New Delhi: While the lack of towers has been cited as one of the biggest reasons of growing dropped calls in India, Broadcom, which specialises in connectivity via wireless technologies, clearly rejects this notion and is, in fact, is of the opinion that the growing menace of calls drops is related to the network infrastructure.
“While the lack of towers could be seen as a reason for the low coverage in the less density remote places. But otherwise, I don’t think that the tower count is an issue at all. As long as base transceiver station (BTS) stations on towers can cover all zones with a combination of towers, you are covered. Now it’s about how the network handles the traffic,” says Rajiv Kapur, managing director, Broadcom India.
Contrary to the popular opinion, Kapur believes the rising user count is actually not a problem. It, in fact, is the pace at which trends are changing. There is more browsing, video streaming, social networking. In other words, the content is getting heavier. So, a combination of more users, more content and networks not really upgraded to meet the needs, is a reason here.
“The technology is all there, but it’s all about overboard. So, whether it is the access to the network which is the base transceiver station (BTS) (depending on the technology you’re talking about) or it’s the backhaul or the aggregation of the core network, the weakest link always makes the problem happen. I think the one of the weakest links here is the backhaul. So, the connectivity behind the BTS stations taking it to some aggregation point has never really been upgraded proactively,” says Kapur.
More than the government, Kapur believes that the onus is majorly on the mobile operators. A lot is possible from the end of service providers to better the connectivity situation in India.
“The upgrade of network bandwidth is in the hands of the mobile operators. And, I think, this is where really the solution lies. And in some cases, the networks were built for 2G networks and they are trying to run 3G. Operators can provide better services by improving infrastructure,” explains Kapur adding that they can also take advantage of offload technologies like WiFi offload to reduce the use of spectrum.
Kapur believes that operators can upgrade the network infrastructure in India by leveraging Carrier Grade WiFi or upgrading backhaul.
Authorities also can make the use of unattended spectrums and bands. There are some licensed spectrums and technology licenses which are currently available, but not yet provided by the government. So, these bands can be opened for spectrum or backhaul. Also, the government can implement a mechanism to measure quality of services.
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