Report on Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020 - Telecom Sector Innovation Council
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Report
on
Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation
2010-2020
Telecom Sector Innovation Council
1
Table of Contents
1. Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 5
2.1 Overview of Opportunities for Innovations in the Telecom Sector.............................................. 6
2.2 Need for Innovation in Indian Telecom Sector ............................................................................. 8
3. Creation of Innovation Ecosystem - Present Status and Recommendations .................................... 10
3.1 Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) ............................................................................................... 10
3.2 Telecom Equipment Manufacturers ............................................................................................ 12
3.3 Academia ....................................................................................................................................... 14
3.4 R&D Organizations ...................................................................................................................... 17
3.5 VAS and Applications Development ............................................................................................ 24
3.6 Government policies and initiatives for telecom sector .............................................................. 25
4. Telecom Sector’s Roadmap for Innovation, 2010-2020 ....................................................................... 29
4.1 Innovation ..................................................................................................................................... 29
4.2 Recommended role of TSIC .......................................................................................................... 29
4.3 Innovation metrics for telecom sector ......................................................................................... 30
4.4 Suggested roadmap for Telecom Service Providers domain ...................................................... 31
4.5 Academia ....................................................................................................................................... 33
4.6 Telecom R&D Centres / Design houses and VAS developers ..................................................... 33
4.7 Telecom Equipment Manufacturers ............................................................................................ 35
4.8 Government policies ..................................................................................................................... 35
5. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................................ 36
References: ...................................................................................................................................................... 37
Annex 1: DoT Memo on setting up of Telecom Sector Innovation Council (TSIC) .................................... 38
Annex 2 Innovation in China ................................................................................................................. 40
Annex 3 ........................................................................................................................................................... 42
Annex 4 ........................................................................................................................................................... 46
Annex 5 ........................................................................................................................................................... 49
Annex 6 ........................................................................................................................................................... 54
Annex 7 ........................................................................................................................................................... 57
Annex 8 ........................................................................................................................................................... 58
Annex 9 ........................................................................................................................................................... 60
Annex 10 ......................................................................................................................................................... 62
6. Addendum .............................................................................................................................................. 66
2Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
1. Executive Summary
1. Realizing the centrality of innovation to a country’s economic well being, the
Government of India has declared 2010-2020 as the “Decade of Innovation’’
with focus on inclusive growth. Innovation, in today’s globalized economy, is
recognized as as great, perhaps greater, a contributor to a country’s wealth as
the natural resources. Accordingly, the Government, in its endeavour to have
an innovation led inclusive growth, has set up National Innovation Council
(NInC). Sectoral Innovation Councils (SInCs) have also been mandated to
bring sectoral focus and devise implementation strategies. Accordingly,
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) under the Ministry of
Communications and IT (MOCIT), has constituted a Telecom Sector
Innovation Council (TSIC). The Telecom sector has proved to be an
unqualified success of the economic reforms. It has registered a phenomenal
growth in the recent past. Building on this success, the sector has to address
greater challenges in the near future - like those of increasing rural
penetration and proliferating broadband connections, where there is still a lot
to be done, both in urban as well as rural areas. These challenges will need
many more innovative products, services and solutions. TSIC has, as per its
mandate, deliberated on the issue of promotion of innovations in Telecom
sector and prepared this report.
2. This report takes up various domains or subsectors of Telecom and discusses
their present status, the opportunities for innovation and the ways to
encourage and facilitate it. In other words, an attempt has been made to
suggest ways to create an ecosystem for innovation in the sector. Key metrics
to assess innovation in the sector have also been identified. Finally a Telecom
Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020 has been outlined, keeping in view
the thrust areas of the telecom sector for the present decade.
3. The telecom sector has been divided into following domains for the purpose of
this report,
i. Telecom Service Providers (TSPs)
ii. Telecom equipment/components’ manufacturers
iii. Universities conducting researching in the cutting edge telecom
technologies (Academia)
iv. Telecom/IT R&D organisations
v. Software services/VAS developers
vi. Government policies
Inputs and recommendations received from various stakeholders in the
domains, combined with research on various aspects of innovation, have been
included in the report.
3Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
4. An Innovation Roadmap for the 2010-2020 has been envisioned which focuses
on the following major thrust areas,
a. Improving indigenous telecom manufacturing in the country.
b. Strengthening telecom infrastructure which is important, both, from
security and economic growth points of view.
c. Enhancing R&D activities to increase the level of expertise in the
country. R&D organizations, Industry and Universities, all have been
included.
d. Developing national telecom standards relevant to Indian conditions
and to work towards their incorporation in the International standards
by participating in the deliberations and activities of the
standardization bodies.
e. Influencing Govt. policies in e-governance / e-empowerment services.
f. Assisting in formulation of government policies to support the
ubiquitous adoption of advanced information technologies and the
broader digital transformation of the society and the economy.
5. The major recommendations that emerge from this report are
a. Continuation and Reconstitution of TSIC and providing fiscal support
to TSIC for promotion of innovation in the telecom sector.
b. Providing market access to Indian telecom products /services in Indian
telecom networks.
c. Setting up of a Telecom Research Development Fund (TRDF) for
financing of development projects and creation of an enabling
environment for telecom R&D.
d. Mapping of all innovation initiatives by TSIC.
e. Implementation of TRAI Recommendations on Telecom
Manufacturing.
f. Creation of Telecom Standards Development Organization (TSDO).
g. Encouragement to Telecom Technology incubation centres at IITs, IISc,
IIMs & NITs
h. Extending support for innovation related activities to all stakeholders
in the sector.
i. Supporting innovative green and energy efficient technologies /
solutions in the sector.
4Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
2. Introduction
The Government of India has declared 2010-2020 as the “Decade of Innovation’’
with focus on inclusive growth. To help implement national strategy and prepare a
roadmap for the decade 2010-20, a mesh of National Innovation Council (NInC),
State Innovation Councils (SInC) and Sectoral Innovation Councils has been formed
under the overall guidance of Shri Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the PM on Public
Information Infrastructure and Innovations (PIII). NInC, thus became the first
initiative in creating a crosscutting system which will provide mutually reinforcing
policies, recommendations and methodologies to implement and boost innovation
performance in the country. In order to drive innovative strategies and enhance
innovative capabilities in key sectors and create multiple roadmaps, the NInC took
the initiative to create multiple Sectoral Innovation Councils aligned to various
Ministries of the Union Government. Accordingly, the Department of
Telecommunications (DoT) constituted a Telecom Sector Innovation Council (TSIC)
to deliberate on various aspects of innovation in telecom sector and submit a report.
The composition of the TSIC is as follows:-
Shri V V R Sastry, Executive Director, C-DOT Chairman
Shri N K Shrivastava, (then) Sr DDG, TEC Member
Representative from FICCI Member
Representative from CII Member
Representative from COAI Member
Representative from AUSPI Member
Representative from TCOE Member
(Maximum 3 in number)
Representative from TEMA Member
Representative from Assocham Member
The chairman later co-opted Mr. B S Chauhan, GM(Sys), C-DOT as member–
secretary to this council.
The terms of reference of the council are:
a) Map opportunities for innovation in Telecom sector
b) Help create innovation eco-system
c) Encourage young talent and local universities, colleges, industries, R&D
institutes
d) Identify and reward talent in innovation and disseminate success stories
e) Organize seminars, lectures, workshops on innovation
f) Provide support to promote innovation in Telecom sector
g) Encourage innovations in public service delivery
5Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
h) Prepare a Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
The formation of the TSIC and its Terms of References were notified vide a DoT
communication no. 8-6/2010 – TCO dated 4th April 2011 (Copy at Annex 1).
TSIC convened its first meeting on 26th April 2011 at C-DOT Delhi. The meeting
was attended by the representatives of all the member organisations. During the
meeting, the background for formation of TSIC, its intended role and its short term
tasks were presented to the members and the needed actions in this direction were
deliberated. The minutes were released on 3rd May 2011 and, as decided in the
meeting, a document requesting inputs from the members for the roadmap
document was mailed to all on 10th May 2011. The inputs from TEMA, TEC, AUSPI,
CII, COAI and TCOE were received at different times (M/s Assocham forwarded the
inputs of its members TEMA and AUSPI, which were also received directly). The
second meeting of the council was held on 21st July 2011 in TEC Committee Room,
Delhi where the members’ inputs and the roadmap were deliberated upon. Broad
consensus was arrived at on preparation of the roadmap after exchange of many
inputs through emails and electronic interactions. After summarizing all these
inputs, this report has been prepared.
2.1 Overview of Opportunities for Innovations in the Telecom Sector
Innovation is a process of taking new ideas to the market. It is the conversion of
new knowledge into new products, processes and services. Innovation, as a process,
starts with the invention of a new element/idea, goes through practical development
of this new element/idea and culminates in its commercialization. Innovation
encompasses a number of processes related to new products, the search, discovery,
experimentation, development, imitation and adoption of new products, new
production processes and new organizational setups. Innovation can be incremental,
modular, architectural and radical as depicted in the table below,
Effects on links between components
Yes No
Effects on components Yes Radical Modular
No Architectural Incremental
Table 2.1: Categorization of Innovations
The three major technological innovations that have taken place in the Electronics,
Telecommunications & IT are:
i. Innovations in digitalization, computerization, and miniaturization
ii. Innovations in the Internet, Mobile communications, Packet based Next
Generation Networks (NGN) leading to convergence of services.
iii. Innovations related to ICT as a generic technology to redesign and rationalize
production, administration and transaction processes and to create new
processes and products to create the information society.
6Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
The successful innovations in digitalization, computerization and TDM switching in
nineties could be attributed to the indigenization of the technologies which not only
kept the prices of telecom imports low, as there was always a competing Indian
product, but also gave the self-confidence to Indian R&D and manufacturing segments
to forge ahead with a confidence that comes
from the nation’s ability to complete the
Excerpts from an article by Dr B D
development of a complex piece of hardware
Pradhan, Executive Director, C-DOT from
1990-95.
and software through its own efforts. This was
well proved by C-DOT Switching products.
“ The C-DOT RAX continues to be seen as Korea also experienced similar surge in
C-DOT’s major success. It has become national confidence and capabilities following
renowned the world over for its versatility
indigenous development of switch TDX-11.
and ruggedness. ... The early successes of
the RAX in the country prompted us to Unlike Korea, however, the success of C-DOT
explore the markets abroad. One of the in developing TDM switches did not result in a
first countries we explored was China.
sustained growth of indigenous telecom
The CMD of TCIL and I actually carried a
64-port version of the RAX to Beijing and manufacturing industry. The indigenous R&D
Shanghai. While the Chinese showed a and manufacturing languished. Most of the
great deal of interest, we realized that remarkable growth in tele-density in the
they would resist its import from India.
country has been achieved with the help of
While there, we also visited the local
telecom factories. The factories we saw imported technology and products.
were primitive compared to our ITI. In
India’s highly successful IT sector has, through
some factories, workers were idle and
waiting for components to arrive from its services, helped others to develop
Europe for completing the assembly of innovative products and systems. However, the
their equipment. That the Chinese have sector’s product ownership and the
been able to develop their Telecom penetration of IT, with its attendant efficiency
Industry and Infrastructure from that benefits, in country’s own enterprises and
level of primitiveness to world class levels governance remains sub-optimal. Clearly, ICT
today, is to be admired. It is difficult to innovations are needed to create generic
avoid a sense of disappointment that, technology to redesign and rationalize
despite our much advanced state of production, administration, and transaction
development at that time, we were unable processes and to create new processes and
to move quickly ahead during the last 15
products to transform the society as a whole to
years and leapfrog in the development,
manufacturing and deployment of telecom an information society.
equipment in the way the Chinese did.”
1 References: Switch is on: Korea, A paper on TDX project
http://cnr.kaist.ac.kr/lecture/ee526_2006/hw/Switch_is_on.pdf
Yang Seung-taik: Digital Divide & Cyber Korea 21 Initiative
(http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/apcity/unpan006161.pdf
7Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
2.2 Need for Innovation in Indian Telecom Sector
Telecom has been one bright spot in India’s growth story of last two decades. This
sector has performed admirably in registering outstanding growth rates
consistently to achieve a tele-density which is over 74% now. The tariffs are the
lowest in the world. The multiplier effect of the vastly expanded and improved
telecommunication services has been visible and has contributed handsomely to the
GDP growth of the country. Much as these achievements look impressive, they have
been attained primarily with the help of
imported technology and products. During An engineer working on CCS7
2009-10, the indigenous telecom signalling in C-DOT was invited to
manufacturing industry contributed ETRI, Seoul, Korea in 1992 under
marginally, just 12-13%, to the telecom UNDP programme. The Koreans were
operators’ requirements of networking working on Intelligent Networks (IN).
equipment / solutions or consumers’ The engineers there had Korean
requirements of terminal equipment. The translations of ITU documents relevant
net outflow of capital on account of to their work. One thing that struck
telecom imports is staggering at USD 12 him was the large number of a Protocol
tester. Almost every work bench
Billion in 2009-10, second only to
working on an IN protocol had one
country’s oil import bill. It is projected to Protocol tester to itself. In C-DOT,
grow to USD 21 Billion in 2015 and USD there was only one such tester as it was
37 Billion by 2020. It is predicted that if expensive, above US$ 100,000. It
the same situation continues, the telecom brought home one major difference
imports bill will soon overtake oil imports. between ETRI and C-DOT. They were
The lack of indigenous manufacturing in willing to back their teams and invest to
this sector also means that the country is have timely rollouts.
deprived of a great number of jobs. Job
creation is important to ensure that a higher percentage of population moves to
manufacturing or service sector from agriculture for greater overall prosperity of
the society. The manufacturing sector creates jobs for all levels of skills; from
unskilled, semi-skilled to highly skilled experts.
In state support for innovations, we have the example of other economies like
China, Taiwan and Korea in the fast growing Asian region before us. China in
particular, has placed the full force of the state behind the indigenous innovation.
They coined words like co-innovation and re-innovation to lay claims on the
technology developed in the west. The lure of a huge market was used to invite
transnational companies into the parlour and part with their technology2.
Another reason for greater advocacy of indigenous capabilities and manufacturing
is from the angle of country’s security. Telecom is a strategic infrastructure. The
physical and financial security of the country relies ever more heavily on its telecom
2 James McGregor, Senior Counselor, APCO Worldwide: China’s drive for
Indigenous Innovation - A web of Industrial Policies.
8Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
infrastructure these days. Adversaries can inflict huge damages on country’s
security, economy and social fabric by disrupting its network, destroy or tamper
with databases and steal sensitive information. Indigenous technologies and
manufacturing are important not only to keep the malware and other security
vulnerabilities out but also to develop our knowledge base and expertise to help us
in security testing and certification of telecom equipment.
9Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
3. Creation of Innovation Ecosystem - Present Status and
Recommendations
To address the need for indigenous telecom innovation, the old paradigm of import
substitution will not work in the new liberalized and globalized scenario. The
Indian telecom products need to have a “strong dose of innovation” to create
differentiations in performance, price, features and adaptation to Indian conditions.
To create such an innovation eco-system we need to study the present status of
various sub-sectors (domains) of telecom sector and arrive at specific
recommendations for each of these domains.
The telecom sector in the country can be sub-divided into following six domains:
1. Service Providers (TSPs, ISPs, MNSPs, etc.)
2. Telecom Equipment Manufacturers
3. Academia & universities
4. Telecom/IT R&D organisations
5. Software services/VAS developers
6. Government policies
Status of these domains, innovation opportunities and recommendations given by
the major players are summarized in the following part of the document.
3.1 Telecom Service Providers (TSPs)
Telecom operators in the country have played a commendable role in expanding the
network to its present level where it is world’s second largest network. The tariffs
are the lowest in the world, making telecom a truly affordable service. The
10Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
challenge continues, as the next 400 million subscribers will come from rural areas
where the tele-density is still poor compared to the urban areas. The ARPUs will be
still lower while a poor infrastructure will add to the capex and opex pressures. This
certainly calls for innovations to register growth amidst such challenges. Operators
have been good practitioners of innovation to reach the present level of network
coverage, servicing a large clients’ base in different geographies with different
cultures, use pattern and challenges of infrastructure and operations. Most of the
innovations are internal and gives them competitive advantage over others and
hence not readily shared with the industry as best practices. The good performance
of the Telecom Operators indicates that the managements must be doing enough to
motivate and reward innovations to retain their business edge. The responses to
the questionnaire from two major telecom operators associations in the country,
namely AUSPI and COAI are enclosed. (Annex 3 and 4)
While telecom operators are supportive of their own innovations, they are wary of
using the results of R&D and manufacturing sectors’ innovations. Operators want
well proven products which will give trouble free service. This is not only important
from customer satisfaction and operational revenues point of view but is also
mandated by the regulator TRAI which stipulates penalties for deficiency or
discontinuity of services. The indigenously developed and manufactured equipment,
in all likelihood, follow an evolutionary path where experience derived from field
deployment is used to improve the product and services. In fact field trial and initial
deployments are almost a part of the development process. For this reason, many
countries have, at some point of time, reserved part of their telecom markets and
spectrum for the home companies.
The operators oppose imposition of mandatory quotas for indigenously developed
/manufactured products in their network. They are willing to adopt Indian products
if they are of equivalent quality and prices as the imported ones. There are several
compelling commercial reasons for telecom operators to prefer imported network
equipment. The transnational corporations are able to offer very attractive
financing terms, of deferred payments, very low rates of interest, revenue sharing
model or a combination of some or all of these. Often, the equipment manufacturer
is an equity participant of the operator and has a say in the procurement decisions.
Then, MNS (Managed Network Services) are increasingly being used by the
operators. Highly vertically integrated companied like Ericsson, Huawei etc. have
cornered a large share of MNS business. This leaves little scope for Indian products
companies who do not have the scale and product range of these companies.
Nevertheless, the TSPs are using indigenously innovated and developed VAS
products, mostly from SMEs, where it makes good business sense to them. It shows
that the TSPs are not averse to using indigenous products so long as they are able
to measure up to foreign technology products in price and performance.
As of now Indian TSPs are not very keen on having R&D of their own unlike their
large MNC counterparts like Vodafone. As Indian TSPs grow further in size and
diversify their operations, which is already happening with Africa and Sri Lanka
forays of Airtel, they will see value in R&D, whether of their own or in collaboration
with R&D organizations, innovations and IP for better value creation.
11Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
Recommendations of Telecom Service providers to encourage innovation:
a. Following service areas should be focussed for innovations:
Application areas special to rural sector
Security network and areas related to it with reference to service
sector etc.
Content development specific to Indian conditions and environment
Increased data centre and user solution network, platform by
Government for public.
Tele-education products, tuitions, tests
b. Should create sectoral Entrepreneurship Development Centres.
c. Should have generous public funding.
d. Thrust on IPR generation in the initial 3-5 years.
e. Tax burdens should be reduced by Government leaving sufficient margin to
the operators to invest in innovations.
f. Need to create SDO (Standards Development Organisation) to globalise
innovations.
3.2 Telecom Equipment Manufacturers
Today, market access is the major hurdle for A Time magazine article on the
telecom manufacturing companies to become cost breakup of a US$ 500+
significant contributors to national economy. Some iPhone gives following figures;
of the telecom manufacturing companies have Components $ 174,
their in-house R&D setups. In that sense, they are Manufacturing $ 6, Remaining
$ 321 on sales, distribution
both creators and consumers of intellectual
expenses (say $ 100), IPR and
property. The SMEs, in particular, rely heavily on profit ($ 221). IPR cost is really
incremental and radical innovations of their own R&D and design expenditure
to come out with new products / solutions. amortised over product’s
However, the problems of market access acts as a lifetime, higher initially and
big dampener to their efforts and motivation to do lowered progressively to reduce
R&D, product development and innovate. There the price when competing
have been several cases where indigenously products appear in the market.
developed products, with Indian IP, have been
kept out by commercial conditions of the tenders that favour imports. There have
been cases where products developed in the country by Indian companies have
fallen prey to predatory pricing by foreign companies, who often get all support from
their governments.
The telecom manufacturing industry in the country had been quite vibrant in the
nineties. It is pertinent to quote C-DOT’s example to illustrate that a lot can be
achieved with Government’s support for indigenous development and access to the
market as was evident in the case of C-DOT’s indigenously developed digital
switching technology. There was political will to support the indigenous technology
12Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
developed for local conditions. ITI’s 3rd Switching factory was established solely to
manufacture C-DOT developed switches for the expansion and digitalization of the
telephony network.
In post liberalization period, C-DOT continued to work on telecom projects but faced
problems of market access. Some private sector players also invested in R&D to
come out with innovative products. Barring a few successes, they have also faced
problems of market access.
The state of innovation in telecom manufacturing sub-sector and the challenges
faced by them are given in the form of responses to a questionnaire by a council
member, TEMA (Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association) placed at annex 5.
Feedback received from CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) is at annex 6.
Recommendations of Telecom equipment Manufacturers:
1. Should setup a Central Coordinating organization within Govt of India,
which should be responsible for
i Development of roadmap of technology in India for next three to five
years.
ii All the indigenisation programmes
iii Manage the disbursement of Funds to support budding Indian
companies.
iv Implementation of policies of Govt on preferential access and Market
Pull to ensure that Companies in India buy Indian Products.
v Ensuring that Indian companies get a working capital at very
competitive interest rates which are available worldwide (around 2%)
vi Ensuring that all Strategic Govt projects are based on Indian Products
and companies are informed in advance to develop products suiting to
those requirements.
vii Ensuring Globalisation of Indian Products and Technologies
viii Providing significantly larger amount (100% of reimbursement) for
filing and maintaining patents in India, as well as globally. The
current limit on such support from the government is very low and the
procedure is very cumbersome (An article from ‘The Economist’ on
patenting in China at Annex 2).
2. It is felt that TRAI recommendations of April 2011 on Telecom Manufacturing
address the issue very comprehensively. All the relevant issues have been
discussed at length in the report. The report discusses and makes
recommendations on,
a. Low contribution of DMP (Domestically Manufactured Products,
further divided into Indian Products, IP, and India Manufactured
Product, IMP) in the expansion of telecom network in the country.
b. Fiscal disadvantages faced by DMP.
13Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
c. The problems of market access.
d. The highly disadvantaged state of components’ industry where imports
of finished goods attract no custom duties but components and raw
material thereof attract custom and excise duties as well as central
and state sales taxes.
3. The TRAI recommendations can be accessed at TRAI site3
It is highly desirable to implement the recommendations to revitalize the telecom
manufacturing sector and to bring in innovations in the sector.
3.3 Academia
Academia has great dual responsibility of capacity building and leading R&D. It is
from these national technical and management institutes that the needed
innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs, managers and business leaders emerge. In
developed world, graduate students and research scholars form the bedrock of R&D
community and there is also a healthy industry – academia interface.
Academia is best suited to play a leading role in innovation and generation of IP.
For disruptive innovation, we must nurture universities and technical institutes.
Innovation is often multi-disciplinary. Thus a healthy, vibrant university
atmosphere where students / researchers working in different areas interact in
many formal and informal settings can be a fertile ground for innovative ideas and
technologies. We need a national mission to push at least 5 of our universities to be
in the global top 100 positions by 2020.
It is heartening that our universities are recognising the importance of innovation.
Delhi University has, as recently as in September 2011, announced a B.Tech.
(Innovation with Mathematics and IT) course with options to specialize in Genetics
and Molecular Biology or Management and Economics or Electronics.
3.3.1 Incubation Centres in academic institutes
Academia based research can produce path breaking technologies, concepts,
techniques and standards but it requires the passion and energy of
entrepreneurs to convert the Intellectual capital into products for the
marketplace. We need incubation centres in the campuses to groom such
entrepreneurs. Incubation is a very effective way of converting Intellectual
capital generated through academic research into businesses. Incubators provide
the institutional mechanism through which support from government, industry
and universities can be channelled to nurture start-ups. Entrepreneurs draw on
the ecosystem provided by incubators to develop and test the feasibility of their
3http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/trai/upload/Recommendations/133/Recommondation%20_telecom.pdf
(corrigendum at
http://www.trai.gov.in/writereaddata/trai/upload/recommendations/134/corrigendum.pdf)
14Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
business model and find financial and managerial resources. Incubators can aid
success by offering other complementary resources, such as IPR protection, legal
advice and domain specific databases.
Almost all IITs and IIMs have their own incubation centres (list at Annex 7). A
paper on “Creating a supportive ecosystem for incubating rural telecom ventures
in India” can be viewed at
http://www.iitcoe.in/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=17
6&Itemid=20
The response received from IITB is placed at Annex 8. The response from TCOE,
on behalf of academia is placed at Annex 9.
Recommendations for incubation:
1. Innovation and entrepreneurship do not exist in a vacuum. An ecosystem
consisting of various institutions, networks, processes, designed to support
product creation, adoption and ensuring financial viability is important.
2. Innovation ecosystem should be designed to capture the local scientific,
academic and research base effectively.
3. As creation of test and measurement facilities and test beds is very capex
intensive, such infrastructure or access to it should be arranged by the
incubation centre.
4. Such initiatives require a long lead time and therefore, assessment criteria
should be designed accordingly.
5. Incubators need to design market mechanisms to allocate subsidies
effectively.
6. Incubators should develop linkages with overseas entrepreneurs and
investors early.
7. Management processes in an incubator need to be designed to cater to the life
cycle of an innovation.
8. The role of Technology Transfer Office (TTO) is very important for nurturing
and bringing an innovation to commercialization. Therefore, it is important to
upgrade the capabilities of TTO, staff them appropriately and provide
appropriate incentives.
9. Nurturing and commercializing such initiatives requires considerable time,
effort, resources and interventions. Early part of the incubator cycle may
require frequent process and resource iteration.
10. Institution based incubatees should have option of MBA (Entrepreneurship)
as a safety net.
11. Greater flexibility should be shown to promising incubatees in funding (angel
funding up to, say Rs 5 crore), and time allowed at the incubation centre (say
up to 5 years). There have been several instances of technopreneurs having to
sell out to MNCs because of inadequate funding and / or early eviction when
15Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
continued funding and / or a couple of years of support could have bailed them
out.
12. There should be a national level award / recognition scheme for best
innovation based telecom technology enterprise. The jury should include some
renowned experts from foreign academia, who can be contacted through the
good offices of IIT/IIM professors, to bring international expertise to the table.
3.3.2 Other programmes for fostering Innovation
There are a few ongoing programmes, which, with varying degrees of success,
are trying to promote innovation in the country. All are broad based and not
devoted to telecom alone. Some examples are given below,
i. In order to attract the young students to science and technology,
Department of Science and Technology (DST) has instituted “Innovation of
Science Pursuit for Inspire Research (INSPIRE)” programme which
awards scholarships to deserving students who show an aptitude for
research and development at school level.
ii. DST also has a Kishore Vaigyanik Protsahan Yojana (KVPY) for college
going young students. This programme is for all disciplines, including
telecom.
iii. DST has many schemes and fellowships for scientists and engineers to
help them in their research endeavours. Some examples are TDPP
(Technology development and demonstration programme), TePP
(Technopreneur Promotion Programme) and Technology Development
Board (TDB). There are also STEP (Software Technology
Entrepreneurship Parks) and TBI (Technology Business Incubators) to
help incubations.
iv. DIT (Department of Information Technology) runs an incubation and
entrepreneurship development programme called TIDE (Technology
Incubation and Development of Entrepreneurs).
v. DST Lockheed Martin India Innovation Growth Programme run by
FICCI, jointly with Indo US S&T Forum and IC2 Institute, University of
Texas, Austin, has been running since 2007 and has spawned some 77
successful commercial enterprises till date. It holds a competition where
innovative ideas are evaluated by experts and selected for awards. The
innovators are trained in taking the idea through various stages of
commercialization. Interactions with venture capitalists, prospective
buyers of technology / innovation and industry are also facilitated.
vi. India Innovation Initiative – i3 Programme is run jointly by CII, DST and
Agilent technologies to encourage, recognize and support innovators in the
age group of 18 years onwards. The potential innovators are provided
mentoring and incubation support.
vii. Bharti Airtel and Reliance had announced setting up of sizable innovation
16Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
funds. However, there have been media reports that the Bharti Airtel fund
has been closed for want of suitable projects.
Recommendations for academic institutions to encourage innovation:
i. Should have a national mission to push at least 5 of our technical
universities in top 100 worldwide by 2020.
ii. A substantial increase in M.Tech and Ph.D scholarships / fellowships to
bring them near par with the Industry compensation in order to attract
students to a career in R&D.
iii. Should have greater emphasis on Research and Intellectual property
generation in technical education institutes. IP generation / patenting
should be given more importance compared to contribution to technical
publications.
iv. Should actively participate in national and international seminars,
meetings.
v. Should run collaborative programmes with academic institutes and R&D
organisations. Students of such courses should be employed directly by the
sponsoring organization.
vi. Should promote collaborations with premier foreign universities /
technical institutes in the developed world so that the students get
international exposure and are able to imbibe the work culture prevalent
there.
vii. Incubations centres should help and mentor budding entrepreneurs.
viii. Should provide greater autonomy to professors in taking up research
projects and utilization of project funds.
ix. Should initiate compulsory courses on IPR and patenting.
x. R&D organizations and academic institutes should be funded and
encouraged to become members of forums like ITU, 3GPP, IETF, SDR
Forum, IETF, WWRF etc. to play an important role in development of
technologies and their standardization,.
xi. Should institute innovation awards to help innovators / entrepreneurs in
getting recognition for their work and also much needed visibility to
attract VC funding, technology purchase offers or industry collaborations.
xii. R&D organizations should work closely with the academia and encourage
employees to acquire higher educational qualifications while working on
their official projects (e.g. M.Tech / Ph.D. by research).
3.4 R&D Organizations
The R&D efforts in telecom in the country are sub-optimal. There are only a few
organizations, listed below, engaged in telecom R&D.
17Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
3.4.1 Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT)
The Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) is the Telecom Technology
development centre of the Government of India. It was established in August
1984 as an autonomous body. It was vested with full freedom and total flexibility
to develop state-of-the-art telecommunication technology to meet the needs of
the Indian telecommunication network. The key objective was to build a centre
for excellence in the area of telecom technology. C-DOT has evolved, from a
single mission oriented organization to an R&D centre, working on several
important, cutting edge technologies. C-DOT provides solutions for current and
future requirements of telecommunications including projects of national
importance for rural applications, strategic sector and law enforcement / security
agencies.
3.4.2 Plant based R&D of manufacturing companies e.g. ITI, HTL etc.
R&D division of ITI has many successes to its credit. They did some excellent
work in transmission equipment (PDH systems, channel banks, microwave links
etc.). A plant based R&D is often bogged down with solving manufacturing or
field problems and may not be able to retain constant focus on product
development. Plus, the hardware culture of the organization might have
prevented them from developing good software development skills and
methodologies.
3.4.3 R&D in private sector
There are a few private companies who have good in-house R&D infrastructure.
M/s Tejas is cited as an example of a private sector company competing globally
on the strength of the products developed by its own R&D. M/s VNL and M/s
Coral Telecom are few other examples. These companies have concentrated on
owning / generating Intellectual property. The private companies adopt a flexible
approach of acquiring partial hardware and software applications from abroad
and adding Indian design and IP to achieve a true Indian product and faster
market reach.
3.4.4 Sporadic efforts of other R&D organizations
Other R&D organizations like C-DAC, BARC etc. have made forays into telecom
product development. They were more of sporadic attempts instead of concerted
efforts at technology development and its productionization. IIT-M has been an
exception as it has spawned product companies and CeWIT continues to make
significant contributions to IPR generation.
3.4.5 Standardization
Standards play a very important part in telecom hence there is a need to set up
a Telecom Standards Development Organization (TSDO) in Public Private
Partnership (PPP) mode to make national standards and get Indian
requirements and IP incorporated into International standards. The size of the
18Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
Indian market commands respect of the international vendors. By getting
foreign vendors to design their products and services to meet India specific
requirements (e.g. support for Indian languages), it can be ensured that Indian
IPs get into their products and Indian innovators and developers can get the
benefit.
The inputs from Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) are placed at Annex 10.
3.4.6 Innovation in R&D, product standards & IPR segment:
Department of Telecommunications (DoT) constituted a subgroup under
chairmanship of Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala to check out recommendations on
manufacturing, R&D, product standards & IPR for the 12th Five Year Plan. This
subgroup conducted extensive interactions and brought out the following
recommendations on R&D, standards & IPR which are highly relevant to this
report.
Recommendations on innovation in R&D, product standards & IPR segment:
a. Promote companies / institutions to develop capabilities in Technology
forecasting for Indian requirements. In this direction, DOT should set up
a council, with Member (Technology) as its chairman, consisting of
technical experts as members from Telecom Service Providers, Public and
Private Telecom Manufacturing Industry, Government, Academia and
R&D institutions. They will function as permanent team of experts, and
work on a collaborative and contribution driven professional model. They
will map Technology and Product development forecasts for this sector.
They will evolve and provide periodic updates of the national five year
rolling program of technology/product development and its field
absorption. They will become the nodal group to monitor and ensure the
implementations of various recommendations made for promoting Indian
Products, manufacturing and IPR.
b. Fund Telecom R&D towards IPR generation and Product Development
and Commercialization
DOT should create Telecom Research Development Fund (TRDF) of
Rs. 5000 Crores in 12th Five Year Plan.
TRDF should be managed by a council, consisting of two
Government representatives including Secretary DoT, who will
chair the council, 2 professionals from telecom operations
industry, 2 professionals from Telecom Equipment Companies, 4
telecom Scientists/faculty from leading Indian institutes, 1
person with financial/VC background. The council should have a
small secretariat.
TRDF to fund research with clear focus towards tangible
patents/IPRs, which would go into international standards and
for development of high end products for future telecom systems
and services. Incremental research innovations will not be
19Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
supported through this fund, as other funding sources from
science and technology ministries are available for this. Blue sky
research may sometime be funded, however, when there is a
clear road-map to convert such research towards next
generation standards, culminating into commercial products,
and it appears that it is critical to move fast in an integrated
manner from basic research to product development.
TRDF to fund technology/product development, for which there
is current/future market by Private and Government companies
and R&D institutions as grants and soft loans.
TRDF to fund Academic research with grants for futuristic
technology development with emphasis on IPR Creation.
Preference will be given to fund projects involving industry –
academia consortium.
TRDF will fund Indian participation in international standards
bodies, up to 75% of fees for filing and maintaining patents.
Broad telecom areas for R&D funding as envisaged presently are as follows
Telecom technology areas for R & D funding
Broad Area Segment which is Products that can be developed Core technologies involved
addressed
Wireless Wireless Broadband HSPA+ Smart Antennas
Access / Backhaul
4G/5G systems Cognitive radios
IBS/DAS systems Software Defined Radios
Pico cells/Femto cells based Advanced DSP
products
Coding &Modulation techniques
Multiprotocol low range
mm-Wave wireless systems
compact base stations
Switching/packet processing
IP/Hybrid microwave radios
E Band Radios in 60/70/80GHz
for 1/10Gbps links
Active Shared small size GSM Radio Sharing of BSS (BSC, BTS,
Infrastructure Access Network TRAU and OMCR)
sharing
20Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
Telecom technology areas for R & D funding
Broad Area Segment which is Products that can be developed Core technologies involved
addressed
Wireless Network Software tools for wireless Wireless RF propagation models
Planning network planning and for Indian terrain (keeping in
optimization mind high density, vegetation &
spectrum allocated)
Software tools for Wireless
service assurance and network Algorithms for KPIs keeping in
performance mind Indian regulatory
monitoring/reporting requirements
Spectrum efficiency
optimization
Optical Broadband Access 10G/40G PON systems Burst Mode optical transmitters
and receivers at 10G/40G
WDM-PON systems
Injection locked optical sources
Hybrid WDM-TDM-PON
systems Broadband light sources
Carrier Ethernet Cyclic AWGs
Switching/packet processing
Backbone networks Ultra dense WDM systems Raman amplifiers
All optical network platform Coherent optical
transmitters/receivers
ASON software platform for
ROADM Integrated optical devices like
switches
All optical wavelength
convertors
Metro/Aggregation Next-Gen SDH with packet IP cores for packet & OTN
network transport & OTN compliant compliant interfaces leading to
interfaces Packet Optical FPGAs, ASICs, TDM and IP
Transport Platform switching, Mappers, Framers
etc.
IP Ethernet PBT based on PBB-TE and IP Switching, Cores leading to
transport/aggregatio MPLS-TP ASICs, protocols, algorithms
n – carrier grade and software stacks
SIP application servers and
soft-switches
Session border controllers
Terabit routers
Multi service MSPP with MEN/xDSL/XPON IP Cores leading to ASICs,
platform interfaces with Gbps backhaul protocols, algorithms and
supported by MPLS-TP profile software stacks
21Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
Telecom technology areas for R & D funding
Broad Area Segment which is Products that can be developed Core technologies involved
addressed
Telecom Network Security Lawful intercept monitoring Algorithm for interception of
Security systems supporting connection oriented networks,
voice/video/data services Algorithms for interception of
VoIP , Video over IP,
Location based monitoring
systems GPS based monitoring systems
Secure IP communication Encryption technologies
devices and equipments,
Hardware-based Encryptors
Common criterion NE level security conformance Telecom Product testing &
certification lab testing from cyber attacks infrastructure building
Application level security
conformance testing from cyber
attacks
Telecom Converged Network Service Provisioning and Mediation support for both
Services & Management Management System legacy and standard based NEs
Applications System
Decentralized Mediation Core architecture to support
Systems Multi-vendor, multi technology,
multi-browser, multiple
platforms
Virtual data centres Virtualization and cloud
computing
Account settling for Data Clearing House TAP procedures
TSPs
Service Delivery North and South band interfaces to TSPs NOC to support OSS &
Platforms for BSS
supporting
Future proof solution supporting education, entertainment,
multiple enterprise applications for delivery over wireless infrastructure to
applications and the smart-phones/tablets/ embedded laptop devices
VAS
Public safety Bio engineering Base stations with less than
studies on EMF 1W emissions
radiation impact
Handsets with few microwatt
SAR
22Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
Telecom technology areas for R & D funding
Broad Area Segment which is Products that can be developed Core technologies involved
addressed
Mobile hand- 3G/4G handsets Indian OS to replace Android, Algorithms for conversion to
held devices Symbian vernacular languages
CPEs
and CPEs
Low power consuming rugged Charging with Embedded solar
handsets with innovative cells, low power electronics etc.
charging stations
SoC, DSP algorithms
Smart phone, tablets & other
handheld devices
Mobile VAS
Customer Premises Equipment
for broadband
Telecom Network powering Solar Hybrid power solution Reliable, efficient and cost
related systems effective solar cells
electronics
Note: TEMA, a TSIC member, has suggested inclusion of following products / technologies
in the above list:
i. Broadband systems based on evolving WiFi standards.
ii. Mobile data offload to WiFi network
iii. Shared small size MSC, GSM RAN (sharing of active infrastructure)
iv. Innovative wireless products and systems based on global standards
for India specific conditions.
c. Strengthen public R&D institutions like C-DOT. Encourage and enable
them to collaborate with public as well as private industry and with
academia for technology development
Allow projects where an Industry (public or private) could retain
exclusive technology rights for initial three years provided they are
jointly funding development along with the R&D institution. The R&D
institution could in return get royalty.
d. Enable Creation of IPRs and push into Standards
Create Telecom Standards Development Organization (TSDO) led by
industry and telecom service providers and with academia, R&D
centres and government participation
Drive IPR creation and global standards to meet India-specific
requirements
DOT will vet the final standards before promoting them in ITU
23Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
as international standards and decide on adopting them as
national standards.
Reorient Academic R&D and R&D centres towards IPR generation for
telecom standards, leading to development and commercialization of
Indian Products. This IPR should be both essential IPR that goes into
international standards, as well as implementational IPR that goes
into products. Funding support should also be given for the researchers
to attend standards meetings regularly so that their IPR can be
promoted for inclusion in the standards. These meetings take place
seven to eight times a year all over the world. As India becomes active,
such meetings should take place regularly in India as well.
Augment TCOEs for this purpose
Support as many R&D centres as possible, both in public, PPP
and private spheres. Continued support should depend on track
record of quality of output, IPRs successfully incorporated in
standards or products, ability to launch work in emerging areas.
e. Strengthen TEC to coordinate setting up labs for testing and certification
of products as per international best practices.
Create some private and Public-private bodies to set up accredited test
to test products for conformance, performance, inter-operability and
security.
Desirable to set up such labs in vicinity of strong R&D clusters
and academia to assist in development process. A lot of the test
equipment, particularly software, for emerging technologies are
also developed in parallel with products. These tend to be very
expensive in the initial years, acting as a roadblock for
entrepreneurs and industry. Involving academia in close
proximity is a very cost-effective way to bring the cost of tester
development down, and leverage the ability of academia to
quickly understand new concepts.
Fund Creation of live test-beds for next generation technologies,
particularly by consortia of industry and academia. Such test beds
should be widely available for industry and entrepreneurs for assisting
them in fine-tuning their products.
Reserve certain spectrum for R&D and field trials (pilots).
Reserve certain spectrum where only indigenously developed products
can be deployed.
3.5 VAS and Applications Development
The great diversity of India, with multiple languages, dialects, professions, customs,
traditions and diverse educational attainments make it a virtually limitless market
for VAS and application software developers. While developed countries expect a
24Telecom Sector Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020
certain level of school education for all citizens, it cannot be taken for granted in
India where literacy is still a problem. As an illustration, an information website
application for rice growers, has to be not only multi lingual to cater to different
regions but also need to have a version for illiterate and neo-literate users with
greater graphical and audio based navigation and content delivery.
The national broadband rollout plan which aims to provide broadband access to
250,000 village panchayats, can bring in e-education, e-governance, e-banking, tele-
medicine services at rural doorsteps. This has the potential of not only opening the
flood gates of innovation opportunities for Indian products and technologies but also
lot of business/innovation opportunities to VAS developers.
Recommendations to encourage innovation in VAS:
a. Government departments should accelerate their e-governance / e-services
programmes and make public the requirements.
b. TRDF should encourage and assist the developers / technopreneurs.
c. TRDF should commission projects on easy to use development and content
management tools to enable content development in Indian languages for
rural communities by moderately trained persons. This will empower rural
communities to develop their own contents and present it in ways that they
understand best.
3.6 Government policies and initiatives for telecom sector
As per the Constitution of India, telecommunications is a central subject. The
erstwhile Department of Post & Telegraph gave way to the formation of two
separate departments, viz. Department of Post & Department of
Telecommunications under the Ministry of Communications. Department of
Electronics had been established in the Ministry of Electronics, which was later
renamed as the Ministry of Information Technology just before the new millennium.
However within a few years thereafter, both these ministries were merged to form
the Ministry of Communications & IT with 3 departments, viz. Telecommunications,
Information Technology & Posts.
The telecom services have been recognized the world-over as an important tool for
socio-economic development of a nation. Indian telecommunication sector has
undergone a major process of transformation through significant policy reforms,
beginning, in particular, with the announcement of NTP 1994 and subsequently re-
emphasized and carried forward under NTP 1999, and now NTP 2011. Driven by
various policy initiatives, the Indian telecom sector has witnessed a complete
transformation in the last two decades. It has achieved a phenomenal growth
during the last few years and is poised to take a big leap in the future too.
The entry of private service providers brought with it the inevitable need for an
independent regulator and thus the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
was established. Another major step was to set up the Universal Service Obligation
Fund (USOF). The Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE) were set up in Public
Private Partnership (PPP) mode and are an example of the Government, the
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