Background
The growth of Indian Telecommunications sector has been astounding, particularly in the last 3 years. India, with 250 million subscribers as of October 2007 is adding about 8 million new telephone subscribers every month, mostly mobile. Wireless subscribers are growing at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of above 90 per cent per annum since 2003. This growth has been catalysed by telecommunications sector liberalization and reforms. Some of the areas needing immediate attention to consolidate and maintain the growth are:
- Capacity building for industry talent pool
- Continuous adaptation of the regulatory environment to facilitate induction/ adoptation of high potential new technologies and business models
- Bridging of high rural - urban teledensity/digital divide
- Faster deployment of broadband infrastructure across the country
Necessity for Centres of Excellence (COEs)
The unprecedented growth of innovative services and technologies are challenging the existing demarcation of business markets, services, providers, users and government regulations in the Information & Communication industry. Many of the existing legal provisions governing telecommunication and broadcasting have become outdated and there is a need for a unified regulatory mechanism.The solution to these problems can only be tackled by extensive in- house research and talent development. If the growth rate is to be sustained, the problems of the rural hinterland need to be tackled at a faster pace, as the urban sector will soon get saturated thus stagnating the growth.
Proposed Centres of Excellence will fill the gap, which has been created due to rapid pace of evolution and growth of Telecom sector. Broadly these COE will be working on (i) enhancing talent pool, (ii) technological innovation, (iii) secure information infrastructure and (iv) bridging of digital divide. These COEs will also cater to requirements of South Asia as regional leaders.
Objectives of COEs
The COEs will provide platform for think tank activities with the following objective:
- Each one focuses on a niche area of activity in the telecom domain to build excellence that is at par with world standard rather than getting defocused by embracing the vast spread of telecom technology.
- Undertake India specific application development that matches with behavioral pattern of the masses and adds value to their day-to-day activities both economic and social.
- Undertake cross-pollination of best practices world over and make it suitable in Indian context. This helps in creating optimal models that avoids duplication and wastage of recourses especially in the field of the converging Information & Communication Technology.
- Macro Infrastructure planning that enables a systematic and sustained growth in a cost effective manner.
- Creation of market ready talent pool and continuous talent building endeavor through training of the trainer.
- Integration and bench marking of technology that can ultimately lead to form standards for manufacturing or rendering services.
- Create an environment of Innovation in the top academic institutes of the country to enable absorption of the current technology and develop future ready indigenous capability.
Constitution & Structure of COE
The main sponsor (one of the telecom operators), the academic institute where the Centers will be located and the tentative field of excellence are enumerated in the table below:
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Field of Excellence in Telecom
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Associated Institute
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Sponsor
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Next Generation Network & Network Technology
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IIT, Kharagpur
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Vodafone Essar
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Telecom Technology & Management
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IIT, Delhi
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Bharti Airtel
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Technology Integration, Multimedia & Computational Maths
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IIT, Kanpur
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BSNL
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Telecom Policy, Regulation, Governance, Customer Care & Marketing
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IIM, Ahmedabad
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IDEA Cellular
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Telecom Infrastructure & Energy
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IIT, Chennai
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Reliance
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Disaster Management of Info systems & Information Security
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IISc, Bangalore
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Aircel
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Rural Application
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IIT Mumbai
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Tata Telecom
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Spectrum Management (Proposed)
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WPC, Chennai
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Govt with Industry consortium
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Organisation
Functioning of the Centers of Excellence
Infrastructure: The infrastructures for the Centers of Excellence would be initially provided by the respective institutes and the deficiencies, if any, would be gradually built up under the financial provisions of the COE. It is expected that maximum of the fund support will be used for active Research and Development activities.
Organization: There will be a two tier organizational structure for functioning of the Centers of Excellence; a governing council for strategic planning and an autonomous core group at each centre for tackling local issues. There will be a coordinating centre, which will co-ordinate activities amongst the COE. The governing council will be formed under the chairmanship of Secretary DoT with the heads of the seven sponsoring organizations and heads of the institutes as members of the governing council and it shall be serviced by the coordinating centre which is to be set up at C-DoT. Each center will be managed by the Core Group under the co-chairmanship of the Head of the institute and sponsor operator consisting of at least seven members.
Coordinating Centre: It will have industry representatives with requisite domain knowledge in running such COEs and will have infrastructure and support from C-DoT. ITU will be consulted for putting a representative of theirs in the Coordinating Centre to bring in international perspective in and out.
Funding: These will be funded by the sponsoring service provider (90%) and Government of India (10%). The Coordinating Center will get its budget through grants from Government and sponsoring organizations.
Future Roadmap for COEs
(i) Collaboration for COEs with foreign universities of Eminence
Association of foreign universities with the COEs will bring in the international perspective in respect of regulatory and technological issues. This relationship will keep COEs in sync with the evolution and challenges in the telecom sector. The association will also keep the COEs updated about the latest international practices including in spectrum management.
The relationship will also bring in considerable benefits to foreign universities in respect of access to research of such a large, reputed and efficient talent pool in Telecom R&D. This will also facilitate the capacity building of telecom professionals in South Asia and other emerging markets. These COEs will also help passing on the best practices followed in Indian telecom sector which has made it one of the most efficient and low cost telecom network in the world.
During India Telecom 2007, a roundtable has been scheduled on Innovation and Development in Telecom through Centers of Excellence Foreign universities, IITs, IISc and IIMA shall be participating in the event. The broad objectives of the event are to identify the synergies between various institutions and to build a partnerships for mutual benefits.
- It is envisaged that bilateral tie ups will spawn with the interaction at the round table.
- The Coordination Centre will act as facilitator between Indian COEs and foreign universities to ensure that engagements fructify into a partnership.
- It is envisaged that each COE would have at least one collaboration by mid 2008
(ii) Setting up of VPN among COEs for sharing the research results
A VPN will be set up with hub at the coordination Centre (being set up at the premises of CDOT, Delhi) to facilitate sharing of research results and to promote collaborative research.
For more details please contact
www.tcoe.in
- Commodore J Jena
Asst. Director General (Special Projects)
Email:- jjena@coai.in
GSM:- +91 98991 50066
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