Connectivity was put to the ultimate test during the COVID-19 induced lockdown. It did sustain itself to an extent, but the call drops and poor Internet connectivity continued to plague users.
In 1999 when Jagmohan the then Union Communication Minister visited Goa for BJP’s ‘Chintan Baithak’, he visited Verna and had spent one full day in Industrial estate. “During this visit all the decisions about taking Goa to a new level of Internet regime were taken up. Goa’s BSNL laid a complete fibre network in the State and we got one of the best exchanges with the best of networks in the country,” said Nitin Kunkoleinker, ex-president of the Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI)
He further pointed out that prior to this Goa had a dialup connection from Bombay. From April 13, 1999 the dialup started from Goa itself and that was one of the incredible things that Jagmohan did for Goa. Since then Goa was seen as one of the best place for connectivity across the country and everyone would boast about it. “However, in the last 10 years, I must say there is a very regressive trend in the telecom space,” added Kunkoleinker.
The Economic Revival Committee (ERC) has also recommended that connectivity needs to improve if development is sought. “The Chief Minister said that we would like to be one of the first states in the country to test 5G network. In Goa it’s not only about the 4G network which is currently there but there were talks about going for 5G and I think they are making a policy for this. They have recognised that it is one of the most essential aspects of development of the State,” informed Kunkoleinker who is also the vice chairman of ERC.
President of the Goa Technology Association (GTA), Manguirish Salelkar said, “While we are expected to ‘Work From Home’, due to poor last mile connectivity, we are bound to rely on telecom service providers and use mobile hotspots to carry out work. During these days, the mobile network and data bandwidth is also poor. I hope these government decisions are taken quickly and wisely to make sure the connectivity is strong in urban and rural areas in Goa. We expect good infra-structure if we are looking at building Goa as the next big IT destination.”
Goa has nearly 2044 mobile tower sites (See Box) with over 25 lakh wireless subscribers in Goa against the population of 15 lakh. Goa is among the highest teledensity states in the country with most of the subscribers having more than one connection mostly due to unavailability of particular network either at home or at their work places.
With COVID-19 threat looming large educational Institutes are keen to commence the academic year and has also sought information from different Panchayats on Internet connectivity in different parts of Goa.
“A paradigm shift in consumer behaviour is underway in the wake of the lockdown and social distancing, which discourages person-to-person contact. Which is leading to higher dependency on digital tools such as video-conferencing, collaborative applications, which surging demand for telecom services,” said CEO of Indian Mobile Congress Ramakrishna P.
He further said that there has been increase of around 12-15 per cent in data traffic during the lockdown. “More people are working from home than ever before and surge in consumption of online content which has created pressure on the existing infrastructure,” said Ramakrishna.
“Amidst COVID-19 lockdown more and more people are latching the network that has resulted into congestion on the existing network,” a Network Head of a leading telecom service provider said. He said that prior to lockdown nearly 350 terra bytes (tb) of data was consumed from a single operator that has increased to about 412 tb during lockdown.
Though, subscribers are growing at a rapid pace, the designed capacity of existing infrastructure is not growing at par with subscribers pace due to various reasons. “Existing network designed capacity of telecom service providers needs to enhance with surge in usage,” he added. There more than 25 villages in Goa where there is not a single telecom operator is available making them a total dark sport. “It would be an injustice to a student from theses village if e-learning is denied to them due unavailability of network,” the source added.
As per last year’s joint representation made by Cell Operators Association of India (COAI) and Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association (TAIPA) to Chief Secretary of Goa in a letter dated January 2, 2019, it has requested that Government of Goa formulate uniform telecom infrastructure policy for the State aligned with Indian Telegraph Right of Way Rules.
The joint representation which was submitted by COAI director general Rajan S Mathews and director general of TAIPA, Tilak Raj Dua, has mentioned that many restrictive conditions are an impediment to the tower rollout.
“There has been an incident where our vendors have been manhandled at different locations,” said an official from a telecom infrastructure provider. He recalled that during the 2016 BRICS Summit in Goa, his company was asked to deploy required infrastructure in South Goa with an assurance that after BRICS summit the installed infra would cater to need of the locals there after.
Rajan Kerkar, CEO of Linkpoint which does cable distribution in the State said, “Though, we have a number of small time ISPs in Goa most of them have some or the other constrain when it comes to seamless connectivity. We have to prepare an entire ecosystem right from teachers to student to get accustomed to e-learning before jumping to push learning fraternity into digital ecosystem.”
Sagar Govekar, chairman and managing director of Ethernet Express is of the opinion that if there is no proper 4G network and one is trying to connect through hotspot there will not be good Internet connectivity. “You simply cannot do online education if you do not have good connectivity. All this video conferencing requires better bandwidth. We can do it by creating hotspots in strategic locations and provide seamless and guarded Internet services. In fact, we are in this business and have requested the Chief Minister to look into it. We have the capacity to provide. Setting up mobile towers every 500 meters will be expensive,” said Govekar.
Yogesh Shetye who earlier used to work for Hathway but now works as a business development manager at ABS IT Services, informed that underground laying of cables is expensive and lot of permissions from various departments of the State government is required before taking up the project. “Tower connectivity is fine, but it is not the actual 4G. One hardly gets a connection of 2 MBPS which is annoyingly slow. Now we have been pressurised by unexpected connections including hosting of online education and business work,” added Shetye.
