We are working to see how 21 GHz right upto V band can be used: Deepak

JS Deepak, secretary, DoT (department of telecom) is working to see how 21 GHz right upto V band can be better used for backhaul and ability to aggregate Wi-Fi hotspots.

Speaking at Broadband India Forum (BIF) Summit, JS Deepak, secretary, DoT said, "The usage of higher frequency spectrum in the milimeter wave is definitely a focus area for us. We are working to see how 21 GHz right up to the V band can be better used. V band is a special spectrum as it has great scope because of its capacity for backhaul, ability to aggregate Wi-Fi hotspots and its low interference property due to oxygen absorption."

The summit deliberated on the deployment of wireless fiber technologies in the E and V band to expedite penetration of affordable broadband in India, especially in urban, dense urban areas and remote areas where it is not feasible to extend optical fibre to customers premises. Welcoming delegates to the summit, MF Farooqui, chairman, BIF said, "Broadband can be truly enabled by deploying fiber everywhere but that is not feasible due to costs involved and deployment challenges.  E and V bands can provide tremendous acceleration to Digital India as they provide fiber like speed and capacity at competitive costs besides excellent customer experience" India lags way behind the world average in terms of number of hotpsots for every 150 people. Globally, we have 45 million hotspots whereas In India we have a total of 31,518 hotspots till date. To reach todays global average of 1 hotspot for every 150 persons, India would need additionally another 8 million hotspots. Future urban broadband access will be driven by the deployment of Wi-Fi and 4G networks that require "fiber speed" backbone networks. These high-speed backbone networks will need to support a dense deployment of Wi-Fi access points and base stations. The cost structure of a fiber backbone for such deployments everywhere can be prohibitive. These bands can not only be utilized for mobile backhaul but also act as a "fiber extension" to extend broadband connectivity from existing points of presence to nearby locations for a number of applications in urban, semi-urban and rural areas. V band is considered suitable for providing short haul wireless links for backhaul in urban and dense urban areas as well as for providing Wi-Fi like multigigabit wireless access everywhere. Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aayog said, “At present broadband has reached nearly 10 per cent of the entire population. India has a long way to go and it has to catch up really fast. We need vast number of innovations; one of them is the usage of V and E band providing high capacity data where optical fiber hasn’t reached.” Some of the emerging 60 GHz band technologies can now offer one or two orders of magnitude cost reduction over fiber and existing milli-metric band backbone networks. Global momentum behind IEEE 802.11ad chipsets is key to driving opportunities in the 60 GHz band.

Currently, the 802.11ad based 60 GHz band hosts a broad range of services including outdoor wireless links that extend the reach of fiber networks and personal networking technologies that deliver multi-gigabit speeds between devices.