1. Communication
  2. Telecom
  3. Tele-density
  4. Important org under DoT
  5. TRAI
  6. TSDAT
  7. National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012
  8. National policy on Electronics, 2012
  9. USOF
  10. National optical fiber network
  11. National e-governance plan (NeGP)
    1. SWAN
    2. Common services centres
    3. State data centres
    4. e-district
    5. MSDG
    6. INDG
  12. Electronic delivery of services bill 2011
  13. NIC
    1. NiceMail
    2. e-Lekha
    3. VAHAAN
    4. SAARTHI
  14. National knowledge network
  15. National knowledge Commission
  16. Information technology (Amendment) Act 2008
  17. FESTIVOX
  18. BOSS
  19. Controller of certifying authorities (CCA)
  20. ICERT
  21. Societies / autonomous bodies under Deity
    1. SAMEER
    2. C-DAC
      1. GARUDA
      2. Meghdoot
      3. eAgriEn
      4. Bharatiya AFIS
      5. E-Nayana Software
      6. PARAM
    3. STPI
    4. NIELIT
    5. ERNET
    6. Media lab Asia
    7. NIXI
  22. Business Services
  23. IT and ITeS
  24. IT sector: Challenges
  25. 12th FPY: Telecom and IT
    1. Spectrum Trading
    2. 12th FPY targets for Telecom
    3. 12th FYP: Themes for IT
  26. Timeline: Telecom and IT
  27. Mock Questions

first: a correction in the earlier article on Ch.9: IIP contains 682 items clubbed in 399 groups: 1 in Mining, 1 in Electricity and 397 in Manufacturing.

Communication

As your already know from the previous article, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (Under Kapil “zero-loss” Sibbal) Contains three departments

  1. Department of Posts
  2. Department of Telecommunications (also looks after wireless)
  3. Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY)

We already saw topics related to Department of Post in previous article click me. In the present article, we’ll see the topics related to remaining two departments.

Telecom

India has 2nd largest telecom network in the world after China

Tele-density

It shows the number of telephones per 100 persons.

Teledensity @end of Oct ‘12 Approx. %
Rural 41
Urban 159
Overall 77

Important org under DoT

Name When type What?
C-DOT 84 R&D Centre for Development of Telematics. Telephone/ telecom related research.
MTNL 86 PSU (Navratna) Serves in

  1. Delhi including four peripheral towns Noida, Gurgaon, Faridabad & Gaziabad
  2. Mumbai, including Navi Mumbai and Thane
  3. Overseas: Nepal, Mauritius
BSNL 2000 PSU (Miniratna) Lolz

TRAI

  • Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)
  • established by an Act of parliament in 1997 (hence TRAI=Statutory body)
  • Chairman=Rahul Khullar
  • To notify the rates at which telecommunication services within India and outside India shall be provided
  • Spectrum management
  • lay down the standards of quality of service to be provided by the service providers
  • conduct the periodical survey of such service provided by the service providers so as to protect interest of the telecom users
  • ensure effective compliance of Universal Service Obligations
  • TRAI also makes recommendations to the Government on a host of issues including conditions for entry of new service providers and terms and conditions of licences granted to service providers

TSDAT

  • Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT)
  • Setup in 2000
  • To hear appeal against any direction/ decision of TRAI
  • to adjudicate any dispute between a licensor and a licensee;
  • between two or more service providers;
  • between a service provider and a group of consumers

National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012

#1: telecom

  1. Do another 2G scam
  2. secure, affordable, and high-quality telecommunication services to all citizens.
  3. One Nation-One Licence across services and service areas.
  4. One Nation-Full Mobile Number Portability and work towards One Nation-Free Roaming
  5. Recognize telecom as an infrastructure sector
  6. Recognize telecom, including broadband connectivity, as a basic necessity like education and health

#2: rural

  1. Increase rural tele-density to 70 by the year 2017 and 100 by the year 2020.
  2. Provide high-speed and high-quality broadband access to all village panchayats through a combination of technologies by the year 2014 and progressively to all villages and habitations by 2020.

#3: internet

  1. transition to the new Internet Protocol (IPv6) in the country in a phased and time-bound manner by 2020
  2. Work towards ‘Right to Broadband’.
    1. Provide affordable and reliable broadband-on-demand by the year 2015
    2. 175 million broadband connections by the year 2017
    3. 600 million by the year 2020 at minimum 2 Mbps download speed and make available higher speeds of at least 100 Mbps on demand

National policy on Electronics, 2012

  • create an eco—system for a globally competitive ESDM (Electronic System and Design and Manufacturing): infrastructure  + industry friendly and stable tax regime.
  • By 2020 achieve
    • Domestic production of 400 billion USD
    • Investment of 100 billion USD
    • Increase EDSM export to 80 billion USD
    • employment to around 28 million people
  • Setup electronic manufacturing clusters
  • Setup semiconductor wafer manufacturing facilities
  • renaming the Department of Information Technology as Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity).
  • Cyber security
  • e-waste handling

USOF

National optical fiber network

  • For providing broadband connectivity to all 2.5 lakh gram panchayats.
  • Project is funded by Universal service obligation fund (USOF)

National e-governance plan (NeGP)

  • it has 31 mission mode projects
  • to implement this plan, Department of Electronics and IT (DEITY), has created infrastructure through following

SWAN
  • Central government provides technical and financial assistance to the State governments and union Territories for establishing wide area network from HQ to up to block level

Common services centres
  • for establishing one lakh Internet enabled centres in rural areas through public-private partnership

State data centres
  • to provide common IT infrastructure for hosting the government applications and softwares

e-district
  • it is a mission mode project under the national governance plan
  • it aims said electronic delivery of citizen centric services at district and subdistrict level for example
  • issuing certificates of birth, death, domicile, nationality, caste, marriage, income, employment etc
  • social welfare, pension, scholarship, ration card etc.

MSDG
  • Mobile service delivery Gateway
  • to use the potential of mobile phone for expanding access in reach of public services in India
  • by Department of Electronics and IT
  • M-Appstore= A mobile application store, launcher under MSDG (mobile service delivery Gateway).

INDG
  • India Development Gateway
  • Initiative by Department of Electronics and IT (Deity)
  • for providing e-knowledge and ICT-applications for rural empowerment

Electronic delivery of services bill 2011

  • seeks to mandate public service provision compulsorily through electronic mode
  • from a specific date
  • for both Central and State government
  • pending under the Parliamentary standing committee on information technology
  • more details on prsindia.org

NIC

  • National Informatics Centre (NIC)
  • under Department of information and technology
  • established in 1976
  • provides ICT infrastructure for governance
  • NICNET= the ICT network of NIC- it provides network connectivity to all ministries/departments of Central, State governments, union Territories and about 625 districts

Some work done by NIC

NiceMail

 NIC’s E-mail service

e-Lekha

 NIC’s Electronic payment and accounting system

VAHAAN

 software for automated vehicle registration

SAARTHI

 Software for issuing driving licence

National knowledge network

  • government approved is project in 2010
  • NIC is implementing it over a period of 10 years
  • it aims to interconnect higher learning institutions with high-speed internet connection

National knowledge Commission

  • setup in 2005
  • high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister of India
  • Chairman= Sam Pitroda
  • Gives policy advice for education, research to transform India into a knowledge society.

Information technology (Amendment) Act 2008

FESTIVOX

  • open source software framework
  • it is used to develop text to speech (TTS) software is for Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and other Indian languages.
  • It will be integrated with screen readers in Windows and Linux operating softwares for use of blind people.

BOSS

  • Bharat operating systems solution
  • it is a GNU/Linux -based operating system with Indian language support
  • for both desktop and server versions
  • it is an example of  free and open source software solution (FOSS)
  • developed by the National Resource Centre for Free/Open Source Software (NRCFOSS) of India under Department of Electronics and IT (DIETY)

Controller of certifying authorities (CCA)

  • the information technology act provides vehicle wreck nation to electronic records and treats digital signatures at par with the handwritten signatures
  • for this purpose CCA, licenses the certifying authorities to issue Digital Signature certificates
  • such Digital Signature certificates are used in RGTS and NEFT of RBI, emails, chat trading, income tax return etc.

ICERT

  • Indian computer emergency response team
  • it is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur

Societies / autonomous bodies under Deity

  • SAMEER
  • C-DAC: Centre for development of advanced computing
  • C-MET: Centre for material of Electronics technology
  • STPI
  • ERNET
  • Media lab Asia
  • NIXI

SAMEER

  • Society for applied microwave Electronics engineering and research
  • it is an automated research and development laboratory under the Department of Electronics and IT
  • work:  doppler radars, observation platforms for Indian meteorological department, medical electronics etc.

C-DAC

Centre for development of advanced computing

GARUDA
  • It is a cyber infrastructure connecting computational nodes, mass storage and scientific instruments distributed across the country.
  • GARUDA is India’s first national grid initiative bringing together academic, scientific and research communities

Meghdoot
  • open source based cloud stack
  • It contains all pre-requisite tools for implement your own cloud network.

eAgriEn
  • Application of Electronics in agriculture and environment.
  • This includes electronic nose, region, smell and tongue acknowledges for quality monitoring of agricultural products such as turmeric, Cheney, Rice etc.

Bharatiya AFIS
  • automated fingerprint identification system

E-Nayana Software
  • for mobile tele-ophthalmology.
  • It allows doctors to examine eye patients via videoconferencing in rural and tribal areas,
  • Softwares helps transferring electronic health records of patients and providing them expert consultation immediately

PARAM
  • Supercomputer built by C-DAC, Pune.

STPI

  • software technology Parks of India
  • established in 1991
  • for promotion of software exports from India

NIELIT

  • National institute of Electronics and information technology
  • Formerly known as DOEACC society
  • offers computer courses such as DOEACC O/A/B/C etc.
  • CCC: course on computer concepts, launched in 99, gives 80 hours of basic computer literacy.
  • This course is recognized for job application under State and central services.

ERNET

  • Autonomous scientific society
  • It is a mix of terrestrial and satellite based Wide area network (WAN)
  • Serves institutions in health, agro, education, sci-tech and other sectors.

Media lab Asia

  • Not-for-profit organization
  • To bring the most advanced ICT technologies for the benefit of common man
  • ICT for health, edu, livelihood, rural connectivity and empowerment

NIXI

  • National internet exchange of India
  • Not for profit organization
  • To facilitate domestic internet traffic between ISP member.
  • This helps in efficient use of international bandwidth, save foreign exchange.

Now let’s check some stuff from economic survey ch10.

Business Services

It includes computer-related services, R&D, accounting services and legal services, and renting of machinery.

IT and ITeS

has four major sub-components:

  1. IT services,
  2. business process outsourcing (BPO),
  3. engineering services and R&D
  4. software products.

IT sector: Challenges

Slowdown and protectionism

  • global slowdown has impacted the revenues of Indian IT companies.
  • Outsourcing has also become a national/election/political issue in several developed countries, like the USA and the UK. Their governments are now supporting their local/domestic BPO industry through various means e.g. giving tax benefits to companies to don’t outsource work.
  • BPO industry in the UK employs 800,000 British workers and is emerging as a vital part of the economy.

Competition

Largest exporters in Computer and IT services

  1. EU
  2. India
  3. USA

But in recent years, many new competitors like China, Israel and the Philippines have emerged.

India’s new competitors in Voice contracts / BPO service segment

Asia China, Philippines Malasia
Africa Egypt, Morocco
Latin America Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Columbia
Europe Poland, Ireland
  • According to NASSCOM, in the last five years, India has lost about 10 per cent market share to the rest of the world in the world BPO space, most of which is in the voice contract segment.

Language proficiency

  • China BPO sector faces challenges in English accent and language proficiency, but their government is spending lot of public funds to improve English at schools and vocational training and thus China may eventually emerge as a threat to India. (means we too need to start a Rajiv Gandhi English proficiency Yojana: RGEPY lolz).
  • Philippines is a serious competitor of India in both hardware and software segments of IT
  • To address the rising wages in the urban BPO space, there is a need to move more towards rural areas, for which skill development, and English language training with American and different European accents is necessary.

12th FPY: Telecom and IT

Spectrum Trading

  • Recall that 2G scam revolves around the controversy that certain companies (like Swan telecom) bought the spectrum but did not start telecom operation. They merely sold it to third company at a higher price (similar to ‘black’ cinema-tickets)
  • Historically, in most countries, the Regulator has used a command and control mechanism to decide allocation of spectrum.
  • However, it is being increasingly felt that this system does not allow the spectrum licence holders the flexibility to respond quickly to changes in market demand and technology,
  • This results in chunks of spectrum lying underutilized, and thereby creating an artificial scarcity.
  • Therefore, some countries like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and some EU countries have permitted spectrum trading in the secondary market. (just like how shares and bonds are traded).
  • Spectrum trading is likely to improve spectrum efficiency, boost market competition and provide incentives to innovation to service providers

12th FPY targets for Telecom

  1. By 2017
    1. Provide of 1200 million connections
    2. increase rural teledensity to 70%
    3.  Broadband connection of 175 million
  2. Commissioning of National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN)
  3. Making India a hub for telecom equipment manufacturing
  4. Provide preferential market access for indigenously manufactured products.
  5. Adopt green policy in Telecom
  6. incentivize use of renewable energy sources.

12th FYP: Themes for IT

  1. e-Government
  2. e-Learning
  3. e-Security
  4. e-Industry (Electronics System Design and Manufacturing)
  5. e-Industry (IT-ITeS)
  6. e-Innovation/R&D
  7. e-Inclusion

Timeline: Telecom and IT

1851 1st Telegraph line: Kolkata and Diamond Harbor
1881 Telephone service introduced in Kolkata
1913 1st automatic exchange @Shimla
1945 WIPRO
1968 TCS- Tata Consultancy Services
1976 NIC
1981 Infosys
1986 MTNL
1987 SATYAM
1988 C-DAC
1991 software technology Parks of India
1997 TRAI
2000 BSNL
2005 National knowledge Commission
2008 122 licenses for 2G spectrum auctioned on first-come-first-serve basis (@2001’s prices) and thus came the 2G scam.
2009 Satyam accounting scandal
2010 National knowledge network
2012 SC cancelled the 122 licenses for 2G given by the “totally awesome” you know who.
2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai. more details already covered in old article click me
2017 Increase rural tele-density to 70
2020 Increase rural tele-density to 100

Mock Questions

  1. Correct Chronological order (older to newer)
    1. BSNL, MTNL, TRAI
    2. TRAI, BSNL, MTNL
    3. MTNL, BSNL, TRAI
    4. None of Above
  2. Rahul Khullar is the chairman of
    1. CCI
    2. BSNL
    3. MTNL
    4. TRAI
    5. None of above
  3. Which of the following is not related with National Telecom Policy 2012?
    1. Mobile number portability
    2. Broadband penetration
    3. IPV6
    4. Electronic System and Design and Manufacturing
  4. National Telecom Policy 2012, wants to increase Rural tele-density to 100 by
    1. 2015
    2. 2020
    3. 2017
    4. 2025
  5. Teledensity is measured as
    1. No of telephones per 100 persons
    2. No of telephones per 1000 persons
    3. No of telephones in the given area
    4. No of telephones in the given telecom circle
  6. National optical fiber network aims to provide broadband connection to
    1. Institutes of higher learning
    2. Primary and secondary schools
    3. Courts
    4. Gram Panchyats
  7. M-Appstore belongs to
    1. Google
    2. Apple
    3. DEITY
    4. Blackberry/RIM
  8. India Development Gateway is an initiative of
    1. FICCI
    2. Commerce Ministry
    3. Ministry of MSME
    4. Department of Electronics and IT
  9. What is the purpose of India Development gateway?
    1. Raise funds for Development of MSME
    2. Provide vocational skills to Rural entrepreneurs
    3. provide e-knowledge and ICT apps for Rural empowerment
    4. None of Above
  10. NIC falls under
    1. DEITY
    2. National knowledge Commission
    3. National knowledge network
    4. Dept of Telecom
  11. NICEMAIL is a service of
    1. NIC
    2. Yahoo
    3. Blackberry/RIM
    4. None of above
  12. VAHAAN is
    1. a software for automated vehicle registration
    2. a voice based GPS navigation system for vehicles
    3. a software to track cargo-trucks via GPS
    4. None of above
  13. What is SAARTHI?
    1. a robot to drive vehicles for physically handicapped persons
    2. a voice based GPS navigation system for vehicles
    3. Software to issuing driving licenses
    4. None of above
  14. Correct statements about National knowledge network
    1. It is a high level advisory body to PM of India
    2. Sam Pitroda is its chairman
    3. It aims to interconnect institutions of higher learning with highspeed internet connection
    4. None of above
  15. BOSS operating system is meant for
    1. Desktop PC
    2. Servers
    3. Both
    4. None
  16. Which of the following org. is/are related with Dept. of electronics and IT?
    1. SAMEER
    2. C-DAC
    3. Media lab Asia
    4. All of above
  17. which of the following software is not Developed by CDAC?
    1. GARUDA
    2. Meghdoot
    3. Meghdoot millenium
    4. E-nayana
  18. E-Nayana software is meant for
    1. Tele-ophthalmology
    2. doing retinal scans for UID
    3. both
    4. none
  19. What is the new name of DOEACC society?
    1. C-DAC
    2. C-DOT
    3. NIELIT
    4. NIXI
  20. What is the purpose of Media lab Asia
    1. Telecast doordarshan programs in South east Asian countries
    2. Produce documentaries from neighboring countries for Prasar Bharti
    3. Bring ICT technologies for benefit of common man
    4. None of above
  21. NIXI falls under
    1. NASDAQ
    2. SENSEX
    3. DEITY
    4. None of Above
  22. Among the following, which company is oldest?
    1. TCS
    2. Infosys
    3. WIPRO
    4. SATYAM
  23. Among the following, which company is youngest?
    1. TCS
    2. Infosys
    3. WIPRO
    4. SATYAM
  24. Correct Chronological order (older to newer)
    1. NIC, National Knowledge Commission (NKC), National knowledge network (NKN)
    2. NIC, NKN, NKC
    3. NKC, NIC, NKN
    4. None of above
  25. Bharatiya Automated fingerprint identification system is developed by
    1. DRDO
    2. C-DAC
    3. CSIR
    4. None of above
  26. World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) 2012 was held in
    1. Quebec
    2. Dubai
    3. Doha
    4. None of above