When Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala speaks about tele communications, there is fire in his eyes. This professor of electrical engineering at the IIT Madras has pioneered a communication technology that has taken telephone connection to the grassroots. This also brings to the fore, the oft repeated question, ‘can Indian academia bring out low cost India specific technologies and not just high class people’? If one looks at the technology by Prof Jhunjhunwala and his team, one can assume that Indian academia have started the process.

The technology is corDECT (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone). This is a wireless in local loop (WLL) system that offers a robust last mile solution designed to be flexible, scalable and affordable- ideally suited for developing geographies like India. corDECT combines the ability to deliver simultaneous voice and data up to 70 kbps. It is well suited for new and expanding telecommunication networks in high-density urban and suburban areas as well as sparsely populated rural areas. If cabling is an issue, then corDECT is the solution.

Dr Ashok Jhunjhunwala  professor, department of electrical engineering and head TeNet Lab IIT, Chennai

Looks simple, but the technology is the result of years of hard work by members of TeNet- a research entity founded by Prof Jhunjhunwala at IIT Madras.

Why CorDECT
During the early nineties, the capital expenditure for providing a new telephone line was around Rs 40,000 – a major deterrent towards providing new connection to remote and rural areas. Hence, the telecom service providers largely concentrated on metros and towns that had a sizeable sample. This is mainly because they can break even the CAPEX spent in a span of two years, assuming that they get billing revenues in excess of Rs 1,000 per connection per month. With this ground reality, the need was an affordable telephone technology, that can wire rural India that was largely ignored by the telecom operators in the early 1990’s. So the telecom gap continued… until the corDECT.

Of course, like any success story, Cordect has its share of problems. Ranging from government whims and fancies in terms of rules and regulations to whether such technology would be viable in the first place. But despite hurdles all the way, TeNet successfully established corDECT as a major WLL standard that today compliments CDMA.

The corDECT technology has numerous advantages. Apart from the lower CAPEX (around 16,000 per line as compared to Rs 25,000 plus for a conventional line), its ability to split voice and data makes it very agile for net connectivity. Given that, it would be fair to call this technology as a low cost DSL connectivity.

Initially, the corDECT system was deployed in pilot mode in rural areas in February 2000. For instance, 65 villages in Kuppam Taluk in Andhra Pradesh were wired using corDECT. There has been no looking back since then. The initially reluctant telecom operators jumped into corDECT in a big way. Even private players like Reliance have shown interest on this technology. Reliance has committed a tank size of 15 lakh corDECT connections in the next three years. The company will be using corDECT instead of CDMA to connect some of the remotest areas of the country. Meanwhile, BSNL has more than six lakh corDECT lines cutting across 24 cities in nine States. The BSNL’s corDECT order is worth more than 700 crore and was distributed among licensed corDECT manufacturers – Himachal Futuristic Communication (HFCL), Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), Electronic Corporation of India (ECI), Shyam Telecom and Hindustan Teleprinters.

MTNL meanwhile, has more than a lakh corDECT connections. All the operators put together (in India and in other geographies like Brazil, Tunisia, Argentina and Nigeria), the installed base for corDECT today is close to one million.

On the revenue sharing front, Midas Communications, which has commercialized the corDECT and IIT Madras, will get royalties from the manufacturers.

The success of corDECT without doubt has proved it to be a disruptive technology. But India with its population of one billion plus, still lags in teledensity and still a huge market. To increase adoption levels, one has to bring the capital as well as the operational expenditure.

Prof Jhunjhunwala says that 60% of Indian urban households can only afford Rs 200 on telephone expenses per month. If that looks like a paltry sum, you have to think again. If the CAPEX for providing a new line comes to Rs 6,000, this can become very much a reality.

After years of evolution, corDECT has reached a comfort level. What emerges at the end of the day is that, corDECT will become a complimentary wireless technology that will co-exist with other technologies.

In the densely populated urban and upcountry markets; it will be GSM and CDMA. Meanwhile, in deep down rural areas, corDECT could be the most viable option for telecom operators to enlist new subscribers.

It is beyond doubt that CorDECT is one of the first viable, and successful technologies to come out of Indian academic research lab. However, it is just the beginning. Increasingly the academia fraternity is realizing that addressing India's specific problems is not only fulfilling, but also very lucrative in the long run.

G Shrikanth in Chennai

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