The FOC market
Fiber-optic technology and wireless
data communication systems are
becoming a necessity in many
residential and commercial projects
across the globe. It’s the evolution of
the market and as the options keep
getting more and more advanced, realtors are keen on offering ‘futuristic’
products to their clients. Today,
several initiatives promise to make
FTTB more economical to deploy and
better positioned to meet even the
most aggressive bandwidth demand
forecasts.
Telecom cables are required across the
backbone, aggregation and access
networks. Fiber to the premises (FTTP),
fiber to the home (FTTH) and fiber to
the building (FTTB) applications are
some of the key factors driving the
demand for FOC industry worldwide.
Need for High Speed Connectivity
The increasing need for 24x7 highspeed connectivity and increased traffic
generation from voice, messaging,
emails, games, downloads, mobile
internet access, video streaming &
other services have unleashed the
benefits of optical fiber cable networks.
Recognizing the need for high speeds
and 24x7 connectivity, there has
been a conscious effort to make the
telecommunication network robust,
future proof and reliable.
- FTTH/FTTB has been introduced
in India and is a fast growing
phenomenon for a robust telecom
network
- India’s fixed broadband user base
grew by 24.5 percent in 2011 to 13.3
million, up from 10.7 million at the
end of 2010
- India is set to become one of
the Top 10 largest fixed broadband
markets in the world during the
course of this year (it is currently
11th)
- The Fixed broadband market is
set to grow to approximately 49.3
million subscribers in 2015
- The market for fixed broadband equipment is expected to increase
by a CAGR of 13.6% from 2010 to
2015
However, the overall Broadband
penetration in India is very low when
compared to developed countries.
India had only 13.5 Million broadband
connections in Feb 2012 against the
target of 20 Million by 2010.
To address this issue of connectivity,
the Indian government in its National
Telecom Policy 2011 draft has
proposed some policies:
- The NTP’11 draft talks about
providing affordable and reliable
broadband on demand by 2015
- The new policy has set a target of
175 million broadband connections
by 2017 and 600 million connections
by 2020
- It has also revised broadband
download speed from 256 Kbps to
512 Kbps and subsequently to 2
Mbps by 2015
- Not only broadband, the rural
teledensity is planned to increase
from 35 to 60 by 2017 and 100 by
2020
Studies all over the globe have proved
that higher Broadband penetration
has helped the global economic
situation to move from recession to
recovery. Broadband improves the
competitiveness of an economy and
would change the way people lead
their lives by creating new segments of
Industry, besides creating more jobs.
Bridging the Rural-Urban Divide
India had 943 Million telephone
subscriber base (as in Feb 2012) with
169% teledensity in urban areas and
Indian Telecom – Key Parameters
38.5% in rural areas. This rural urban
divide has existed in India wherever the
technology deployment has happened.
To bridge this gap and provide more services, NOFN is being designed with
an objective to extend optical fiber
network to gram panchayat. Broadband
penetration also acts as an indicator
to overall GDP growth, 10% increase
in broadband penetration leads to 1.2-
1.3% increase in GDP.
India’s Fiber Manufacturing
Capability
Optical Fiber deployment in India
started as early as in 1990, but then
there was no local manufacturer. The
entire optical fiber requirement had
to be met through imports. Now the
scenario has changed. Though the
market consumption over the last two
years has been less than 6 Mn fKm,
Indian fiber manufacturing capacity is
on a rise. With 4 main manufacturers,
India boasts of reaching 28 Million
fKm capacities (optical fiber) by 2013.
Capacity for FOC (Fiber Optic Cable)
manufacturing in India is approximately 8 Lakh Cable KM. More global players
are eyeing to setup their plants or
have tie-ups in India. Thus India can
domestically meet the upcoming
requirements for National Optical Fiber
Network. Making these sourcing from
domestic manufacturers, will not only
suffice this projects requirement of
resources but in fact provide a great
impetus to boast domestic market, save
on foreign currency, promote R&D and
provide high quality evolving products
for evolving Indian ICT industry.
Supporting the Indigenous Fiber
Manufacturing Industry
India is one of the promising markets
for the growth of fiber optics among
the developing countries. Indian fiber
optic cable manufacturers have been
making their efforts to meet the internal
demand for fiber optic cables. However,
it is imperative that manufacturers of
optical fibers receive total support
to ensure sustainable development
of the overall economy.
Projected Estimates
In fact, most developed economies have set up
policies and frameworks that favour their
own indigenous manufacturers against
foreign players. Several initiatives like tax
incentives, substantial project subsidies
and financial support for R&D have
assisted domestic industries in countries
like China to come a long way from
being an importer to a large exporter of
technology products.
- Logistics support and timely delivery of supplies
- Help avoid security & information
leak
- Creating huge value as well as
large employment
- Complete process control and if
required inspection at all stages at
any point of time
- Committed to future supplies
required
for Network maintenance/
replacement purpose
- 24 X 7 personalized Technical
support on product performance
- Test facilities available domestically
- Network Ownership – further
maintenance and installation
becomes easier
In conclusion, a concerted effort to boost
manufacturing activity is now exigent as
robust economic growth in the country is
leading to an extraordinarily high
demand for electronic products in
general and telecom products in
particular. Further, to ensure focused
indigenous development in the
telecom sector, efforts need to be
concentrated towards a definite policy
direction by creating a suitable roadmap to align technology, demand,
standards and regulations, after
considered evaluation of candidate
technologies and the emerging trends.
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