted for or informal/unregistered cable networks that aren't taken into consideration during mainstream surveys. India now has over 500 TV channels covering all the main languages spoken in the nation.[3] Digicable Networks (India), Hathway Cable and Data Com, InusInd Media and Communications (InCable), and DEN Networks are some of the notable cable service providers in India.

Cable TV digitization rule and the end consumer in India

An ordinance has been passed by the Government of India making digitization of cable services compulsory. According to this amendment made in the section 9 of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Amendment Ordinance, 1995, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting will make Digital Addressable System (set-top box) mandatory. As part of the first phase, October 31, 2012 is the sunset date for the four metro cities in India to adopt set-top boxes. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has clarified that there would be no further extensions on the sunset date. This measure will empower consumers to an increased number of channels and high quality viewing.

Consumers will be able to enjoy digital picture and sound quality, enhanced services such as high definition and video on demand content. The Bill will prevent local cable operators from bypassing the digital set-top box. TV broadcasters will be able to monitor their subscriber base and control the flow of revenues. This will render obsolete the role of the "middleman". Advertisers too will be able to create targeted campaigns owing to higher knowledge or analytics about the viewership patterns of users.[4]

The two key terms in the cable digitization mandate are digitization and addressability.

Digitization will solve the problem of capacity constraint and will enable introduction of value added services (viz., pay per view, time shifted video, personal video recorder, near video on demand, radio services, broadband, etc.) in the offerings to the customer, which would enhance the range of choice for the customer and improve the financial viability of operations for the service provider. Addressability will ensure choice of channels to the consumer and transparency in business transactions and will build stakeholder confidence in the sector. It will also effectively address the issue of piracy.[5]

The key here is — the end consumer will need to buy a set-top box from his cable service provider to continue watching TV. This will cost anywhere between Rs. 700 and Rs. 2000, and will be offered with the option of an all up-front payment or part payment and part EMIs. Without this box, the customer will not be able to watch television, not even free to air channels (FTA). This could have an impact on the mode of TV access in India. Some may not upgrade their cable television connection, while the majority may simply shift to a DTH service, since both incur set-top box costs.

TRAI recommendation: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has mandated that all multi-service operators (MSOs) carry a minimum of 200 channels from the beginning. This number must be increased to 500 channels by 2013. Subscribers will have to be offered 100 free-to-air channels as a basic pack — Basic Service Tier, if they wish to subscribe to that, at a minimum of Rs. 100, carrying all 18 Doordarshan channels and five channels of each genre — news, sports, infotainment, music, lifestyle, movies and general entertainment. TRAI recommends the approximate cost of a basic set-top box to be Rs.1500.

Suggested Reading

IPTV
Mobile TV
DTH
Terrestrial TV

Glossary

Co-axial Cable

Coaxial cable, or coax, has an inner conductor surrounded by a flexible, tubular insulating layer, surrounded by a tubular conducting shield. The term coaxial comes from the inner conductor and the outer shield sharing a geometric axis. Coaxial cable is used as a transmission line for radio frequency signals. Its applications include feed lines connecting radio transmitters and receivers with their antennas, computer network (internet) connections, and distributing cable television signals.[6]

Figure 2 - The above is a cross-sectional view of Coaxial cable

Optical Fiber

An optical fiber (or optical fibre) is a flexible, transparent fiber, made of glass (silica) or plastic, slightly thicker than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe" to transmit light between the two ends of the fibre.[7]

Figure 3 - The above picture shows a bunch of optical fibres

[1]. From How Cable Television Works (http://www.howstuffworks.com/cable-tv.htm)
[2]. From How does cable television work? (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_cable_television_work)
[3]. From TAM Update (http://www.tamindia.com/tamindia/Images/Overview_TV_Universe_Update-2012.pdf)
[4]. From Cable TV Digitization Top 10 Facts (http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cable-tv-digitisation-top-10-facts-204388)
[5]. From TRAI Recommendations (http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Recommendation/Documents/finalreom5agust.pdf)
[6]. From Coaxial Cable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_cable).
[7]. From Optical Fiber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/cable-tv

Television Standards

Srividya Vaidyanathan — 2012-10-03T10:16:53Z

There are a number of TV Standards worldwide. Not all television sets in the world are alike. Countries use one of the three main video standards – PAL, NTSC or SECAM. What this means is that a video from a PAL country will not play in a country that uses the NTSC standard.

Frames

Before we dive deep into the various TV Standards we shall take a look at a few basics of TV transmission. A television transmission consists of a set of rapidly changing pictures to provide an illusion of continuous moving picture to the viewer. The pictures need to come at a rate of 20 pictures per second to create this illusion. Each of these "rapidly changing" pictures is a frame. A typical TV transmission is at 25-30 frames per second (fps).

Lines

Each frame consists of several closely spaced lines. The lines are scanned from left to right and from top to left. A typical TV picture consists of 525 to 625 lines. Considering this large number of lines, if all were to be written one after another the picture would begin to fade at the top by the time the last line is written. To avoid this, the first frame carries the odd numbered lines and the next frame carries the even numbered lines. This provides uniformity in the picture and this is called interlacing.

Timing

TV receivers require a source to time the rapid succession of frames on the screen. Designers decided to use the Mains power supply frequency as this source for two good reasons. The first was that with the older type of power supply, you would get rolling hum bars on the TV picture if the mains supply and power source were not at exactly the same frequency. The second was that the TV studio lights or for that matter all fluorescent, non incandescent lights flicker at the mains frequency. Since this flicker is much higher than 16 times per second the eye does not detect it. However this flicker could evolve into an extremely pronounced low frequency flicker on TV screens due to a "beat" frequency generated between the light flicker and the mains frequency. This would have made programmes un-viewable particularly in the early days of development of TV receivers.

The two mains power frequencies worldwide are 50Hz and 60Hz. This meant that there was an immediate division in the TV standards - the one with 25 frames per second (50 Hz) and 30 frames per second (60 Hz). Most of the compatibility problems between TV standards across the world stem from this basic difference in frequencies.

NTSC (National Television Standards Committee)

The majority of 60Hz based countries use a technique known as NTSC originally developed in the United States by a focus committee called the National Television Standards Committee. NTSC (often funnily referred to as Never Twice the Same Colour) works perfectly in a video or closed circuit environment but can exhibit problems of varying colour when used in a broadcast environment.

PAL (Phase Alternate Lines)

This hue change problem is caused by shifts in the colour sub-carrier phase of the signal. A modified version of NTSC soon appeared which differed mainly in that the sub-carrier phase was reversed on each second line; this is known as PAL, standing for Phase Alternate Lines (it has a wide range of funny acronyms including Pictures At Last, Pay for Added Luxury etc). PAL has been adopted by a few 60Hz countries, most notably Brazil.

SECAM

Amongst the countries based on 50Hz systems, PAL has been the most widely adopted. PAL is not the only colour system in widespread use with 50Hz; the French designed a system of their own -primarily for political reasons to protect their domestic manufacturing companies - which is known as SECAM, standing for Sequential Couleur Avec Memoire. The most common facetious acronym is System Essentially Contrary to American Method.

SECAM ON PAL

Some Satellite TV transmissions (usually Russian) that are available over India, are in SECAM Since the field (25 frames /sec) and scan rates are identical, a SECAM signal will replay in B&W on a PAL TV and vice versa. However, transmission frequencies and encoding differences make equipment incompatible from a broadcast viewpoint. For the same reason, system converters between PAL and SECAM, while often difficult to find, are reasonably cheap. In Europe, a few Direct Satellite Broadcasting services use a system called D-MAC. Its use is not wide-spread at present and it is trans-coded to PAL or SECAM to permit video recording of its signals. It includes features for 16:9 (widescreen) aspect ratio transmissions and an eventual migration path to Europe's proposed HDTV standard. There are other MAC-based standards in use around the world including B-MAC in Australia and B-MAC60 on some private networks in the USA. There is also a second European variant called D2-MAC which supports additional audio channels making transmitted signals incompatible, but not baseband signals.[1]

Quick Facts:

NTSC and PAL are video standards that are recorded on the cassette. These videos send and electronic signal to the television, then only it can be viewed.
In, India, PAL video format is supported.
NTSC is the video standard commonly used in North America and most of South America.
PAL is the video standard which is popular in most of the European and Asian countries.
The difference between NTSC and PAL is the transmission of number of frames per second. In NTSC, 30 frames are transmitted per second. Each frame is constituted up of 525 scan lines.
In PAL, 25 frames are transmitted per second. Each frame consists of 625 scan lines.
Second, the power frequency used in NTSC is 60 Hz. While in PAL, the power frequency is 50 HZ.

August 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-09-11T14:53:44Z

Welcome to the newsletter issue of August 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis of the latest list of sites blocked by the Indian government from August 18, 2012 to August 21, 2012, the India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012, and press coverage related to the recent North East exodus.

Internet Governance

Special Section on Freedom of Expression

We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, in the month of August there has been much discussion regarding the North East exodus from Bangalore and the blocking of a number of websites by the Indian government from August 18 to 21, 2012. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS:

Featured Research

Analysing Latest List of Blocked Sites (Communalism & Rioting Edition) (by Pranesh Prakash): Pranesh Prakash did a preliminary analysis on a leaked list of the websites blocked from August 18, 2012 till August 21, 2012 by the Indian government. There were a total of 309 specific items (those being URLs, Twitter accounts, img tags, blog posts, blogs, and a handful of websites) that were blocked. In this analysis, Pranesh examines why these have been blocked, are the blocks legitimate, are there any egregious mistakes, why the whole list hasn’t been put up, why can one access items that are supposed to be blocked, what should the government have done, etc. The analysis was quoted/cross-posted in the following places: Wall Street Journal (August 25, 2012), The Hindu (August 24, 2012), LiveMint (August 24, 2012), Global Voices (August 24, 2012), Outlook (August 23, 2012), FirstPost.India (August 23, 2012), IBN Live (August 23, 2012), News Click (August 23, 2012), Medianama (August 23, 2012) and KAFILA (August 23, 2012).

Columns

To regulate Net intermediaries or not is the question (by Sunil Abraham, Deccan Herald, August 26, 2012): “Given the disruption to public order caused by the mass exodus of North-Eastern Indians from several cities, the government has had for the first time in many years, a legitimate case to crackdown on Internet intermediaries and their users.”

Social media, SMS are not why NE students left Bangalore (by Nishant Shah, First Post, August 25, 2012): “I woke up one morning to find that I was living in a city of crisis. Bangalore, where the largest public preoccupations to date have been about bad roads, stray dogs, and occasionally, the lack of night-life, the city was suddenly a space that people wanted to flee and occupy simultaneously.”
What lurks beneath the Network (by Nishant Shah, Down to Earth, August 24, 2012): “There is a series of buzzwords that have become a naturalised part of discussions around digital social media—participation, collaboration, peer-2-peer, mobilisation, etc. Especially in the post Arab Spring world (and our own home-grown Anna Hazare spectacles), there is this increasing belief in the innate possibilities of social media as providing ways by which the world as we know it shall change for the better. Young people are getting on to the streets and demanding their rights to the future.”
Censoring the Internet: A brief manual (by Sunil Abraham, Tehelka, August 23, 2012): “Blocking websites on the Internet should be proportionate to harm they intend. However, the government of India's approach is against the principles of natural justice.”
The Perils of 'Hactivism' (by Chinmayi Arun, LiveMint, August 20, 2012): “Civil disobedience includes accepting the penalty for breaking the law. Untraceable hackers are far removed from this ethic.”

Foreign Media Coverage

India blocks more than 250 Web sites for inciting hate, panic (by Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post on August 20, 2012): “A blanket ban does not necessarily lead to a reduction in the circulation of rumors because people become more vulnerable in a communication vacuum.”— Sunil Abraham.
India’s ethnic clashes intensify within social-media maelstrom (by Stephanie Nolen, Globe Mail, August 23, 2012): “Now for a change, the government has legitimate grounds to censor speech...but they’ve cried wolf on so many occasions before.” — Sunil Abraham.
India limits social media after civil unrest (by Mark Magnier, Australian Financial Review, August 24, 2012): “Before, the government’s had no grounds for censorship, it was only acting on the bruised egos of bureaucrats and officials... this time, it’s got a legitimate right given the disruption of public order. But it hasn’t done so very effectively.” — Sunil Abraham.
New Delhi Expands Curbs on Web Content (by R Jai Krishna and Rumman Ahmed, Wall Street Journal, August 23, 2012): “The government's move to block several Twitter handles is a clear case of administrative overreach...This action means citizens are less likely to believe that the government can use its powers responsibly.” — Sunil Abraham.
Govt in line of fire over web censorship (by Surabhi Agarwal, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Both Kanchan Gupta and Swapan Dasgupta seem to be having a right wing ideology, but while the former’s account is blocked the latter’s is not...The difference is on the kind of content which has been posted.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India's social media crackdown reveals clumsy govt machinery (by David Lalmalsawma, Reuters, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Internet expert criticizes Indian cyber blockades (by Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press, August 24, 2012): “The government has gone overboard and many of its efforts are legally questionable.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was also covered in Bloomberg Businessweek (August 24, 2012), Khaleej Times (August 24, 2012), ABC News (August 24, 2012), Seattle Times (August 24, 2012), Vancouver Sun (August 24, 2012), Kansas City. (August 24, 2012), Times Colonist (August 24, 2012), Merced Sun-Star (August 24, 2012), Yahoo News (August 24, 2012), SanLuisObispo.com (August 24, 2012), Terrorism Watch (August 25, 2012), Sci-Tech Today (August 26, 2012).
How ISPs block websites and why it doesn’t help (by Gopal Sathe, Livemint, August 24, 2012): “Even though many of the items on that list do deserve (in my opinion) to be removed [...] the people and companies hosting the material should have been asked to remove it, instead of ordering the ISPs to block them.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India’s Internet Curbs Under Legal Cloud (by Rumman Ahmed and R Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2012):” The four orders that were sent to the ISPs don’t say under which section or under what power these orders are being sent...They were sent without invoking any statute or without invoking any law.” — Pranesh Prakash.
After Violence in India, a Crackdown Online (by Gardiner Harris, New York Times, August 25, 2012): “I don’t see this as politically motivated censorship...I see this as gross ineptitude by the government.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Inde: la tentative de contrôler l'internet est "illégale" (Agence France Presse, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India threatens action against Twitter for ethnic violence 'rumors' (originally posted by Ben Sheppard in AFP and published in the China Post, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Blocked websites: Where India flawed (CIOL, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India: Social Media Censorship to Contain ‘Cyber-Terrorism'? (by Aparna Ray, Global Voices, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Delhi defends Internet blocking (Gulf Today, August 25, 2012): “The officials who are trusted with this don’t know the law or modern technology well enough.” — Pranesh Prakash.
India Blocks News Website Pages for 'Spreading Fear' over Assam Violence (by Gianluca Mezzofiore, International Business Times, August 24, 2012): “The government's highest priority should have been to counter the rumours and it did a really bad job of that.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Internet clamp outrage (Gulf Daily, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (by Devidutta Tripathy and Satarupa Bhattacharjya, Reuters, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Indian government defends Internet blocking (AFP, August 23, 2012): “I hope that this fiasco shows the folly of excessive censorship and encourages the government to make better use of social networks and technology to reach out to people.” — Pranesh Prakash. This was cross-posted in the following: The National (August 25, 2012), MSN News (August 24, 2012), StarAfrica.com (August 24, 2012), Jakarta Globe (August 24, 2012).
Criticism mounts over India censorship (by James Crabtree in Mumbai and Tim Bradshaw in San Francisco, Financial Times, August 24, 2012): “I am not questioning their original motives, but I do think this is excessive and incompetent censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Facebook's Delicate Dance With Delhi On Censorship (by Mark Bergen, Forbes, August 29, 2012): “Perhaps the Indian government has wasted, frittered away goodwill...It has cried ‘wolf’ so many times that this time the internet intermediaries are not taking them as seriously as they should.” — Sunil Abraham.
Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic (by Vikas Bajaj, New York Times, August 21, 2012): “The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech.” — Sunil Abraham. This was cross-posted in NDTV on August 22, 2012. A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.
India limits social media after civil unrest (by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2012 and cross-posted in Channel 6 News on August 24, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.
India Debates Misuse of Social Media (by Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America, August 21, 2012 and re-posted in Chosunilbo on September 4, 2012): “Social media websites and other Internet intermediaries should have been asked by the government to run banner advertising or some other form of messaging that revealed the lack of truth in the rumors that were circulating.” — Sunil Abraham.
Officials Raise Questions over Indian Government’s Efforts (by Bruce Totolos, French Tribune, August 22, 2012). “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.” — Sunil Abraham.
India seeks a tighter grip on social media (United Press International, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

National Media Coverage

Internet expert Pranesh Prakash criticizes Indian cyber blockades (Economic Times, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Govt orders blocking of 300 specific URLs including 16 Twitter accounts (Times of India, August 23, 2012): “The blocking of many of the items on the list are legally questionable and morally indefensible, even while a large number of the items ought to be removed.” — Pranesh Prakash.
NE exodus: List containing 309 blocked URLs leaks online (tech 2, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash's analysis is quoted.
Govt cracks down on Twitter (Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “The blocking was done without due process of law...the government should have engaged with the social media platforms since a majority — 217 out of 310 — of the block orders were aimed at Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Twitter users hit back at government ban (originally posted in Reuters and carried in the Hindustan Times, August 24, 2012): “This isn't about political censorship. This is about the government not knowing how to do online regulation properly.” — Pranesh Prakash.
When #GOIBlocks, twitterati fly off their ‘handles’ (Hindustan Times, August 26, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s tweet is quoted.
Regulating the Internet by fiat (by V Sridhar, Hindu, August 26, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Twitter handles: How and why govt erred and what it can do to be smarter & more effective (by TV Mahalingam and Shantanu Nandan Sharma, Economic Times, August 26, 2012): “Perhaps, for the first time, the Indian government had legitimate reasons to censor speech.” — Sunil Abraham.
Some ISPs block Wordpress domain across India (tech 2, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Details emerge on government blockade of websites (Hindu, August 24, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
India faces Twitter backlash over Internet clampdown (INDOLink, August 25, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
India Blocks Facebook, Twitter, Mass Texts in Response to Unrest (by Simon Roughneen, Media Shift, August 28, 2012): “In the older forms of governance, which were imagined through a broadcast model, the government was at the center of the information wheel, managing and mediating what information reached different parts of the country. In the [peer-to-peer] world, where the government no longer has that control, it is now trying different ways by which it can reinforce its authority and centrality to the information ecosystem. Which means that there is going to be a series of failures and models that don't work.” — Nishant Shah.
Tata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com (by Rohini Lakshane, tech 2, August 30, 2012): “This is not the first time an ISP has gone overboard in implementing censorship, be it copyright issues, piracy or inflammatory content. In 2006, the government had chastised ISPs for over-censoring content and blocking unintended websites and pages...ISPs have numerous grouses against the government. They do not possess the technical capabilities to implement the government's orders, at times, whether about surveillance or censorship.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Northeast exodus: Is there a mechanism to pre-screen social media content? (by Wahid Bukhari, Merinews.com, August 23, 2012): “Given the amount of content uploaded on the larger social networks, pre-screening content is just not possible, while removal upon complaint is. They don't have editors like newspapers do; importantly, they shouldn't.” — Pranesh Prakash.
Haphazard censorship? Leaked list of blocked websites in India (IBN Live, August 23, 2012): Pranesh Prakash’s analysis is quoted.
Government asks Twitter to block fake 'PMO India' accounts; site fails to respond (Economic Times, August 23, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Videos

FTN: Is it time to regulate social media? (IBN Live, August 21, 2012): Sunil Abraham, Pavan Duggal, A Mukherji and Nikhil Pahwa spoke to CNN-IBN Deputy Editor Sagarika Ghose in Face the Nation episode that was telecasted in IBNLive on August 21, 2012. Sunil said “if one looks at the initial orders that the government sent these intermediaries those were very broad instructions. The order was addressed to all intermediaries under the IT Act.” Watch the full video on IBN Live.
Govt vs Tweeple: Has clampdown hit free speech? (NDTV, August 23, 2012): Has the Government crossed the line by ordering the blocking of several Twitter accounts, many belonging to prominent journalists? The debate was featured in NDTV on August 23, 2012. Sunil Abraham spoke to Sonia Singh of NDTV. Sunil said that “we should focus on designing of the censorship regime in the country and the lack of compliance with the principles of natural justice.” Watch the full video on NDTV.
Is the govt caught in the 'censorship' web? (NDTV, August 26, 2012): In “We the People” Pranesh Prakash responded to Barkha Dutt’s question on what does a government do in a time of social unrest. See the full debate on NDTV.

Events Organised

Role of the US Tech Companies in Government Surveillance: A Lecture by Christopher Soghoian (CIS, Bangalore, August 27, 2012): Christopher Soghoian gave a lecture on the role companies play in assisting government surveillance.
The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School: The 2nd Biannual Inter Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) Summer School was hosted in Bangalore by CIS and the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.
Biometric Identification: Specified Error, Accuracy and Efficiency, Considered for the Operations of the UIDAI — A Talk by Hans Varghese Mathews (CIS, Bangalore, August 17, 2012): Hans Varghese Mathews gave a public lecture on biometric identification.

Events Participated

Sixth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah (Committee Room No. 228, Yojana Bhawan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi, August 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting.
APNIC 34 Conference (Phnompenh, Cambodia, August 23 – 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist along with Ang Peng Hwa, Paul Wilson, Duangthip Chomprang and Raul Echeberria in the session on Internet Governance Plenary. The event was organised by APNIC.

Events Hosted

Meetup for Bangalore's designers (CIS, Bangalore, August 11, 2012): CIS hosted the meet-up in Bangalore.
Visit by students from Hindustan University, Chennai (CIS, Bangalore, August 16, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok gave a lecture to students from the Hindustan University.
Interface Intimacies (TERI Complex, Bangalore, August 18 – 20, 2012): CIS conducted a research workshop with Audrey Yue and Namita Malhotra.

Upcoming Events

Thinking with Data@CIS (CIS, Bangalore, September 16 – 18, 2012): The Thinking with Data course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) will be screened at CIS, Bangalore. The screening will be followed by online discussions with the faculty through Skype or Google+ Hangouts. Screening starts from September 12.
Cartonama Conference (MLR Convention Centre, JP Nagar, Bangalore, September 22, 2012): The Cartonama Conference is centred around geospatial data, mapping and location based services. HasGeek supported by CIS is organising this event.
UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes (Alternative Law Forum, Infantry Road, Shivaji Nagar, Bangalore, September 24, 2012): CIS in collaboration with Alternative Law Forum invites the public to a talk with international experts, Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States.

Telecom

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India

The following are the new outputs:

Auctioning and Allocation of Spectrum (by Snehashish Ghosh): Auction of spectrums was introduced in the telecommunication market after the failure of the administrative process of allocating spectrum. Auctions use a price mechanism to allocate spectrum. Auction of spectrum can be used to increase efficiency and earn maximum revenue.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The main objective of the TRAI Act was to establish the TRAI and the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal. Snehashish also touches upon the amendment to the TRAI Act, government control over TRAI, scheme of the TRAI Act, constitution of TRAI, its powers and functions, grounds and procedures for appeal to the tribunal, etc.
Broadband Wireless Access – Standards (by Jürgen Kock): Jürgen tells us about the broadband wireless access standards, why we need technical standards, who define BWA standards, WiMAX standards and long term evolution.
Mesh Networks (by Ravikiran Annaswamy): Ravikiran tells us the definition of Mesh Networks, its importance, applications and the things to explore in future.
National Telecom Policy, 2012 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 2012 was approved by the Union Cabinet on May 31, 2012. Snehashish tells us about the vision of the National Telecom Policy, 2012, its background, the strategies (broadband rural telephony and universal service obligation fund), licensing, convergence and value-added services, spectrum management, etc.
New Telecom Policy, 1999 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The New Telecom Policy, 1999 was formulated on the basis of the report of Group on Telecommunication. In this unit, Snehashish talks about the objectives of the Policy, its targets, the new category of service providers, role of the regulator, other mandates to the Policy, amendment to the New Telecom Policy, 1999, etc.
National Telecom Policy, 1994 (by Snehashish Ghosh): The National Telecom Policy, 1994 was formulated for the purpose of opening up the Indian markets for foreign direct investment as well as domestic investment in the telecom sector. Snehashish throws light on the objectives of the National Telecom Policy, 1994, the status of telecom services prior to the implementation of the aforesaid Policy; value added services, hardware and technological aspects, basic services, and outcomes of the National Telecom Policy.

Column in Business Standard

Decision Analysis for Interest Rates - II (Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, August 2, 2012): “India needs to make practical choices that prioritise growth. This is the second column. The previous column was published in the Business Standard on July 5, 2012. It explained how lower interest rates could improve growth by increasing net profits.”

Access to Knowledge

Key Research

Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 — India Report (by Pranesh Prakash): The India Report for Consumers International IP Watchlist 2012 was published on the A2K Network website. According to the report, India's Copyright Act is a relatively balanced instrument that recognises the interests of consumers through its broad private use exception, and by facilitating the compulsory licensing of works that would otherwise be unavailable. However, the compulsory licensing provision have not been utilized so far, because of both a lack of knowledge and more importantly because of the stringent conditions attached to them.

Press Coverage

Copyright Law: More Than a Moral Obligation (by Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Businessworld, August 9, 2012): “So far, things have worked well because sepia-tinted photographs have generally become part of the public domain. But now, only photographs by photographers who died before 1951 are part of the public domain. This has shrivelled up the public domain in photographs since it is even more difficult to trace the photographer...than to estimate the age of a photograph, determining whether a photograph is in the public domain is laden with uncertainty. The use of historical photos in books (and Wikipedia) will be badly affected.”— Pranesh Prakash.

Accessibility

Blog Entry

Ring Side View: Update on WIPO Negotiations on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Rahul Cherian): As the negotiations between Member States progressed it became clear that the United States and the European Union were blocking the Treaty while everybody else was pushing hard for the Treaty. The United States and the European Union were pushing for some form of non-binding instrument that would be more in the nature of a recommendation. Further coverage of this is at Huffington Post and in the Guardian.

Digital Natives

Public Talk

Decoding Digital Natives (Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, August 31, 2012): Nishant Shah gave a public lecture.

Openness

Event Hosted

Bangalore Force.com August Meetup (CIS, Bangalore, August 19, 2012): John Barnes, CTO Model Metrics gave a lecture at the event organised by Bangalore Force.com.
Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham (CIS, Bangalore, August 10, 2012): Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School gave a lecture.
Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy & Open Government — Talk at CIS (CIS, Bangalore, August 1, 2012): The event was co-organised by Open Knowledge Foundation and CIS. Lucy Chambers and Laura Newman gave an informal talk on ‘Data-Driven Journalism, Data Literacy, and Open Government'.

CIS is hiring
*Jobs*
CIS is seeking applications from interested candidates for the following posts:

Research Manager: CIS is seeking an individual, full-time, for a period of 12 months, beginning from October 2012. The Research Manager is expected to contribute to conceptualising, managing and executing research projects in the field of Internet and Society, build knowledge networks of researchers towards collaborative and open knowledge production and dissemination, developing and executing the monitoring and evaluation processes for humanities and social sciences based research, supporting and managing academic, popular and hybrid publishing projects from existing and new research and initiate innovative and creative areas and methodologies of studying the Internet and its practices in India and the larger Global South, to develop key research clusters and networks. Send in your applications to admin@cis-india.org.
Researcher/Editor (Accessibility): CIS is hiring for the full-time position of a researcher for its accessibility programme. The job will entail working on researching on national and international policies and best practices in the field of accessibility of information and technology for persons with disabilities. To apply, please send your CV and three examples of writing to nirmita@cis-india.org
Programme Director – Access to Knowledge: CIS is seeking a Programme Director for its New Delhi office. The Programme Director will manage CIS’s Access to Knowledge programme which is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, to support the growth of Wikipedia and its sister projects and to advance access to free knowledge in India. The Programme Director will partner with the large Wikimedia community in India to focus on Indic and English languages and will manage a team of four staff members.
Programme Officer – Internet Governance: CIS is seeking an individual with a strong background in legal research and policy work to be part of its internet governance (IG) programme. The candidates must have good knowledge of Indian and international law on freedom of expression and privacy, demonstrable research skills, have strong communication skills and be media savvy with the ability to convey complex legal issues clearly to a general audience, open to travel and work independently.

To apply for the posts of Programme Director and Programme Officers, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) or Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three references.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos. With the Government of India we have done policy research for Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

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CIS is grateful to its donors, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/august-2012-bulletin

Changing Our Game

Shyam Ponappa — 2012-09-06T11:14:42Z

Adopting 'co-ordination models' like the Stag Hunt could reduce contention and improve outcomes.

Shyam Ponappa's column was originally published in the Business Standard on September 5, 2012 and also posted in Organizing India blogspot.

Consider the handling of irregularities in spectrum allocation and in coal mining rights. Instead of swiftly ring-fencing problem areas where there are allegations of culpability supported by prima facie evidence, then striving for good policies going forward, the ruling coalition and the Opposition are in a war of attrition. What began with the United Progressive Alliance’s turning a blind eye to the spectrum awards has turned into the Bharatiya Janata Party’s heedless flailing to tear down their opponents. Meanwhile, the confusion created by the pronouncements of the Comptroller and Auditor General and previously of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has vitiated conditions for constructive reform. Any solution that fails a populist screen is likely to be guillotined in the streets.

Contention versus co-operation

There seems to be quite a contrast between our manifest contentiousness and our apparent friendliness. From our chaotic ways in traffic to dealing with each other and with our surroundings more generally, often, self-centred, short-term opportunism appears to override our better nature. As evidenced in the coalgate stand-off in Parliament, or our inability to establish adequate infrastructure, this cuts across all levels of individuals and groups. The irony is that no one gains, except the perpetrators and supporters of rip-offs and stand-offs. They, too, gain only in the short run, unless they’re not caught out. In the long run, everyone is worse off except the rogues who get away.

How did we get to this self-destructive state, and how might we get out? Insights from game theory could provide some perspective. One stark fact is that our interactions are predominately driven by self-interest that leads to contention, on the lines of a Prisoner’s Dilemma, [1] instead of a co-operative group- or common-interest model like the Stag Hunt.[2]

The two models are described briefly below. For those who want to skip the description, read on after the next two paragraphs.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

Two men attempting a burglary with a weapon, A and B, are caught, with insufficient incriminating evidence for the burglary. They are questioned separately and not allowed to communicate. If both deny the burglary, they escape a 10-year sentence and will be imprisoned for two years for possession of a weapon. A is told separately that if B pleads guilty and A does not, B will get a reduced sentence of four years, while A will get 10. So A has an incentive to confess and get four years, too. A is also told that if he confesses, he can go free, while B gets 10 years. Therefore, the logical choice for A is to confess. The same logic applies to B. So, both confess and get four years, instead of both denying and getting only two years. The logical trap is that acting in one’s self-interest without communication and co-operation leads to a worse position.

Stag Hunt

A group of hunters agree to wait for a stag in their assigned positions. If one sees a hare and shoots at it, the stag takes flight and the group loses out. The group and individuals gain most if individuals stick with their commitment and get the big prize. However, individuals may be tempted to defect by a less risky, smaller pay-off like a hare.

Logical trap: Self-interest leads to contention and lowest equilibrium

In zero-sum games like cricket, tennis or football, where the total pay-off is the same no matter who wins, one participant gains at the expense of another. In most real-world encounters, however, players can improve their outcomes by co-operation and co-ordination. In other words, many everyday situations can be likened to non-zero-sum games, where one party’s win is not necessarily another’s loss. If individuals (or teams/groups) pursue their self-interest without co-operating and co-ordinating with other players, the pattern is like the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and a logical trap leads to a position of lowest equilibrium (the Nash Equilibrium). This position results from each player/group making the best decision that he/she/they can while taking into account the decisions of the others, and no one can act independently without worsening their position.

Co-ordinating better outcomes

By contrast, if players can (a) co-operate and (b) decide through effective co-ordination, everyone gains. Examples are centrally sponsored projects executed in Opposition-run states – for highways or power, for example – or the backing of political parties for India’s 123 Agreement with America on nuclear co-operation.

Can we escape a logical trap and contention by adopting models that elicit co-operation and co-ordination? Game theory suggests that models based on trust and co-ordination like the Stag Hunt work for a big prize (the stag). The question is whether it is possible to move to a co-ordination model and, if so, how to do it. While there are no simple fixes, the University of Vienna’s evolutionary game theory models hold out some promise through providing insights into how patterns of co-operation can spread in populations.[3]

There’s also the long, slow haul of structured education and training in collaborative problem solving. The techniques that need incorporation in our curricula from junior school through higher education, vocational training, and at work, are co-operative problem solving as an approach, and project management as a method. The latter starts with a clear definition of goals and objectives, followed by standard operating procedures covering the gamut of the logic of process flow for tasks, setting milestones/sub-objectives, critical paths, and individual and group responsibilities on timelines.

A second aspect where governments have to step in is institutional design — boldly initiating systems and processes after eliciting convergence in each sector from all stakeholders on sound plans in the public interest. Driven by goal-directed project management, this requires systematic action braving populist pressure and distractions.

These initiatives would significantly improve India’s ability to act in the public interest.

[1].http://bit.ly/Q6IeVp
[2].“The Stag Hunt and the Evolution of Social Structure”, Brian Skyrms, http://bit.ly/TlNJnC
[3].VirtualLabs, Christoph Hauert: http://bit.ly/90W392

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/organizing-india-blogspot-in-shyam-ponappa-sep-5-2012-changing-our-game

Broadband Wireless Access – Standards

Jürgen Kock — 2013-03-15T09:21:59Z

In this unit, Jürgen Kock tells us about the broadband wireless access standards, why do we need technical standards, who defines BWA standards, WiMAX standards and long term evolution.

Why do we need technical standards?

Standards define key aspects of a technology. Thanks to standardization consumers can for example buy any kind of AA battery and be sure, that it’ll work in most, if not all, devices that specify the use of this kind of batteries. While batteries follow global standards, power plugs are only defined on a national basis. Travelers know about this inconvenience.

In wireless communication, standards ensure interoperability between user devices and the radio network of different vendors. Frequency bands, modulation techniques, power levels and encryption are just some of the aspects covered by standards.

Who defines BWA standards?

IMT-2000

The ITU-R (International Telecommunication Union – Radiocommunication Sector) started in the 1980s to define the requirements for a 3rd generation of mobile communication systems. As an agency of the UN (United Nations) the ITU combines the effort of governments and the telecommunication industries for a worldwide supported standardization. Finally, in the year 2000 the ITU approved the technical specifications for the 3rd generation of mobile networks under the name "IMT-2000" (International Mobile Telecommunications-2000). One goal of IMT-2000 is to provide seamless delivery of services. The minimum requirements for data speed were defined at 2Mbps for stationary or walking users and 348 kbpsfor fast moving users in vehicles.

IMT Advanced

The ITU has coined the term IMT Advanced to identify mobile systems whose capabilities go beyond those of IMT 2000. In order to meet this new challenge, 3GPPs Organizational Partners have agreed to widen 3GPP’s scope to include the development of systems beyond 3G. Some of the key features of IMT-Advanced will be: Worldwide functionality & roaming Compatibility of services Interworking with other radio access systems Enhanced peak data rates to support advanced services and applications (100 Mbit/s for high and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility) Source: http://bit.ly/qYLvQj

Two competing technologies are the basis for Broadband Wireless Access. The evolution of mobile or cellular networks called Long Term Evolution (LTE)lies under the responsibility of the ITU and the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Program). We’ll start our discussion with the competing technology called WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access).

WiMAX Standards
WiMAX is based on the IEEE suite of standards 802.16.[1] The initial standard was released in 2001 and is named 802.16-2001 accordingly. The goal was to define a wireless broadband technology for fixed users, with a range of up to 50 km and data rates that can compete with wireline DSL (Digital Subscriber Line). For achieving coverage of such wide distances, this initial standard required a line-of-sight between sender and receiver, which was soon seen as a limitation of the technology.

In 2004 the standard was updated, but still covered only fixed users. 802.16d-2004 is therefore referred to as the current standard for Fixed WiMAX. The frequency range 2 – 11 GHz’s was added to the previously defined range of 10 – 66 GHz’s. The new range allowed for static connections without a line of sight. Static means, that there is no handover mechanism defined, when a user moves out of the range of his cell.

With 802.16e-2005 the standards where extended to cover Mobile WiMAX. Handover and roaming support was added for slow moving users. The frequency bands used for mobile users are 2.3 and 2.5 GHz. Of course, service providers can also offer fixed access in those frequencies.

The latest release of the WiMAX standards 802.16m-2011 defines an advanced air interface with data rates of up 1 gigabit. This fulfills the formal requirements of 4G networks as defined by the ITU.

LTE – Long Term Evolution
LTE is defined by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership), a collaboration between groups of telecommunications associations. It provides detailed technical specifications to cover all aspects of a cellular communication network within the frameworks IMT-2000 and IMT Advanced of the ITU.

The standardization is published in so called Releases.[2] Release 1 to 7 covered 2G and 3G networks including UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System).

Source: Anritsu, Understanding LTE (http://bit.ly/NDBlKf)

Release 8, published in 2008, marked the first LTE standard. The goal of 3GPP was to define an evolutionary upgrade of cellular networks, providing higher data rates and improved quality of service. At the same time the demand for cost reduction and a low complexity of the network architecture was addressed. Unlike the WiMAX standard, LTE standardization encompasses the whole network architecture including the radio network, core network and service architecture.

Here is an overview of the key requirements and features of the different 3GPP LTE releases:

Mobility

Optimized for low mobile speed from 0 to 15 km/h.
Higher mobile speed between 15 and 120 km/h should be supported with high performance.
Mobility across the cellular network shall be maintained at speeds from 120 km/h to 350 km/h (or evenup to 500 km/h depending on the frequency band).

Coverage

Throughout, spectrum efficiency and mobility targets above should be met for 5 km cells, and with aslight degradation for 30 km cells.

Release 8 - 2008
This was the first LTE release. The release contains 36 technical specifications.

Evolved radio access
- New air interface (not backward compatible)
- High spectral efficiency
  — OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) in Downlink, Robust against multipath interference (reduces path loss)
  — Single-Carrier FDMA in Uplink
- Variable bandwidth: 1.4, 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz
- Support of Multiple Antenna technology MIMO
- FDD and TDD within a single radio access technology
- Simple Architecture
- Very low latency: Short setup time and short transfer delay
Evolved Packet Core
- Reduced complexityof the core network
- All IP network SAE (System Architecture Evolution)
- Support of Self-Organizing Network (SON) operation

Source: LTE-Release 8 User Equipment Categories, http://bit.ly/9R0DIm

Release 9 - 2009
Release 9 brings enhancements and Improvements for

System Architecture Evolution
WiMAX and LTE/UMTS Interoperability
Location services
Emergency services
Broadcast services
Voice Over LTE (VoLTE)

Release 10 – 2011 - LTE-Advanced

First release of LTE Advanced
Backwards compatible with release 8 (LTE).
Fulfilling IMT Advanced 4G requirements (For example 1 Gbps peak downlink data rate)
Multi-Cell HSDPA with 4 carriers

Release 11 – planned in 2012 Q3

Advanced IP Interconnection of Services

Service layer interconnection between national operators/carriers as well as third party application providers

Peak Data Rates

Sources – Further Readings:

ITU Overview for IMT-2000 (http://bit.ly/NdSM8E)
ITU Entry Point for IMT Advanced (http://bit.ly/f5FqtH)
Homepage of 3GPP (http://bit.ly/Cai9O)
3GPP Entry Point forLTE (http://bit.ly/Cai9O)
3GPP Entry Point for LTE Advanced (http://bit.ly/Cai9O)
Wikipedia article about 3GPP (http://bit.ly/dugu8O)
3GPP technical paper UTRA-UTRAN Long Term Evolution (LTE) and 3GPP System Architecture Evolution (SAE) including high level requirements (http://bit.ly/NhbfeE)
E-Learning on LTE and other Telecommunication Fundamentals (http://bit.ly/NdTd2A)
LTE Introduction (http://bit.ly/rxQDzE)

[1].To download 802.16 standards: http://bit.ly/SgpUeV
[2].To downloadLTE and LTE Advanced standards:http://bit.ly/LCR9em

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/broadband-wireless-access

Mesh Networks

Ravikiran Annaswamy — 2013-03-15T09:39:03Z

Ravikiran Annaswamy tells us the definition of Mesh Networks, its importance, applications and the things to explore in future.

Imagine[1] a room full of people in a party spread around randomly. One of the people wants to pass information to another in the corner of the room. The traditional telecom networking way of passing information involves having a person at the center of the room acts as a switch and routes the information from sender to receiver.

Mesh networks provides a new way of organizing the network, every person in the room can speak independently to the person next to him and in turn the second person speaks to the next person till the information reaches the destination. The route for the information is optimized to get the shortest path.

Definition of Mesh Networks

Mesh networks are highly interconnected network of computers or communication devices. This concept is applicable in software systems, wired networks and wireless networks. These networks consist of nodes (like computers, routers, radio base stations and mobile phones) and are connected to each other to carry information across.

Mesh networking is organic — every node in the neighborhood contributes network resources and cooperates.[2]

By Definition, Mesh networks are a way of structuring peer nodes in such a way that each node acts as a switch or a router deciding how to forward the information they receive. These networks use every node to determine the path of the signal, hence its important for every node in the network to be live and healthy. This requires self-healing algorithms to dynamically identify new routes in the network. The concept of Self-organizing Networks (SON) is being implemented to achieve flexibility and scalability.

Importance of Mesh Networks

Traditionally telecom networks are hierarchically structured with centralized control systems. Mobility and increase in number of wireless devices needs a distributed architecture with intelligent nodes like in Mesh networks to manage bandwidth, optimally use spectrum and device power consumption.

IEEE 802.11s is a standard that defines how wireless devices can interconnect to create a mesh network. This covers both the static networks and the ad-hoc networks.

Applications of Mesh Networks

Mesh Networks are applied in various areas of telecom like:

Optical Mesh Networks enable the transport networks with dynamic quality of service, bandwidth on demand and managing bandwidth with peer nodes and applying policies.
Rural or Village communication systems work with wireless nodes in every village connected to each other and provide communication services without depending on the operator infrastructure.
Wireless Ad-hoc networks are decentralized networks with no predefined structure.

Wireless mesh Network is a telecom network made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology.[3] This network is used in LTE radio, Metro-Wi-Fi networks and military communication applications in battlefield surveillance, tunnels and oil rigs.
Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET) are mobile devices connected to each other without the need of a central infrastructure. Vehicular ad-hoc networks where vehicles communicate with fixed internet points on the road or between the vehicles themselves is an interesting application.

Next things to look for in future

Mesh networks are evolving in to real world scenarios where in sensors that monitor physical and environmental conditions are networked. These small low power wireless devices are connected through standardized ZigBee[4] protocol specifications.

The application of ZigBee is seen in Home automation, Health care, Remote controls and Smart energy meters.

[1].System Architecture for Wireless Meshes, Fairpoint Group White paper, April 2007, FPG 2007-127.1
[2].Self Organizing Wireless Mesh Networks, Microsoft Research, http://bit.ly/11Rmec
[3].Wireless Mesh Networks: http://bit.ly/hVKII0
[4].ZigBee Description: http://bit.ly/u8XNS

Glossary

Metro-Wi-Fi: Wireless network built with Wi Fi components covering the entire city
MANET: Mobile Ad-hoc networks

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/mesh-networks

Frequently Asked Questions (Module 7.2.2)

Tina Mani — 2012-08-21T05:27:35Z

In this unit, Tina Mani gives answers to some frequently asked questions relating to Internet Protocol Television (IP TV), Mobile TV, role of Set Top Box (STB) in an IP TV network, features provided with IP TV services, Time Shift Television, Digital Video Recording, the difference between an MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, etc.

What is the difference between IPTV and Mobile TV?
Mobile TV is the availability of regular TV channels to view on your mobile. The network conditions of a wireless network are unpredictable, and hence the technology is built to adapt to varying conditions. Mobile TV and internet TV (TV viewing on the PC using an internet connection) are also sometimes referred to as Over The Top TV. IPTV makes assumptions about the reliability of the transport mechanism and works well only if the transport network provides sufficient bandwidth and like fixed line broadband, or cable as a medium of transmission.

What is the bandwidth required for acceptable quality of TV viewing?
With MPEG-2 compression, an SDTV signal requires about 3 Mbps, and a HDTV signal requires about 16Mbps. However, with MPEG-4 compression, an SDTV signal requires 1.5 Mbps and an HDTV signal requires about 8 Mbps.

What is the role of a set top box (STB) in an IPTV network?
An IP set-top box sits in the house and acts as an interface between the television set and a broadband network. It tunes to the right channel by listening to the multicast address for the channel, and decodes the signals so they can be played by a TV. It keeps a copy of the program guide or electronic program guide (EPG). It handles content protection using digital rights management (DRM). Set-top boxes also come with a browser interface for Web browsing and connectivity to external services provided by the service provider or partners. It provides home networking to connect to other devices like PCs or tablets in the house, and allows the playback and rendering of content stored on the PC (photos, music, and personal videos).

What features are usually provided with IPTV services?
Services like Video on Demand, Digital Video Recording (DVR), Time Shift television, games, interactive television like voting, and purchases from the TV can be provided with IPTV. The key difference between this and regular TV is the interactivity, which is possible because there is an uplink path from the user to the TV headend, which is different from satellite services with a one way path only from the headend to the user.

What is Time Shift Television?
Live TV programs are made available for viewing later by recording a day’s or weeks’ worth of programs either remotely or on a hard disk available on the set top box. These programs can be watched any time rather than only at the scheduled program time. This also allows ads to be skipped while viewing.

What is Digital Video Recording?
Live TV programs are made available for viewing later by recording a day’s or weeks’ worth of programs either remotely or on a hard disk available on the set top box. These programs can be watched any time rather than only at the scheduled program time. This also allows ads to be skipped while viewing.

How is Video on Demand different from Pay per View Services available with Cable and DTH services?
To offer Pay per View Services, a few fixed movies are made available for a period of time and ordered using an out of band message like an SMS. “Out of band” means, that a different medium from the one being used for television is used for communication with the service provider. Some service providers offer set top boxes with hard disk capacity built in, and transfer a collection of movies to the set top box, which can be viewed on purchase. In this case the choice of movies is limited by the capacity of the hard disk. True Video on Demand involves a big collection of movies that sit on the remote server, and that can be accessed from the customer premises whenever needed.

What is the difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4?
MPEG-2 was the original standard compression technique used for digital TV. MPEG-4 (also known as AVC) was introduced for low or variable bit rate mediums like mobile or internet, and various devices like mobile, PC and TV.[1] Demand for High Definition (HD) videos and larger screens made MPEG-4 attractive for the TV medium as well. MPEG-4 provides much higher compression ratios than MPEG-2, and better error protection for unreliable mediums of transport.[2]

Is IPTV service possible over cable?
Yes, IPTV over cable is achieved using the DOCSIS 3.0 specs for Cable, this is described in the module on Cable TV.

[1].http://bit.ly/RcJs47
[2].http://bit.ly/RcJxEN

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/module-7-2-2-faqs

Indian Telegraph Act, 1885

snehashish — 2013-03-15T06:13:26Z

The main object of the Telegraph Act was to give power to the Government to install telegraph lines on private as well as public property.

The Telegraph Act since then gone through numerous amendments in order to accommodate new communication technologies. This is evident from the current definition of ‘telegraph’ under Telegraph Act. It defines ‘telegraph’ as:“

"any appliance, instrument, material or apparatus used or capable of use for transmission or reception of signs, signals, writing, images and sounds or intelligence of any nature by wire, visual or other electro-magnetic emissions, Radio waves or Hertzian waves, galvanic, electric or magnetic means.

Explanation - "Radio waves" or "Hertzian waves" means electro-magnetic waves of frequencies lower than 3,000 giga-cycles per second propagated in space without artificial guide."

Framework of the Act

The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (Telegraph Act) contains six parts. Part I deals with definitions of key words used in the Telegraph Act. Part II grants government the exclusive privilege with respect to telegraph. Part II also gives power to the issue licence to private operators to offer telegraph services. Part IIA was inserted in the Telegraph Act by the Indian Telegraph (Amendment) Act, 2003. It deals with setting up of the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) for the purpose of meeting universal service obligation. (For further details see the Module on USOF). Part III deals with procedures and guidelines to be followed; for installing and maintaining communication equipments. It also lays down guidelines for setting up communication devices in private property and also the procedure for resolution of any dispute which may arise between the service provider and the owner of the private property. Part IV lays down the offences and penalties with respect to unauthorized use of communication or telegraph services. Part V deals with other supplementary provisions.

Exclusive Privilege of the Government with respect to Telegraphs

Section 4 of the Act deals with exclusive privilege of the government to establish, maintain and use telegraphs. It also provides for the government to grant licence to establish, maintain or work a telegraph. The government may grant such licence on certain conditions and for a licence fee.

Section 5 of the Telegraph Act is commonly known as the wire-tapping clause. It gives power to the government to take possession of any licensed telegraphs in case of a public emergency or in the interest of public safety. It can also order interception of communication in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relation with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of an offence. However, the government has to follow the procedure established by law for issuing such order.

The procedures and guidelines for lawful interception was laid down in the case of People’s Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India.[1] In this case the Supreme Court of India ruled that telephone tapping is a serious invasion upon an individual’s privacy. However, lawful interception can be carried out under certain circumstances mentioned in the wiretapping provision.[2] This kind of law interception has to be carried in conformity with certain guidelines which will act as a check on indiscriminate wire-tapping by the law enforcement agencies. It also directed the government to make rules and procedures for carrying out lawful interception of communication. In addition to that it also laid down the basic guidelines for such interception. The main guidelines are:

An order for law interception can only be made by the Home Secretary to the Government of India and home secretaries of state governments. In urgent situations the power may be delegated to an officer of the Home Department of Government of India and state governments and such officer should not be below the rank of joint secretary.
A copy of the order has to be sent to the review committee within one week of issuance of such order.
The authority which issues the order should also record the following information:
- the intercepted communications;
- the extent to which the material is disclosed;
- the number of persons and their identity to whom any of the material is disclosed;
- the extent to which the material is copied; and
- the number of copies made of any of the materials.
The intercepted material can be used only for purposes mentioned under the wire-tapping clause.
The interception will be valid for two month unless it is renewed. However, the total period of interception should not exceed six months.

The government also has the power to notify rates for transmission of messages to countries outside India. While notifying such rates the government must take into consideration: (i) the rates which are applicable at the time; (ii) foreign exchange rates at the time; (iii) rates applicable for transmission of message with India, at the time and (iv) such other circumstance that the Central Government may think fit to be considered.

Section 7 of the Telegraph Act vests with the government the power to make rules for the conduct of telegraphs.

The government has the power to make rule with regard to following issues:

Rates and other conditions and restrictions subject to which messages will be transmitted within India.

Precautions to be taken to prevent improper interception or disclosure of message

Conduct regarding telegram

Conduct and charges regarding use of telegraph lines[3]

Central Government may impose fine if there is any breach of rules made by it under the Telegraph Act. It may also impose fine upon licensees’ if they are found to be in violation of the rules laid down by the Central Government under the Telegraph Act. The Central Government may also revoke any licence granted under the Telegraph Act, in case of breach of any condition or default of payment with respect to the licence.

Section 9 deals with government liability with respect to loss or damage. The government does not take any responsibility for any loss or damage caused by telegraph officer fails in performing his duties. However, such telegraph officer can be held liable if acts negligently, maliciously or fraudulently.

Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF)

USOF is established under Section 9A of the Act. The USOF is under the control of the Central Government under the Act. Section 9D deals with administration and utilisation of such funds. (For further details please refer to the module on USOF).

Power of the Government to place telegraph lines and posts

The telegraph authority has to follow certain procedure for taking possession of land for installing and maintaining telegraph line and posts. The telegraph authority# under section 10 of the Telegraph Act has the power to place, maintain telegraph line on or under or over any immovable property. The telegraph authority has limited powers with respect to installation of telegraph lines and posts. It can only take possession of land for the purpose of installing and maintaining telegraph lines and posts. The telegraph authority will only have the right to use the property for purposes specific to installation and maintenance of telegraph poles and lines. The telegraph authority while installing communication equipment should try to do minimum damage to the property. It will be liable to pay adequate compensation to all the persons who have a stake in such property. The Telegraph Act also gives power to the telegraph authority to enter on property for the purpose of repairing or removing telegraph lines or posts.

Sections 12-15 are the procedure applicable to take possession of property vested in or under the control of or management of local authorities. The telegraph authority has to take permission and pay any expenses for setting up communication equipment on property under the control of a local authority. The local authority may also ask the telegraph authority to remove any telegraph lines or post if it finds it necessary to do so. Any dispute between telegraph authority and local authority will be decided by an officer appointed by the Central Government.

Sections 16 and 17 are applicable to property other any property owned, controlled or managed by any local authority. Sections 18, 19, 19A and 19B are applicable to all kinds of property. Section 18 deals with procedure for removing trees which are interrupting telegraphic communication. Section 19 deals with lines and posts before the passing of this Act. Section 19A states that any person who has legal right over the property where communication equipment is install in accordance with the procedure under this Act has to give notice to the telegraph authority in writing, if such persons act is likely to interfere with telegraph communication or damage telegraph equipment. Section 19B allows the Central Government to confer certain powers of the telegraph authority upon the licensee.

Part IV: Penalties

Sections 20 to 32 deal with offences and penalties under the Telegraph

Offence	Ingredients of the Offence	Penalty/Fine
S.20: Establishing, maintaining or working unauthorised telegraph	any person: establishes, maintains or works a telegraph within India without proper licence or authorization from the government	In case of wireless telegraph: Imprisonment which may extend to 3 years, or with fine, or with both Any other case: Fine which may extend up to Rs. 1000 Offences under this section with respect to wireless telegraph is bailable and non-cognizable
S.20A: Breach of condition of licence	If a licensee is held to be in breach of any condition contained in license.	Fine which may extend to Rs. 1000. Further fine of Rs. 500 per week for the duration the licensee is in violation of the licence conditions.
S.21: Using unauthorized telegraph	If any person, knowing or having reason to believe that a telegraph has been established or is maintained or worked in contravention of this Act, transmits or receives any message by such telegraph, or performs any service incidental thereto, or delivers any message for transmission by such telegraph or accepts delivery of any message sent thereby	Fine which may extend to fifty rupees
S.22: Opposing establishment of telegraphs on railway land	If a Railway Company, or an officer of a Railway Company, neglects or refuses to comply with the provision which gives power to the Central Government to establish telegraph on land of Railway Company	Fine which may extend to Rs. 1000 for every day during which the neglect or refusal continues.
S.23: Intrusion into signal-room, trespass in telegraph office or obstruction	If any person without permission of -competent authority, enters the signal-room of a telegraph office of the government, or of a person licensed under this Act, or enters a fenced enclosure round such a telegraph office in contravention of any rule or notice not to do so, or refuses to quit such room or enclosure on being requested to do so by any officer or servant employed therein, or wilfully obstructs or impedes any such officer or servant in the performance of his duty,	Fine which may extend to Rs. 500.
S.24: Unlawfully attempting to learn contents of messages	If any person does any of the acts mentioned in section 23 with the intention of unlawfully learning the contents of any message, or of committing any offence punishable under this Act	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 1 year in addition to the fine with which he is punishable under section 23 i.e. fine upto Rs. 500
S. 25: Intentionally damaging or tampering with telegraphs	If any person intending to prevent or obstruct the transmission or delivery of any message, or to intercept or to acquaint himself with the contents of any message, or to commit mischief, damages, removes, tampers with or touches any battery, machinery, telegraph line, post or other thing whatever, being part of or used in or about any telegraph or in the working thereof,	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years, or with fine or with both.
S.25A: Injury to or interference with a telegraph line or post.	If, in any case not provided for by section 25, any person deals with any property and thereby wilfully or negligently damages any telegraph line or post duly placed on such property in accordance with the provisions of this Act Exception: the provisions of this section shall not apply where such damage or interruption is caused by a person dealing with any property in the legal exercise of a right if he has complied with the provisions of section 19A (1).]	Expenses (if any) as may be incurred in making good such damage, and shall also, if the telegraphic communication is by reason of the damage so caused interrupted, be punishable with a fine which may extend to Rs. 1000.
S.26: Telegraph officer or other making away with or altering , or unlawfully intercepting or disclosing, messages, or divulging purport of signals	If any telegraph officer, or any person, who is not a telegraph officer but has official duties at any telegraph office: willfully, conceals, makes away with or alters any message which he has received for transmission or delivery, or willfully, and otherwise than in obedience to an order of the Central Government or of a State Government, or of an officer specially authorized [by the Central or a State Government] to make the order, omits to transmit, or intercepts or detains, any message or any part thereof, or discloses the contents or any part the contents of any message, to any person not entitled to receive the same, or divulges the purport of any telegraphic signal to any person not entitled to become acquainted with the same, Except in pursuance of his official duty or in obedience to the direction of a competent Court does such an act.	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.
S.27: Telegraph officer fraudulently sending messages without payment.	If any telegraph officer transmits by telegraph any message on which the charge prescribed by the Central Government, or by a person licensed under this Act, as the case may be, has not been paid, intending thereby to defraud the Central Government, or that person.	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 years, or with fine, or with both.
S.28: Misconduct	If any telegraph officer, or any person not being a telegraph officer but having official duties connected with any office which is used as a telegraph office is guilty of any act of drunkenness, carelessness of other misconduct whereby the correct transmission or the delivery of any message is impeded or delayed or if telegraph officer loiters or delays in the transmission or delivery of any message.	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 3 months, or with fine which may extend to Rs. 1000, or with both
S.29A: Penalty	If any person, without due authority, - makes or issues any fake or forged document which is believed to be issued by, or under the authority of, the Director-General of [Posts and Telegraphs], or forged or fake stamp or mark of any Telegraph Office under the Director General of [Posts and Telegraph]	Fine which may extend to Rs. 50
S.30: Retaining a message delivered by mistake	If any person fraudulently retains, or conceals removes holds without any reason any message which ought to have been delivered to some other person, or, being required by a telegraph officer to deliver up any such message, neglects of refuses to do so	Imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years, or with fine, or with both.

Section 31 deals with bribery and section 32 states that, “whoever attempts to commit any offence punishable under this Act shall be punished with the punishment herein provided for the offence.

Part V: Supplementary Provisions

Section 33 deals with the power of the State Government to employ additional police force in place where mischief to telegraph is repeatedly committed.

[1].(1997) 1 SCC 318
[2].Section 5(2), Indian Telegraph Act.
[3].Section 3(4), Telegraph Act, 1885 – “telegraph line” means a wire or wires used for the purpose of a telegraph, with any casing, coating, tube or pipe enclosing the same, and any appliances and apparatus connected therewith for the purpose of fixing or insulating the same.
[4].Section 3(6), Telegraph Act.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/resources/indian-telegraph-act

Centre for Internet and Society

Super WiFi & Shared Spectrum: A Time to Start Sharing

Super Wi-Fi using TVWS

TVWS trials

Super WiFi Trials

TVWS and shared spectrum vs refarming

The advantages of spectrum sharing

Space for constructive decisions

TRAI Regulations

Spectrum Management

3.5.1: Auctioning and allocating process for all kinds of spectrum

Minimum Reserve Price

Beauty Contest

3.5.2. & 3.5.3.: The initial process of selection of operators for allocation of spectrum

Drawbacks in the mechanism of issuing telecom licence

Spectrum Management under New Telecom Policy, 1999

Implementation of the Spectrum Management Policy under NTP, 1999

Unified Access Service Licence

Allocation of 3G and Broadband Wireless Spectrum

3.5.4 & 3.5.6.: Selection of Band and Criterion for further allocation of spectrum

Start-up Allocation of Spectrum (1995- 2001)

Post UASL Regime (2003-2005)

Review of Spectrum Allocation Process by TRAI and setting up of new Subscriber Base Criterion (2006-2008)

Allocation of 3G Spectrum (2010-Current)

3.5.5.: Time taken to allocate

3.5.7. Interference issues

3.5.8. & 3.5.9.: Spectrum Refarming and Spectrum Reallocation

Market Driven

Policy or Regulation Driven

Refarming and Reallocation in India

October 2012 Bulletin

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