Enabling Digital Societies. A Connected India

A bold vision by the government of India, embarking on this 2020 vision to connect rural India to the rest of the world. The vision of Digital India – connecting 239 remote village councils to the modern world digitally.

·      Phase I&II, 600,000 KM of total new OFC to be laid out.

·      All villages of India to be connected. Each village can scale from few hundred to thousands of people.

·      750 million population. Equivalent to Europe with 50 odd countries!

·      Minimum 100 Mbps bandwidth at village

·      GPON (Gigabit Passive Optical Network) technology is being used. GPON standard differs from other PON standards in that it achieves higher bandwidth and higher efficiency using larger, variable-length packets. GPON offers efficient packaging of user traffic, with frame segmentation allowing higher quality of service (QoS) for delay-sensitive voice and video communications traffic.

A host of services to the remote villages.

• Village Council – General meetings, updating of citizen databases, effective performance monitoring of the council
• Community Participation - Intra-village, Intra-district sharing of practices and resources Communication with Block, and District.
• Knowledge Dissemination - Sharing of Agricultural practices, productivity techniques, Small enterprises, Vocational learning.
• Public services - Health, Education and Finance, etc. An interactive/ single point of the Government-to-Citizen interaction on all State and local law and policies.
• Infrastructure and Healthcare - Road, transportation and power connectivity. Provision of drinking water and upgradation of existing health facilities.

All this rides on the underlying "Fiber Transport Network". Laying and Maintaining a Fiber Optic network is a complex project with multiple establishments involved. Getting approval from relevant authorities to structured plans, hiring skilled labor, involving huge amount of labor force and machinery and more means the network can only be as good as it’s weakest link.

Here is a medical scenario that matters. And, why small steps taken early on can help save & improve lives.

A patient in a remote village hospital has a unique heart condition that requires constant monitoring and care by specialists. Through telemedicine, this remote hospital can access top specialist anywhere within the country and even globally if needed.  The specialist needs to observe the vital stats of this patient in real time so they can guide the local doctors especially in areas where there are complications. The patient monitoring data is transported in real time via fiber network. 

It’s 10 am on a Monday morning, peak traffic time and the network starts slowing down. The patient’s ECG data and other vital statistics stream in slowly, delayed and garbled with slow rendering of the graph being projected. This is an emergency; the specialist Doctor is frustrated as he cannot make head or tail with this garbled up information. Distorted and incomplete data came in late. The specialist Doctor is frustrated and the patient’s life is in critical condition.

This scenario can be very real. 

While there could be other issues in the network that can be the root cause, the importance of basic network construction hygiene becomes even more critical with high speed applications like remote surgery, video streaming. We are ever more dependent on robust, always available communications network, including life or death situation like the above. Poor connectivity and congestion have real consequences, just a poorly built, maintained or congested road may impede a van heading to a hospital.

This should not happen in the first place. A good deployment is critical. Do it right the first time. Small important steps such as inspecting fiber, cleaning, measuring return loss, fiber characteristics and documentation would save lives, improve lives if done well. How? These are defined in the IEC/ISO/IEEE (some referenced below) standards. Not, by taking the short cut - cleaning the fiber end face on your shirt's sleeve. Characterising the fiber early on creates a fiber health reference, a certificate that indicates traffic load volumes and types it can take as speeds increase and complex applications get added. Applications based on Augmented Reality(AR) and Virtual Reality(VR) will envelop us 5-10 years from now. Get the basics done right, every time, the first time and build for the future of our society. We are glad to work with BSNL and other establishments in building Better Communications; Connecting Societies; Improving Lives.

Talking of Fiber Optics, social and medical innovation will turn current research into reality. Eg., Medical smart textiles are being developed based on Fiber Optics Sensors (FOS) that can monitor physiological parameters - respiratory, temperature, bed sores, heart rates etc, and yes, OTDR (Optical Time Domain Reflectometers) principles are being used.

VIAVI (NASDAQ: VIAV) is a global provider of network test, monitoring and assurance solutions to communications service providers, enterprises and their ecosystems, supported by a worldwide channel community including VIAVI Velocity Solution Partners. VIAVI is glad to be enabling social ecosystems and helping lives. We have close to 95 years of experience enabling the finest optical networks, optical test products, and are glad to be a small but a critical part in enabling this big digital vision.

Viavi as a leading partner is glad to have enabled many sections of this prestigious and unprecedented fiber network and digital vision. This via our supply of tools such as OTDRs, power meters and other fiber test tools. We have also provided training to over 500 field technicians this year and in a recent case we were called upon by a telecom service provider to troubleshoot a small section of their fiber network. We found 34 degraded optical fiber links!

Agmatel India Private Ltd, established in 1992 associated with VIAVI for last five years as Velocity Premier Partner. Agmatel is proud to fully participating in Digital India Program of building digital society thru BSNL Projects by supplying and supporting VIAVI products and solutions across India. 

Agmatel offers state of the art products & solutions of unparalleled quality to meet the needs of the clients and demands of the market. Agmatel initially earned its reputation as a dynamic & vibrant marketing company dealing with the IT, Telecom & Test and Measurement Division. Agmatel offer wide range of world class products from leading principles like Viavi, Keysight, Megger, Flir and Weller in T&M Division and Apple, Sony, Samsung and Panasonic in IT, to our customers in Government, Defense & Paramilitary, Education, Healthcare and Public sector. Agmatel have a team of approx. 120 plus dedicated and qualified people having expertise to provide solutions varying from selection of right product for clients need, to logistics and all support services.,

VIAVI and Agmatel take immense pride and it’s an honor to be associated with this social innovation in bridging the digital divide.

Ref: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/100-million-indians-are-going-to-be-connected-to-the-internet-thanks-to-this-ambitious-plan

Ref: www.bbnl.nic.in

Ref: latest blog about the smell of a new car and fiber mtce.

Did you know?

1. Contaminated connectors are the #1 cause for troubleshooting in fiber optic networks. IEC 61300-3-35 standard specifies fiber end face test. A simple way to ensure meeting IEC 61300-3-35 is to follow the Inspect Before You ConnectTM (IBYC) process 
2. A study conducted by NTT-Advanced Technology mentions that 98% of installers and 80% of network owners reported that issues with connector contamination was the greatest cause of network failure.
3. The above leads to link loss and optical return loss, which must be measured e2e or/and in sections and in both directions.
4. Characterising a fiber span for various inefficiencies and losses provides not only a birth certificate but a basic hygiene plot that pin points various loss points in your network that could be weeded out or improved on. This is akin to running a test on your heart to check for blockages in your arteries.