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Technology

Rural development throughbroadband, wireless and mobilesThe press release issued by the Telecom

Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on 10June seeking comments from stakeholders on anational broadband plan (NBP) has generateda lot of enthusiasm for more than one reason.The move could mark a milestone in India’squest for information and communicationtechnology (ICT) for digital equality, if soundthinking and real action can be achieved.

The NBP could be looked at through thisbackdrop: broadband penetration in India isjust 0.74%, while tele-density stands at 52.74%,despite at least 100 telecom service providersoffering broadband services. Net broadbandaddition per month is 0.1-0.2 million, in con-trast to approximately 19 million mobile phoneconnections per month.

Though 70% of Indians live in rural areas,broadband facility is limited to the major cit-ies. Out of nine million broadband subscribersat the end of April, just 6% are in rural areas.This is attributed to lack of transmission mediaconnectivity channels at the village level.

Availability of broadband services at afford-able tariffs is critical for the development ofrural areas to provide access to vast informa-tion, facilitate civic services delivery, increaseeconomic growth rate, power employment ave-nues and increase productivity.

The Trai move—triggered by the departmentof telecom’s (DoT) search for broadband solu-tions—is worth a consideration. A specific fea-ture of this is DoT seeking Trai’s recommenda-tions on the need to review the definition ofbroadband connectivity in view of futuregrowth in Internet/broadband driven by wire-less technologies. No doubt, this calls for thedevelopment of a robust national broadbandinfrastructure to reach out to the villages.

An option being explored is taking optical fi-bre to 375,552 villages having a population of500-plus. The funding could be sourced fromthe Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employ-ment Guarantee Scheme for non-skilled workand from the Universal Services ObligationFund for material and equipment cost. Thisoptical-fibre network would be linked with thebackbones of various service providers and us-ers would then be able to get broadband withtypes of wired and wireless solutions.

Using various mobile device networks, wire-

less clusters could be developed in rural areas,which then connected to mobile phones candeliver information and facilitate civic servicesdelivery. Globally, cellular phones are alreadypart of huge wireless network systems. Thebenefit of wireless networks is not to bemissed. It is an inexpensive and rapid way tobe connected to the Internet in countrieswhere the telecom infrastructure is poor, as inmost developing nations.

Another option is establishing a wireless In-ternet connection using cell phones. This maynot be the best long-term option, but in cer-tain situations, it can do the basic job in ruralareas—such as obtaining email and searchingprice rates of agro and commodity products.

The talk of wireless power has already beendiscussed by this writer giving the example ofMahabir Pun’s Nepal Wireless in the hills ofNepal at a height of 3,650m. Another one in In-dia could be seen in Dharamsala, called Dhar-amsala Wireless-Mesh Community Network,which has been done by AirJaldi since 2005,immediately after the ministry of communica-tion and information technology deregulatedWiFi for outdoor use in India. The Mesh back-bone in Dharamsala already boasts of install-ing more than 30 nodes connecting at least2,000 computers providing upstream band-width of up to 6MBPS.

Many options can be weighed to find a wire-less solution. Last-mile infrastructure can beencouraged for Internet penetration throughwireless local loop and wireless mesh net-works. In fact, a policy such as National Wire-less Connectivity Project can be considered toreach out to distant areas through wirelesstechnology—involving identified stakeholdersto roll out the programme. This can be then in-tegrated with a national m-governance plat-form—initiating steps for basic informationservices in select departments and ministriestowards achieving digital equality goals for ru-ral empowerment.

Osama Manzar is founder and director ofDigital Empowerment Foundation andchairman of the mBillionth awards. Mint isa partner of the mBillionth awards.

For more details of nominees, nomineeprofiles and the mBillionth awards, log on tohttp://blog.livemint.com/mobile-movement

OSAMA MANZARDIGITAL WORLDRespond to this columns at feedback@livemint.com

Travellingmade easierwith a pocketdigital guide

B Y P O O J A C H A T U R V E D I

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Pocket Travel Assistant, orPTA, is a free-of-cost mo-

bile phone application thatpromises to bring the world tothe fingertips of travellers.

It compiles a range of infor-mation about places of touristinterest globally, includinglandmarks, history, culture,weather, street addresses andphone numbers.

This is beefed up with localnews, maps and content suchas mobile phone books toserve as a comprehensive digi-tal travel guide.

“The initial motivation wasto create a proof of conceptmobile mash-up application ofnon-mobile data sources, andto make it available on mo-bile,” said Samir Kumar Dash,the entrepreneur who has cre-ated PTA. “The idea was to

provide the traveller with aone-stop solution for all histravel needs.”

Using PTA, travellers canalso directly access images orvideo clips of a particular des-tination available on websitessuch as Wikipedia, Flickr andYouTube.

The application uses the lo-cation of the phone to provideusers with local emergencynumbers, such as police hel-pline or the nearest clinic orhospital.

In places where language isa barrier, PTA links to theGoogle language translatorpage to help out with simplephrases in the local language.

It has its limits. PTA does notprovide information about theremote villages of India unlessthey have a historical or geo-graphical significance.

But with the use of the Ine-ternet rising in India, Dash ishopeful. “As the data PTA usesis based on Internet data, intime more and more informa-tion about the remotest placeswill be available,” he said.

The application is availablefor Flash Llite 3x-enabledmobile phones only. Usersneed a GPRS/Wifi connectionthat allows data transfer to useit.

“(Being) easy to downloadand free of cost with no hiddencharges involved makes theproduct even more usable by atraveller, along with its addi-tional features,” said Dash.

PTA was adjudged the bestapplication in mobile contentcategory at Manthan AwardsSouth Asia 2009, and was asemifinalist at the 2009 AdobeMax Awards.

Dash is also working on aHindi version of the applica-tion.

For more details on PTA,compatibility information andto download, go tohttp://www.mobilewish.com

Nominee ProfilePocket Travel Assistant

MBILLIONTH AWARD

NEW REVENUE STREAM

Productionhouses bet bigon audio cinema

B Y G O U R I S H A H

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Caught up in a trafficsnarl? Waiting for some-one at an office or a ho-

tel’s lobby? You may want toreach out for your mobilephone to download and enjoyan audio version of your favour-ite movie.

Audio cinema—last heard ofwhen radio stations used toplay out film synopses in theearly 1980s—is slowly emergingas a new revenue stream forproduction houses. Three-hourfilms are being squeezed into15-30 minute audio features,complete with narration, dia-logues and songs.

Popular titles, from RameshSippy’s classic Sholay to AamirKhan’s 3 Idiots and PrakashJha’s more recent Raajneeti, arealready available.

“Content is king, but access iseven more important,” saidManish Agarwal, chief execu-tive of UTV New Media Ltd,which has tied up with mobileservice providers such asBharti Airtel Ltd, VodafoneEssar Ltd, Idea Cellular Ltdand Reliance Communica-tions Ltd, among others, to of-fer audio movies on mobilehandsets.

Agarwal’s firm is looking tosell films produced by its sisterconcern, UTV Motion Pictures,in addition to movies from oth-er production houses such asMukta Arts Ltd and RelianceBig Pictures.

Last year, UTV New Media’saudio cinema catalogue com-prised 12 titles. This year, thenumber is likely to touch 250,with Hindi movies accountingfor every two out of three titles.Films in regional languages,such as Marathi, Bhojpuri, Tel-ugu, Malayalam, Tamil andKannada will make up the rest.

That is because productionhouses are targeting customersin smaller cities and towns, whohave fewer entertainment op-tions than those who live inmetros, and thus rely on moreaccessible channels such asmobile phones.

Industry estimates peg the

market for audio cinema atRs100 crore. It will grow at10-12% month-on-month, saidAgarwal. “Audio cinema hasmanaged to rake in a subscriberbase of 1.5 million consumersin a matter of 11 months. Weexpect this number to touch 4-5million consumers by March.”

Shireesh Mukund Joshi, di-rector of marketing and com-munications at Airtel, said pro-duction houses have to followconsumers wherever they are.“So if consumers are spendingmore time online and on theirmobile phones, then it’s in theirbest interest to be there.”

His company launched itsaudio cinema service brandedAirtel Talkies early this year.

Mukta Arts is another pro-duction house exploring newmedia avenues to sell its mov-ies. Following their theatricaldebut, its films are released informats such as home video,satellite, broadcast, web andmobile.

“You don’t want your contentto be overexposed. So you en-sure that you control the num-ber of releases and monetize iton different platforms to keepthe interest going,” said Chait-anya Chinchlikar, businesshead, digital media, Mukta Arts.

The company currently has33 titles in its audio cinema li-brary, including Karz, KhalNayak, Kalicharan, Karma,Ram Lakhan, Iqbal and Joggers’Park, and is looking to add tothe list.

Chinchlikar said although therevenue from audio cinema isclose to negligible right now, ithad a lot of potential to grow.“There is no recurring cost.”

Universal Music India Pvt.Ltd purchases the entire sound-track of a movie when negotia-ting for music rights. “This is ahuge opportunity for us tomonetize such content,” saidRajat Kakar, managing director.

Kakar said older movies, too,will be popular in audio format,as there was a sense of nostalgiaassociated with the radio narra-tions of three decades ago.

His company has titles suchas Deewaar, Qurbani, Satte PeSatta and Sholay in its cata-logue, and has converted five-six titles into audio cinema sofar. “We have over 1,000 films,so we have a large roster to gothrough before we reach culmi-nation point,” he said. “Sufficeit to say that movies with pow-erful dialogues will do verywell.”

Sound and fury: A wallpaper of Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay.

It compiles detailsof tourist spots to

provide the travellerwith a one­stop

shop for his needs

With a subscriber baseof 1.5 mn in 11 months,experts say the numbermay touch 4­5 mnconsumers by March