C-DOT: Village Voice-8/10/2009-(ONE YEAR OLD ARTICLE)

C-DOT: Village Voice

8/10/2009

(ONE YEAR OLD ARTICLE)

The telecom technology trailblazer has helped set up 20 million fixed phone lines, half of the total landlines in India, as well as 32,900 rural exchanges.

In July 1986, Jakatia, a retired headmaster and the oldest citizen of Kittur village, Karnataka, picked up a telephone and made a call. For a village with a population of 12,500 and little means of communication, it was a big deal. For India, it marked the beginning of the telecom revolution.

Kittur was the first rural communication project set up by the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), the autonomous, non-profit R&D organisation set up by Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, better known as Sam Pitroda, under the Ministry of IT and Communications. The village served as a pilot project in which a 128-line rural automatic exchange developed by C-DOT was installed. The results were spectacular. The 74 subscribers, comprising mostly local farmers and businessmen, averaged a whopping 2,400 calls per telephone per year in the first few years. There was an 80 per cent increase in cash deposits at local banks, an increase of 20-30 per cent in local business incomes, and easier access to doctors for local residents.

The switch to digital technology from the analog system modernised telephony. This was followed by the induction of higher capacity digital switches called main automatic exchanges (MAXs). Thanks to C-DOT's indigenised solutions, which could be manufactured by local companies on a large scale and did not require an airconditioned environment, STD/PCO booths mushroomed overnight and people could make calls abroad directly rather than having to book trunk calls. Buoyed by its success, the organisation set itself a target of increasing fixed line telephone subscribers from five million in 1990 to around 25 million by 2000. This it did by building the switch technology and allowing private companies to manufacture the switch. This was used by BSNL to set up the network through which people get a phone connection. In addition, 32,900 rural exchanges helped connect India.

Twenty-five years and 500 million phone users later, C-DOT is gearing up for a different challenge. "It is not enough that you make good chocolate," says Padur Vadiraja Acharya, executive director, C-DOT, "but also how you package it." The organisation has an average annual budget of Rs 150 crore, of which roughly 70 per cent comes from the Government, and the remaining from the transfer of technology and royalty from its various switches. To maximise its revenue, it has started taking on turnkey software solutions like network management systems and clearing house solutions positioned in operators' networks. The organisation is also working on projects of strategic importance, which includes working with law enforcement agencies in internet monitoring and mobile interception. It is only a matter of time before rural India too wakes up to the click of a mouse.

by Nandini Vaish

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