NEW DELHI: India which has fiberization at 35.11% currently, needs to cover more than 35 lakh kilometre with fibre across the country between fiscal 2023 and fiscal 2025 to enable 5G networks, facilitate edge data centers and small cells, said an industry body of telecom infrastructure providers.
The Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA) also called on the Centre to permit the sharing of optical fibre sharing among telecom companies, an idea being explored globally, to help telcos realize Capex and Opex savings.
“In comparison to fibre, microwave is cheaper, scalable option and can be deployed quickly. Conventional microwave wireless-based backhaul cannot support 5G’s multi-Gigabit speed requirements. This necessitates OFC (optical fibre cable) deployment to enable 5G networks,” said T R Dua, Director-General of DIPA in a letter to telecom secretary K Rajaraman.
DIPA represents tower companies such as Indus Towers, American Tower Corporation, Summit Digital Infrastructure, Ascend Telecom, and others.
“However, with only ~35.1% of towers currently connected by fibre, India trails many other developing nations. In spite of India being the second largest telecommunications market, the fibre kilometre (fkm) per capita in India is lower than in other nations,” Dua said.
DIPA cited an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report, according to which more than 60% of the population in Europe lives within 10 kilometres of a fibre optic network, in contrast, this is just 22% in the Asia Pacific, even lower than Africa (25%) and the Arab states (26%).
“The benefits of OFC are backhaul of choice, fronthaul from small cells. enabler of edge computing, network security, energy efficiency and contributes to affordability of services,” Dua said in the letter.
The Centre in its National Broadband Mission has envisaged fiberizing 70% of India’s base transceiver stations (BTS) by 2025, which Dua said is an “ideal requirement” for rollout of 5G services.
A report by London-based telco body GSMA said Indian telcos are expected to invest around $19.5 billion in 5G infrastructure by 2025.
“The soaring dollar is also expected to have a marginal impact on the network Capex of telecom operators in fiscal 2023. While fiberization can be achieved through domestic procurement, BTS procurement relies highly on imports (70-75% of the total telecom equipment market),” added Dua. He said this could be overcome through OFC sharing which will allow telcos to save on Capex and Opex, as well as achieve higher cash flows.
“IP-1 led deployment of fibre could result in numerous benefits. At present, service providers are not sharing laid fiber with each other and hence bearing the entire Capex & Opex for laying and maintaining the same,” the industry group said.
DIPA proposed that Infrastructure Provider (IP) will lay the fibre which can then be shared with service providers in a non-discriminatory manner. “Multiple digging over same route can be avoided. The overall cost of the project will be optimized and facilitate 5G rollout strategies of service providers.”
