EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2013
9:00 AM
WS 11
INDIAN MINISTRY
(no audio)
>>: We will come to you if you raise the flag and we will answer your questions.
>>: Thank you everybody. We will be ready to begin in just more a minute.
>>: Good morning and thank you everyone for making the time to be with us. This is an important moment for us. Bringing a billion people online is what we're hoping, we're dreaming to achieve. At the moment, this is a multi-state cultural panel and we do want to share the India story and the obsticles of getting a country online. The next billion we see from emerging economies, countries like India and China have a lot to contribute. What is it that we want to celebrate today? In terms of population, we might overtake China. We do want to celebrate the story that the internet is telling, empowering citizens, giving out knowledge, asking questions, seeking answers and connecting many voices, bringing them together and making sure that this empowering medium reaches out to as many as we can. The Government of India has taken on many initiatives but there are so many challenges of diversity which precede access. As far as stories go, I do want to bring up that rulers and kings bring up challenges in their times of peace. They were trying to discover a king's identity. He spoke languages as fluently as you could imagine. There are 16 languages on the Indian currency. That is as far as the Indian story goes as far as diversity. No one could solve the problem. One of the wise men who was known for his sharp witness and humor decided to corner him while he was going back to his room, hit him hard, and he said "Oh, mother --" and I won't complete that. Native language ensued the passion that only they can. The internet is a wonderful medium. But we need to solve problems locally. These are the stories that we want to share today. I am happy to welcome on the panel Mr. -- he has been the foremost leading voice.I am happy to welcome Mr. Goldman, there are many initiatives that Nixi is taking {*} he is specially to create solutions. Thank you Dr. Goldwin for being with us. {*} I am equally happy to welcome -- the person who is the noble contact for cellular operators and they only just represent 840 million people. That is a lot when it comes to numbers but the kind of diversity that you bring together and the finesse with which you lead us. Thank you for making the time to share these stories with us here today. Dr. Hiroshi Saki is the director of the promotion council he is the direct of the Japan data center since 2009 and has visited us often and is sharing the IPB6 employment. Thank you. Thank you for joining us.
Also really happy and pleased to welcome Sanjaia, the member of the ethnic team. A lot of diversity. We hope you can inform us with your perspective. There is one person on the panel who needs to introduction. We have Mr. Rotpat. He looks at public policy and has been leading conversations as far as inclusive platforms, bringing different stakeholders together, I do want you to share the experiences that the industry is leading. In the audience also, we have many distinguished speakers and panelists. I do want you to invite you to make interventions, questions and comments. It is an open session. We would like to call it the open forum. Please enlighten it with your conversations. I now request him to please share the India story.
>>: Yeah, thank you. Let me introduce all of us, we're named in the IGF of Bali. She is on the internet governance. I am thankful for her for handling this. Very good morning to you all. I welcome you all from the Government of the India. Basically, as you know, India I think is most democratic country, maybe than 1.2 billion population. And of course it is one of the largest country in the world -- 22nd in mobile phones. How we move to this place?
We have been active participants and beneficiaries since the mid '90s. If I remember right, in 1994, the first initial telephone policy announced that we only have less than 1% telephone density in India, and now it is more than 75% Telecom density. Of course, it has narrowed down, but at the same time, we do have only 150 million people online. We need to catch up with the mobile connections as far as mobile connections are concerned.
Many citizens, other people are there. These challenges -- we are trying to focus on it, but for the world, it is possible for the world to come to India. We would like to tell you what the policy initiatives, what are the different policies, so those challenges have been individual. So first and foremost is the -- taking the National Optical Fiber Network by the Department of Telecommunications. Basically, the department is taking 5% of the obligation fund from the service providers and investing it.
So this is going to the people's network and it is going to appear in more than 600 connections by 2020. And it is going to help us with many other applications and deal with smart things in the future. So here comes the -- here comes the industries scope for investment in India. So it is a first and foremost a partnership. We do have about 175 connections, and by 2020, we hope to have 600 million broadband connections.
So these are the broadband connections. Not only internet connections. So definitely, this target is to increase this. We will be discussing when we can achieve it. Of course, the most thing for which I anticipate in having online, connected not only for the persons, but for the devices, but for the things and of course for this moment of India have taken initiatives for bring about all the items on the earth online and for that -- with the help of others, this is under the process. I'm thankful for all the people who are involved in this.
I must appreciate -- the people who are involved in the process, and the people who have come to us. And of course, until and unless IP addresses are there, we can not achieve the target of 1 billion online connections. For any country, for all countries, and the Government has already taken a lead in 2010 itself and now in 2013, we have at least one version 2, there are targets for India to go on IPB6. So -- are going to be on B6 in the next year. For having this thing, we need adopt -- we need to have all partners in the systems online. So we are trying to get them -- we are trying to help systems divide in the next three years, and the department have taken lead with the Department of Electronics Technology who bring cloud services in the country which may solve so many issues, privacy, security, border conditions, also. But these are some initiatives, and India is a deficient country. We need to go in for some technology. We need to come out with solutions. We have recommended that by 2015 that 25% of us would be on green technologies.
So on and so forth many initiatives have come to India. We need devices, affordability of them, and we need to address them and see how this can associate with the Government of India so that 1 billion connections can be achieved. Thank you very much.
>>: Thank you. For those of us who are still dicovering the IGF, this is truly a reaffirmation of the multistakeholder process. With that I turn to you 850 mobile telephones and many more going -- counting. About 200 million people will keep -- prescription to him so he could send medicines across. More mobile phones than toilets in India. It is a wonderful story. As far as internet access is concerned, the IT reports that the internet penetration to be at 11.4%. What are the challenges that you see as someone who sees many more people coming online on mobile phones more than anything else?
>>: Thank you. As part of the cellular operators, as she mentioned earlier, we've got about 700 million people who are member subscribers. So the challenge right now is from the 160 million to expand that internet access on the existing 700, build it up from 160 to 700. So clearly, you know, the point is that in India, the dominant network is a wireless network. So in many other parts of the world, internet flows through online network, especially when it comes to higher capacities, that network doesn't exist. So it will be wireless access and mobile broadband. That isn't going to enable the people in the 160 to 700, 900 and then to the billion. The challenges are that the pipe through which the data is to flow, obviously, is a spectrum. And the number of people or the number of operators who utilize that. We have gotten a response on the next round of options because the internet is the killer and as far as data services on the mobile place. We see the up take for 3G or data services for up take of the internet, then is the quality of experience that they -- the quality of experience goes back to the spectrum issues. So I'll leave it at that. But the more important thing is that the interaction that an individual specialize -- especially the non-English-speaking people who will use the internet. While India is lucky to have a large English-speaking population, but the internet remains English dominated. So there is a lot of emphasis on trying to get more local language as we had mentioned it on the currency notes you've got at least 16 of them. So more of the local language and what we as operators are seeing -- you know, as a take off, in terms of new technology, voice recognition which is being used a lot, I presume on the transcript that seems to be happening.
So if we can get a response over what he wants to look at the internet is something that is in the future -- that is as part of the challenge that needs to be addressed as we go along. Important thing is that we see -- why would a person want to use the internet over a mobile phone? Firstly, it has to be simple. The other thing that we see a lot that would get encouraged is the big emphasis of the Government of India on the National Identity Project.
So when an individual wants to do an individual transaction over the mobile internet, a fundamental requirement is identity. So that identity will be significantly enabled as we go along through the NIP, and we are in conversation with the Government to allow it. At this stage, I'll leave it at that. If we address some of these issues, I'm sure the mobile operators in India will scale up quickly from the 160 million -- all right. I missed out the million. All figures we're talking in millions. And just to -- you know, just for the moment, only one at a time in India has 206 million. It is the 6th biggest country in the world. So that is the scale that we are looking at. So the efforts have to have that kind of scale, right? Okay.
>>: Thank you. As far as numbers go, there is really no discussion point there. I come from there, we are all swimming in numbers. I want to turn next to Dr. Goldwin, there is a universe by itself, there are so many challenges in terms of multiple languages because local content does drive more people to the net. We use it for entertainment, business, and E-commerce. What are the initiatives that you see from the Indian Government toward creating a device to support regional languages?
>>: Thank you. It is an honor to be here. As the next billion is going to be on the Pacific, and the need for is to use ICT to see if there are significant benefits to the countries who have less benefits, who represent over 70% of our population. Our aim has been to promote lives that lead to a more inclusive society. The challenges we see in India are poverty, illiteracy, healthcare. The Government has issued several policies aim the at meeting these challenges. It is important to administer the policies that ministries have brought out, the Telecom policy, the ICT policy, my other colleagues must have talked about the access and security aspects.
So India is a great country with 22 official languages and use of computers is fast spreading. Not only to create employment in the IT sector but to use computers, provide better quality of life, enable inclusiveness and extend democracy and more inclusive society. The internet has to spread into the more local languages and in this regard, we -- there are two aspects which are significant. In the URL, the domain name, you put the local languages. (language other than English). So they are the most talked-about languages in the country. They are about 80% of the population right now. We are moving towards more local languages on the URL. So they are one aspect of the internet, the first thing with any -- any user looks at is how the URL looks at. If it is in English, it would be difficult for him to know how to spell that and input it into the domain name. The next part is how the various contents in the local languages can be spread out. For that, I would want the Center for Development of Advanced Computing. Its mission is dissolving language barriers, to place the powers of commuting into the hands of America. Like speech processing, speech recognition, speech synthesis, machine translition, information retrieval, optical languages, Indian languages online, forms, data processing tools, standardization and localization, space, ID, and so these are the efforts (audio out). And enable or empower himself or herself for the sake of moving forward into the internet and there lies the next billion.
It is not only the challenge from the Access point of view, but also from the barrier. Because language is the next important aspect which needs to be cultivated into the internet to be spreading like machine oscillation, the information access, there are things in which I am not going into detail, they are on the Government of India website. They have done a tremendous job, the keyboard enabling and the recognition of these languages. They have done all the work on these 22 official languages and the spreading of the tools and the ID aspect, I think we are -- the languages from the challenges, because multiple languages can have variant scripts. So how to dissolve those kinds of issues.
So a lot of work is going on in the country at the moment from the tools and technology perspective. Thank you.
>>: Thank you. That was really exhaustive. You could use your favorite search engine and look at various other initiatives. As the IGF speaks in acronyms, we will use everything in our power to refrain from using acronyms. The initiative that is being led by the ministry is something that leads us to the heart of the matter. When we look at the State versus Market debate we are talking many 0s, but every single numbers in those 0s is important. I now to you. If you can talk about the industry perspective and how this fiber optic cable network, we know it as "Follow the Fiber" how it will rule at the grass root level and connect more people.
>>: Thank you, Zubi. I will keep it short so I can keep most of my time for the delegates. When the program began in India in 1995, just by way of numbers, we had 1 phone, 100 population. Today after about 18 years, we have about approximately 75 phones for 100 people. Give or take depending on how many phones are active that week. We also had about a thousand people for one phone in the rural part of India. So 1000 people had access to one phone. It is the number that came through today 40% of the rural population have access to a mobile phone.
Over the years where access is concerned, at least the aspect of people being able to speak to other people, a lot more people are speaking to each other. The total numbers right now are about 850 million active subscriptions. But we have had this number for about the past two years or so. So what the Government did was took the money that consumered had paid into the USO fund using mobile telephony. The business case for mobile telephone in India is quite spectacular.
The business case for online (audio out). Even though that McKenzie expects our 160 million mobile connections will go up to 700 million, nearly 90% of those connections will come through mobile internet.
And in that, the question then is: How do you lead the basic structure for transfering traffic across the country since the wireless spectrum is insufficient to do that and it is in different pockets. That is when the Government, along with the industry and other state came up with the National Fire Network. So that project is deploying the network to augment infrastructure. 250,000 plus district head quarters. Through wireless connectivity, we hope to provide connectivity to the rural and the unserved part of India. That is why the connections seem to go up. How will this help sustainable development? How will online connectivity help the poorest of the poor? In 1995, mobile phones were a fraction of a statement to carry a mobile phone. Today, domestic help, the poorest of the poor in India carry a phone, sometimes two phones with a SIM card in their back pocket.
The fiber optic network building is important. The consumers have been involved in actually funding (audio out) which the Government respectfully collected by changing the laws. The civil society and NGOs will be involved deeply because once you get the connectivity to India, the NGOs come to help Indians come online, to download E-governments content or content for filing applications or land reports. So NGOs have a strong role. The academy has a strong role because they will constantly analyze how the development of this network has gone in.
Somewhat unlike the telecommunication expansion which was an experiment between the private sector and the Government that went really well and we have amazing access stories, the online penetration is going to be a two-multi-stakeholder, academy will print out the papers and analysis, and the civil societies and NGOs which will say how the connectivity will be useful to providing free speech, providing access to people who don't have access to Government information. You have literacy, and digital literacy. There's going to be this magical transition, as it happened with mobile phones. People are not able to read or right English but they can use English key pads to send information in Indi. So there is a transition that is going to occur as we go beyond 200 million subscribers of the illiterate becoming digitally literate. We can't build enough schools fast enough. We can't put enough hospitals fast enough. We can't have sufficient primary health centers fast enough. So the online connectivity to rule in India will allow knowledge transfer online for schools, with teachers and high-quality lectures being delivered in the centers of the country, and then being telecast with multi-lingual ways.
So we believe that power of the introduction, it is a key objective of the Government, it will be served in ways that are unparalleled in the next 5-7 years as India touches about 600 million broadband connections as per the national Telecom Policy {*}. Those are the benefits that we believe will go down to the bottom of the pyramid where everybody can start being connected either themselves or to somebody who can put them online. Thank you.
>>: Thank you. I think -- sure. Yes, of course. I will shamelessly plaguerize you. Bertrand, if you could share how your Indian experience was?
>>: I want to make a brief question to what he said. (Audio out). There is a mutual interest that is recognized in order to make the mobile network leveraging the physical infrastructure faster. What is the reason it worked to have the combination of these two dimensions working collaboratively?
>>: I could respond to that. I think I'll come short so we can come back to this. It is the combination of the fact that the voice business has done exceedingly well to rural India. The online business which is a more content-structured business, the cost of devices, wireless devices, smart phone and the bandwidth available is not that easy to get out.
So what the Government did very well was to transition money which was delivered anyway, into online connections, the fixed network which can carry large bandwidths and then use the mobile infrastructure that exists with sharply declining process of mobile devices, smart phones which is happening now. We heard about the $80 phone which can take almost all features and that we believe will really change. There are many steps that have to be taken. Technology is going to pay an important role in dropping the prices of access and prices of the phones.
So it's a need-based partnership that is actually -- I think we believe will work very well.
>>: I think Fouad set the stage very well. As a distinguished academic -- one thing they do well is to read, right, and research. I call on Hiroshi, who is familiar with the India story. I think Japan has led the conversations when it comes to broadband, the Government did get it right. What are the learnings and what are the challenges, obsticles and solutions that you see for the India story?
>>: Okay. Thank you for the introduction. Regarding the previous question, basically, we have the data about the internet traffic. About two years ago, until two days ago, the major portion was by wired infrastructure. Wireless was very small when we designed the backbone. Though within the two years, the presentation of the wireless data communication increased significantly. About 10% of the communication came from wireless.
With that said, a lot of communication, wireless infrastructure is coming which is providing a big impact into the backbone network. (Audio out). When we go into the Japanese case which would be shared among us would be that Japan has a new IT strategy, actually this year. This covering many speakers as possible, the target of this is the ministries of Japanese Government is totally separated. They never share the data. They never expose the data. That is the reason why we define the open Government. Let data be exposed to the private sectors or the open data. That is one of the important messages we are sending to the Japanese countries. Showing the Government as one of the example to showing possibilities.
Along that, the other important mission or strategy defined in Japanese Government was every industry should go to a native revolution. Mostly we are focusing on healthcare, and education. And the other, infrastructures. So that is the -- you know, our responsible area is going to increase. The Government, you know, are clearly saying, "Those are the important next step Japan should have" because in the Japanese internet penetration rate is more than 85% in these days.
So you know, we have already did the IP for everyone in these days. So now we are going to the IP for everything. Everything means not only the device, but also all of the -- you know, private sectors, structures or infrastructures are going to be online. Along that, for example, from now until ten years, largest utility company in Japan going to install 27 million smart meta based on internet protocol. All the meta is going to be connected through the wireless infrastructure.
So the reason why we're having such infrastructure is we have to have very secure energy supply system against any incident. As you know, Japan has the great tsunami, also the serious situation with the nuclear plant. So everybody start to realize, you have to have very sustainable, reliable infrastructure using IT technologies. Of course energy saving, and environment protection, would be -- we really realize, as well as the emerging country, especially when I visit India, you have many new construction, building a new city, which means you can build the brand new, you know, infrastructure from the beginning which is a very totally smart city, smart building, smart campus. So that is really one of the things. The other strategical project is -- we have special team which can hack, for example, this convention center. How much time -- you know that the hack is convention center, for maybe just three minutes. It's no joke..
Same as professional factories. Same as, you know (audio out). That is one of the things when we develop a new infrastructure, especially when the system has wireless activity inside the system which has very serious conscious you know importance on the security. So that is -- we have to think about when we are making that. Now we're doing in Japan -- thank you.
>>: Thank you, professor. That is what we want to do here as part of the open forum. Bring in as many voices from the region as we can. With that I turn to you, Sanje, who represents five regional registries, many different conversations, how is it that we can get them to talk to each other and what is the traffic rode pattern that you see coming from India and any other inputs that can inform the debates on the industry and the reform?
>>: Thanks. Let's talk about the traffic first so we probably all read the report back in June that compound rate growth of traffic is 44%. That is messy. Probably the highest in the world. And then you know, that would be like 6-fold what you have right now. And I kind of know where it's coming from. I just had a discussion with my colleagues here in Indonesia. And again, referring to the report that in 2017, probably 60% of the traffic will be on the median.
Listening to the previous speakers, part of the problem especially with the rural area in India, video could be a solution because now days it is so much natural growth from just voice into video and there's so much more information that can be conveyed through video for people who learn. So I think it's something that you might want to look at seriously. As for IPB6, I'm afraid (laughs) we still have some work to do. I understand that they are working very hard on this, particularly the Indian Government taking a lead on this. So learning from the other part of the region, I don't think -- it's very hard to compare with the rest of the region because of your unique condition, you know? Your massive number of people. The closest we can probably compare is with China because you are about the same size and so on. But the situation is completely different.
So again, it's very hard. So I think the solution to the Indonesian issue would be best-designed by Indian -- would be best designed by the Indian people. You know what it is then, I think you have all the brain to solve this problem. Thank you.
>>: Thank you. That was very, very precise and a lot of food for thought. I do want to -- before I bring in some conversations across the floor, those are staggering numbers there.
>>: I could -- they're on the ground serving customers.
>>: Not breaking the gap is important. Everybody in the panel has spoken about the English. It is a big challenge in India. In spite, 950 million of mobile connection into India still most -- I will see most of the rural person is knowing the green button for the dialing and red for the disconnecting. Nothing else. No SMS. Nothing. They know that phone number is my daughter, two is of my son, that is the memory which has been put in by somebody else.
And then we have another thing that is required is handling. A lot of applications, virtual indicating, everything is being done online and everything is being required and ISPs who are serving into the niche market are doing this very very good job in this area. No doubtly, 6 persons -- 6 ISPs are keep being 95%, but the rest of them, 144 ISPs who are keeping to the 5% are really serving to the -- that is the beauty of these ISPs.
You must consider the Government initiative part of network limited of bridging the gap between rural and urban, and bringing them to a single network so they should get the content. In this case, the DIT has done a great job.
You are right. The video is a regular application. Illiteracy can be resolved by this video because when we are not able to send our SMS to our known people, at least we can send the video messages to them and we will be able to communicate in a better way and the 60% what you are predicting is absolutely right. Right now, if you see that the media hits of the internet is going on the video like the YouTube. Nixi along {*} with the ISPI has caused a lot of changes keeping Indian data in India. We are spending a lot of foreign currency in the international bandwidth. The user experience in downloading the data will become better because the holding time with the connection will be better. These are some issues. Very soon, the CMV will have taken over 950 million and now they're going to touch 1 billion. We will touch 1 billion faster than the mobile.
>>: Thank you. I think I appreciate the positive stories. I want to bring in a distinguish voice who has been familiar with India, about 8 years of the experience of India. How have you seen India transform into this amazing network of networks.
>>: Well, thank you very much and it's a great honor and a privilege to be with this extraordinary panel and I think the importance of India and the changes that have occurred in the areas of ICT has to do with how the turn out against a lot of interesting events at the same time. So I think that is really quite telling. I don't think we have enough time to go into the sorts of catalog of reasons behind your kind statement.
So let me just say that I think there are a number of things that have been truly extraordinary in the past and I think for -- I can tell there's a very positive future for India in this area. One of course is a commitment to open marks, competition, unleashing the extraordinary entraprenurial power of the Indian people.
The Government made some very conscious changes a number of years ago that has sent, I think, the Indian economy, on a new and very vigorous and exciting path and that obviously has had an effect on the ability of having foreign investment as well as having the Indian people to be able to take advantage of new technologies. Clearly, as everyone has noted before, the commitment to democracy, the deep commitment to a multi-stakeholder approach to decision making in which the Government has sought input, but not only from Indian constituencies, but from a global one has been very important.
My colleague, Dick Beard led a meeting workshop a day or so ago. I think one of the outputs of that workshop which looked globally at trade alike was noted that the great progress India has made in these areas. But I would note there were concerns expressed there and elsewhere about not only in India but in other countries as well towards localization.
So what I'm hopeful for is we will see in the future that which has brought India benefits in the recent decade, which is a very global view, a welcoming view, a view that looks to industry, the private sector generally, academia, civil society, and of course Government to attract a sort of investment in entrepreneurials that has generated so many benefits for the Indian people. Thank you.
>>: Thank you so very much. There was a hand up. Question from the floor?
>>: AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you.
>>: Please identify yourself?
>>: AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Max Angus. I work for Microsoft. We know there is a lot going on in Brazil when it comes to multi-stakeholder approach on a national level. I was wondering what kind of similar institutional set ups and committees you have in India and if possible, if any one of the panelists could comment on the idea of developing internet governence principles that had been discussed yesterday at the main session. (Audio out)
>>: We've had three national telecom processes and based on the comments received,in 1999 and in 2012 and last year it was done -- I believe -- the TREI act, the telecommunications act in India, under section 11, mandates the regulator, all are put online and this is put online for the Government. This is based on recommendation or ordered based by the mandates. Parties were not happy with the decisions of the TREI. They are not only able to oppose it but have it go to court if they believe things have been ignored. So the robust process that exists for multi-stakeholders to participate in the decision making is embedded in law which is far stronger than a committee or a bunch of people who have been sort of put in that position.
The DIT has also just begun the process of sending up a media mag. And these are multi-stakeholder groups and they hope to hold the first meeting soon. The process of selection will evolve as it starts, but from day one, there are 35 which are -- in fact, the Government is the smallest stakeholder. The biggest stakeholder, academia is big, and it is a process that is big. Both by way of practice which are the policies, we have internet governance which is the magnets the Government has set up, and in terms of law, which leads us -- which includes internet broadband, you have the right to appeal in law.
>>: Thank you. Further, too, what he said, I would like to say we do have a true model in the country. By farming of the initial telecom policy. We do have around 12 meetings with the group that brings up concerns before we bring them to the public. Once we bring up the concerns and issues, that is set to the stakeholders group. So discussing it with them, wf a policy in case we don't have some fines. We do have discussions with the stakeholders. Is that policy conforming that? And under similar circumstances, I think India is the first country in the world who has come up with -- the Government have come up with such a clear amendment for all holistic holders in the country. And of course we do have a condition form for all stakeholders. So we do have three level committees and all things are discussed beside them and truly -- we are going for the policy and implementations so we do have things and we invite all our stakeholders. It is not limited for only associations. And we would like to society with the companies who want to incorporate with India and of course you're always welcome to provide. Groups also. Thank you.
>>MODERATOR: Thank you so much. Thank you for reaffirming your commitment to this process. I know in there it is always a challenge. Can you representive but can you be truly participatory. I want to ask you to please share this story. Thank you.
>>: Thank you for the opportunity. I speak not really as a Sri Lankan, but someone who is in a think tank that has thought about policies for a long time. I think this is an excellent initiative. But there is a certain historical back drop which worries me. The Government-owned DSNL had a huge amount of fiber back haul that it refused to share with other operators throughout the years. So my concern that I have actually raised in my intd actions with Indian -- with DOT-- has been, it is very very important that we have a good non-discriminatory access regime so that the operators will be able to use it as the Government intends.
Whatever is said and done is a Government-operated Government-owned entity which does not have any private sector participation in the management of it as one would expect in light of multi-stakeholderism. And we do have the examples of places like Kenya and Colombia, where the Government is building up fiber optic networks with the money used from telecommunication subscriber as as in India, where the private sector doesn't use it because the payments, the procedures are too complex and unattractive.
The second point I wish to raise is something I submitted as a formal response to your policy which was the whole question of defining what broadband actually is. In many countries, we have a practice of defining advertisements. So we keep saying 2 MB, 5 MB, other things. But in collaboration with other places; we have actually tested in a large number of Indian cities and we find that what is promised is not delivered. So the question is are you going to define this business on what people promise or are you going to have an mechanism to make sure that there is some kind of ashaourns that when somebody is delivering -- when we're talking about 2 MB, I think it might be too high at this stage. We are seeing even 512 is not delivered in a large number of locations. So those are my two suggestions. I hope they will be taken as constructive because we are as a research organizations, this is one of our primary areas of direction and we are very keen to contribute from our perspective to the success of India's broadband plans. Thank you.
>>: Thank you so much.
>>: As always you're so good. To the two specific points you raised about the fiber access. So the national optical fiber network clearly saw that the BSNL fiber was not able to deliver the national requirement. So the NOFN project actually integrates -- it's about incremental fiber existing and then you need to add on to that. So if the -- exists in this place, it is to go to the head quarter.
In addition to BSNL, they've also got the other people -- they've got competition. And we have a commitment from the Government that this will be open access. So to your point that you know, BSNL wanted to monetize heavily of what they had and a lot of fiber was dark fiber, so those days we see are over and having been through that, it's going to be more open access and available to anybody who wants to actually utilize through the optical fiber network. That is part of the pilots. It was provided free of cost. There were three pilots in three location. To bring up your question, it is being redefined to 512 and it specified for wireline and wireless. There are challenges with what a customer actually receives. So there is a lot of debate between quality of expedience and quality of service. So we are members of service providers who are the people providing that service. So most people do not advertise it as broadband but as high-speed internet access, okay?
So yes, there is more work to be done. Part of the challenge is that what I mentioned earlier is the amount of spectrum that you hold and how many people you can put through that pipe and you know, what are the quality of experiences you get at the other end. We all would -- we are cognizant of dif anything. But in the national Telecom policy, they moved up to 512 and there is a commitment in the policy as well. So as our network expands, in the January auctions, potentially we should be getting more 3G spectrum bangs. So an operator can possibly become a band operator except for BSNL. So you know, it's moving up. So it's not that we don't have an eye on that ball. Yes, we have an eye on that ball and I'm sure game will play itself out.
>>: I want to point out that that is sdkt exactly the same discussion we had in Japan back in 2000. It was a slow and expensive service. In parallel, we let use the infrastructure based on such a policy. The other interesting is the based on such as instruction of the infrastructure, the entity is going to purely fibered sector and then they install the fiber system after 2000. The privatization of the infrastructured people is important in order for them to satisfy the requirement by the user. This is the same discussion. Now that is defined by user, not by provider.
>>: Thank you so much. Can I turn to you from the Center for Internet And Society? Thank you in
>>: Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the panel which {*} has been quite enlightening and just like to note that the national Telecom policy 2012 hits the right notes in so many places including by talking about the national optic fiber network as being open access, non-discriminatory and technology neutral and has many things to say about spectrum management as well. Section 4.9 talks about investigating white space, 4.6 talks about unlicensed spectrum, 4.2 talks about increased audit. So what are the next steps? What are happening along these fronts? The second point I want to raise is on IPR. So while one part of -- section 4.7 talks about one part of the technologies, otherwise nothing talks about IPR locally being very important. That is something that the Indian, Austrian, Indian Government haven't been able to focus on. For instance, the mean the Chinese Government has. They have taken this process seriously. They circumvent thuks and double up technologies. This is something that we as the internet in society to do a fair amount of research on. The third issue I wanted to bring up, when he talked about multi-stakeholder system, he spoke about tri. But in 2000, it puts in place an expert body from multiple interest view points to advise the Government on how to actually implement and change and -- on issues of cyber regulation, but that has never actually gone forward. So my question would be like what exactly would the relationship between that problem, which is there in law, and the new bag be and why that hasn't -- whereas we've done well in the Telecom sector, why have we not done in the regulation state?
>>: Thank you for those questions. That really does structure our discussion and takes the conversation further. May I request please respond for the first part in
>>: Thank you and thank you for these questions. Policy 12, of course, sees so many things (indicates so many things including (phone dials in on microphone N. (. Of course, as you know, national telephone policy aa map for Telecom. And Government is going ahead with its implementation in a full-line manner. Let me give you the steps that Government have make en. It is E, as unified lessons are in plan. It is what -- Telecom policies are there. And expect the management -- expect the management is expecting that. I must say the include-computing services, machine communication services are disturbing.
I must have shared a moment -- because you started I have been through this all. From those of us on the nrorm you lation, I think we were the first country and we are big on policy. Every country is doing an isolation and they are not waiting for the IP business systems. So this point was taken very slow. And they invited a special part of our Government to those meetings. I would say cloud is different. They have come out with some out with cloud services. So UP has addressed this and we are going to have this.
So Government is very (audio out)
>>: So yes, spaces and licensed, what it is now. The NPP has an action plan on the website where they break it down. One major move forward is the spectrum option. So as part of spectrum management, you've got to have a VP of spectrum which is in the Government, which is aligned with different stakeholders and users. Nationally speaking, how do you put it to the best use?
So out of the licenses that will cancel, some realignment with defense, much of this has just yesterday has returned back to the department of Telecom. So especially from our point of view, our viewpoint is, if you've got an available national resource, you have to see what best use you can put it to for providing services to the citizens. It's the security of the country, for example, for defense, or space, or broadcasting. I maoep, these are the traditional stakeholders who use spectrum. So that review process is very important. And now that Supreme Court has said you have options, so they must be put out to the public. If there is a problem with space -- ultimately, the country is accounting for it in some manner. That is part of your spectrum. The latest one you would see is that we have been pushing for realignment for defense with a small tweaking, you can get more tweaking. So that is part of it. To your second question about the ecosystem. So there are two points in there. One is the IPR, and the other is the manufacturing. The manufacturing often gets linked to IPR, which has its own ecosystem. I don't think it is correct to link it to a manufacturing ecosystem. There are things being put into place. IPR, on the other hand, there is other specific report which has got a lot of involvement in the academy in the IT process and the folks that come in there, their recommendations, innovation and this stuff.
So yes, like somebody else wants to say, the panel with China. There is no under mining the double up the manufacturing and idea of the system. Many ideas are doubled up by global teams. The question is, where do you register it and who has the rights? That is the moot question. That is something that we could use all the time to discuss, what is the best answer? I can't really give it. But it is part of something which is in focus. And to your third question. I'll hand it over without regarding the IPF.
>>: The industry was here represented a little less, and they have to leave their -- on the last piece which is about the committee and the mag, the meetings occurred last November when the committee was actually called. Even though it doesn't have everybody on it and the actual meeting occurred to ministry head quarters, civil society, everybody in the room had a discussion. And right after that, I said we practice. As far as mag is concerned, I'm not sure the link between that and the legislation. But I'm sure the mag that CIS is a member of -- I think they will develop the agenda -- I think the first meeting will be important to lay out things so I suppose we will take it from there.
>>: Omar, can I request you to go next?
>>: I would like to congratulate India for the development of your progress. That is an example for other countries to follow. I am Omar Onsari. You know Afghanistan is a mountainous. There are areas in Afghanistan, although the Government claims that 85% of the residential areas cover, but still there are areas that people have mobile phones, but they don't have the signal. They go to the top of the mountain, get a signal and come back down. That is making the communication very difficult for us. It is for making a call. They cannot receive a call. They don't know when the call will be received so they can go up to the mountain.
My question is: Were there challenges like that in India? If so, how are you addressing? The second part of my question is with the internet -- the internet in Pakistan is not doing well. They have licensed like three operators with a 3G license and it's just started it is not A- year old. Only 8% of the population are subscribers that makes 2 million out of the 30 million population. We don't have an internet exchange point. It is not affordable for the population. The other thing with people not using the internet is they don't know the language in the applications. Afghanis only know the green and red buttons. How we can cooperate between the content industries. For the third part of my question, wait. That is the spectrum issue. We have 65 channels and we have 174 radio channels. 74 -- 47 of them are covered. 21 channels and 47 radio channels are associating for a response. Did you have channel challenges like that?
>>: You've been a great friend and ally and I know you work in exceptionally difficult circumstances. Most of us would give up the fight. I'll respond very briefly to the last part of your question. We have a public service broadcasting trust. We have a network and we believe from a developing country per respecting, both are identifying key shoes, and representing the voices of those whose voices are often not heard and those who are not in the room. The public service broadcast indeed has a great role to play. We've seen about 900 channels, 450 daily news channels. It's phenomenonal. It's like going to a mall and looking at washing powders with X enzymes and Y enzymes. We know there are issues and challenges and voices that get out in the news. Yes, there are opportunities in alliance, and we will take that conversation forward. As far as obsticles, that is another panel and we can go on for another hour and a half. Before we take the final comments and take questions, we will have time for one more interaction. Martin, can I briefly request you to share the India experience? I know it can be overwhelming.
>>: Somebody from the small island with a small population coming into India, a large country with a very large population it's actually quite daunting, really. But certainly from where I was, I came away with a very positive message, a very clear message that here was India doing a lots of very important enabling work that was going to see India very well prepared. I think going to a country with 28 languages and 22 scripts, what came out really klerl to me was importance of finding new ways of communicating between peoples within the country and of course that is manage that then is globally applicable because no, you can do internally, nationally, and then the rest of the world can see how you can build those bridges between the different communities. And I think particularly it is important because it probably also means that you have to move away from an internet with applications that is focused on video. The thought that I was left with, though, was that you're focusing a lot of attention on that infrastructure development. But I'm hearing a lot less about yes, but what about the applications? What about the people in the field? The two words I wrote down were "Skills." And also stimulating the demand in the community because the application to doing something was of course the local community supports the local economy and it also supports the development of the engine economy more globally. I would like to hear something a bit on that if you could, please.
>>: I recognize everyone from the floor. I'm sorry, we are really running behind time. We really, really, really welcome your participation, but we're going to keep the floor for wrap up now.
>>: Just I'm responding to the Martin. The story of the internet from the mouth of the father of the internet of India, he is here.
>>: Of course. Of course.
>>: Thanks. I appreciate that. It is a bit of an honor to be here. Like mobile industry, the way mobile phone has seen a broad growth in India. If I go back to 1995 we launched the internet. There is a change. So that is a very telling story. We have a lot of content in India. It is like Google and yahoo. So I think we have a lot of things an a change of traffic in India. We see a lot of traffic coming up interestingly. From a data communication point of view. There was a time when we were carrying questions. If I look at wholesale wise, we look at 40 to 60% traffic. India has come out in a big way. I think looking at the stories, the FON is trying to drive the long distance story, the axis of the challenge, one of the key challenges is the story, you put the ducks on the highway. Make a --
>>: Thank you. Thank you. We really appreciate you taking the time and joining us. We are really running out time. Can I request the panelists to make Twitter comments in about 10 seconds and I'll request a word of thanks. I thanks the audience for being with us. It has been a very engaging discussion. Can I request the professor?
>>: Well, you know, that kind of discussion is important for sharing the countries. I appreciate the second in the Indian Government policy including all policy premiums you are going to include. That was real guilt action.
>>MODERATOR: Thank you.
>>: Okay. Martin's development applications, I got a part in the local languages. I have a lot of such applications weighing down in the various states of the country even when it's applications in land reports, you know, local educational sector which are they're looking in the messy way. Those people are going into localized applications, especially the ones out in the country. All those things. But we have all the ecosystem. All the languages and all the knowledge which will help us to move forward to the next billion in this country. Thank you.
>>: So I'm going to come to you last.
>>: From the mobile operator's side, there are two parts. One when you're online, there are lots of rural people who -- to the comment from Afghanistan and Rogers as well. People are smart. It is self-learning, it is a big thing even on a smart phone, or even on a laptop. We've had a very good experience and IT had not -- what was it in facing the wall type of concept. So you provide them access. The rule of people -- local people, non-English knowing people, they are small people. We have numerous examples of these couple with the cost -- loading of cost and memory chips. So if you go to a local village shop, he's got a bowl of chips with movies on it because they don't want regularly online, change the chip. The same is now getting applied to health applications, to education.
So to the point about allowing the people to wait even if they have limited internet access, the demand will build up to have regular 24/7 access. That is one of the things I thought I'd leave behind.
>>: I'll give me time to the Government spokesperson. I just want to say I think we have a long way to go before we sleep.
>>: Thank you so much. And I now switch hands. Thank you, audience. I really do want to thank you very much. Thank you, Government of India for making this possible. To you.
>>: Basically, to connect unconnect at one, 1 billion people of the country, we need to clear economic value. We have gauged for the 900 million mobile phones. It is basically value. So we need to make bridges who connect the unconnected ones. We need to make bridges to other ones. We are coming out with applications so economic values may be created. So IBD 6, we are trying to get projects so each can be delegated. Like Japan. We have -- over the the extent of 35%. When we had tsunami in Japan, they had tried to overcome tsunami in less than one year as trying. We have a stimulus type of situation, but we have modest shoes. We try to make India like a developed country and through quick well equation, equated one is not necessarily. This seems to be possible, and of course 600 million -- sorry, broadband connections is the next target. But before that, it would be having 1 billion internet connections. And of course I'm giving this to the moderator, all the panelists, especially. Him who has come to attend this panel from Tokyo. He has come just for today. And of course all the important people from India. We could not take many people for the panel. But India needs you and of course we are for you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
>>MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
>>: Give us a chance to be with you. Thank you.
>>MODERATOR: Just before we wrap up --
>>: As you walk away to the questions that Martin asked about, you know, local content and killer applications, we believe the killer applications for masses in India will be the content that we put out. As you walk out of this place, and thoi about what India is going to do next, enjoy this and have lunch.