The cable television broadband infrastructure is available in almost all the households in India.
This has to be upgraded to reliable wired broadband infrastructure, for ensuring economic growth.
What is the current status of broadband in India?
According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), only 1 broadband line is present for every 100 people in India.
Mobile broadband may be seen as a substitute for wired broadband, but each new 10 mobile broadband subscriptions per 100 people reduces GDP per household by 0.52 per cent.
Reliance-Jio’s capacity at each cell tower of 20MHz is shared by the entire local population and suffers loss of signal or speed inside the houses.
But there is an existing capacity of 856MHz from television cables which remain unused in each household.
What is the significance of cable broadband?
Cable broadband is affordable, easy to install, can be replaced or repaired locally with limited training.
A local television cable network can be upgraded to broadband in 8-12 weeks with existing labour.
The rural Wi-Fi project can also be easily implemented with this available infrastructure.
Cable broadband has the capacity to deliver 1.5Gbps speed to each household along with HDTV channels.
Each new 10 cable broadband per 100 people improves per-capita GDP and each broadband job creates 2.5 to 4.0 other jobs in a multiplier effect.
What are the concerns with the cable broadband industry?
The lack of regulation by the government has helped in quickly cabling the country.
But it has led to fragmentation of local cable industry, non-transparent financing with network assets deployed freely without rights on government property.
These assets without verifiable title has no property rights and cannot attract institutional capital.
What measures are needed to improve cable broadband?
The government is required to increase the capital expenditure for upgrading one-way cable TV to two-way broadband for the local cable network.
Steps have to be taken to address the anti-competitive practices in the broadcast television industry that hinder Cable Broadband.
There is also a need for regulating the property rights of set up boxes and conditional access systems should be standardised.
