Summer Training Project Report

On
“A STUDY ON PERFORMANCE ON TELECOMMUNICATION”
IN

Submitted In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement

for the award of

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

(SESSION - 2019-2020)

SUBMITTED BY

RACHNA CHANDEL

BBA V SEMESTER

ROLL NO. – 1702675071071

UNDER THE GUIDELINES OF

Mrs. HIMA SINGH JAYAS

(Asst. Professor)

Dr. MPS Memorial College of Business Studies

Agra – Delhi Highway,Sikandra,Agra Pincode-282007 (Uttar

Pradesh) (Affiliated to Dr.Bhim Rao Ambedkar University,Agra)

 Dr. MPS Memorial College of Business Studies
Agra – Delhi Highway,Sikandra,Agra Pincode-282007 (Uttar

Pradesh) (Affiliated to Dr.Bhim Rao Ambedkar

University,Agra)

Certificate

This is to Certify that the summer training project title “A STUDY ON

PERFORMANCE ON TELECOMMUNICATION” submitted by RACHNA CHANDEL Roll

No .1702675071071 for the partial fulfilment of the requirement of Bachelor of

Business Administration Degree (Batch 2017-2020) as per the requirement of

the BBA curriculum from Dr. BHIM RAO AMBEDKAR UNIVERSITY, AGRA,

embodies the bonafide work done by him under my supervision.

Mr. RAHUL SHARMA Mrs. HIMA SINGH JAYAS

(Head Of Deptt.) (Asst. Professor)

Date: …………....

Place ……………
 PREFACE
Learning is a constant procedure. The importance of learning has been

recognized since ancient times and was first put forward by the Chinese

philosopher Confucius who believed that “without learning the wise become

foolish: by learning foolish become wise”. Only classroom knowledge is not

sufficient for a course of BBA therefore students are now given opportunity to

go out and have some practical knowledge which can be really helpful in due

course of time. In this training report regarding “A Study on Performance on

Communication skill in Telecom Industry” is covered. Emphasis is given on

study of those functions of Marketing which are done under day to day routine,

due to the limitation of time and scope of training report.

 Acknowledgement
It gives me a great sense of pleasure to present the Summer Training Report

undertaken during BBA Fifth Semester. I owe special debt of gratitude to my

Summer Training guide Mr. DANIEL JULIEN(Training Manager) for his constant

support and guidance throughout the training. His sincerity, throughout and

perseverance have been a constant source of inspiration for me. It is only his

cognizant efforts that my endeavours have seen light of the day.

I also take the opportunity to acknowledge the contribution of Mr. RAHUL

SHARMA, Head department of Business Studies, College Of Business Studies,

Agra and Mrs. HIMA SINGH JAYAS (Asst. Professor)- Department of Business

Studies, College Of Business Studies ,Agra for their full support and

assistance during the training. Last but not the least,I acknowledge my friends

for their contribution in the completion of the Summer Training Report.

RACHNA CHANDEL

BBA V Semester
Roll No: 1702675071071
 DECLARATION
I, RACHNA CHANDEL student of BBA (Bachelor Business Of Administration)

Fifth Semester from Dr. MPS Memorial College of Business Studies, Agra,

affiliated to Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra here by declare that the

summer training report “A Study On Performance On Manufacturing Of Spare Parts In

ESS ARR Metal Industries ” is an original piece of work, no part of this project

work is either copied of partially or totally taken from some previous work.

RACHNA CHANDEL

BBA V Semester

Roll No: 1702675071071

“A STUDY ON PERFORMANCE ON
TELECOMMUNICATION
IN
 Overview
The turn of the 20th century was the dawn of a new age in communications. A
few decades earlier, in 1876, the telephone had been invented and telephone
service was proliferating rapidly. As telephone services expanded, the public
began to depend on and even expect reliable service from telecommunication
providers.

As the subscriber base grew, telephone companies were contending with new
resource-planning problems. Automated central offices hadn’t yet been
invented, so human operators were required to establish connections for
callers. One big question was how many telephone operators were necessary
to run the switchboard. Too few and service levels would be unacceptable
to callers. But too many would be inefficient for telephone companies and
would drive up costs for subscribers. Further complicating the issue was the
fact that calls arrived randomly, driven by the myriad of motivations individual
callers had for placing calls. (see Figure 3.1)
In the years that followed, many bright people would grapple with these
resource-management challenges. One of the first was A. K. Erlang, an
engineer with the Copenhagen Telephone Company, who in 1917 developed
the queuing formula Erlang C. The formula is still widely used today in
incoming call centers for calculating staffing requirements and is
described in greater detail later in this chapter. Others who followed Erlang
focused on developing disciplined forecasting techniques, scheduling methodologies,
and system report parameters; advances in the development of
forecasting and scheduling methodologies continue to be made.
 The Management Challenge

Managing a call center operation successfully requires a multitude of

skills—managerial, troubleshooting, negotiating, and patience, not to
mentiona personality that works well under pressure and is able to
handle the different types of CSRs who will work at the facility over
time.Some familiarit with computer and communications technologies
is an asset as well,although most internal call center facilities should
have ready access to technicalsupport for resolving hardware,
software, and communications problems.The steady growth in the
callcenter industry over the past 10 years has resulted in a requirement
for new job-related management skills. As call
center personnel have developed these skills, the position of call center
manager has evolved and is now a portable, definable position, recognized
from company to company and across different sectors of industry.
The global growth of call centers as a significant element of
customercentered business has led to the employment of a large
number of people in call centers, estimated to be between 3 and 4
million, in North America alone. From a labor market perspective, the
industry is not saturated, since the growth of call centers outpaces
the supply of employees. Historically, the industry has had a difficult
time attracting a steady supply of qualified workers. Turnover in the
call center industry is a major problem as well. Turnover rates are
significantly higher than those of other industries. A recent
benchmarking study of call centers by the Purdue University center

for Customer-Driven Quality found that turnover is an industrywide

problem.The survey revealed that inbound centers have an average annual
turnover of 26% for full-time reps and 33% for part-timers. Nearly half of the
centers said that part-timers handle 5% or less of their total calls.
This book cannot solve the turnover problem, nor can it make more
employees available to the call center industry. However, in the context of
the axiom that“good management of human resources means
happy, long-termemployees,” the guidelines and experiences of
successful call center managers,as presented in this chapter and in
Chapter 5 can assist new and existingcall centers to manage the
human resources that are so essential to their
success

Rising Staff Cost

1. Faced with the requirement of generating a profit, many

businesses confront a major problem: rising staff costs. Over the next
few years, management of call/contact center staff will move to the
forefront of corporate concerns because
 2. The average call/contact center spends between 60 and 70% of its
annual budget on staff salary

3. Globally, agent turnover rates average 22%, and approach 50% in

some industries.

4. Staff absenteeism is increasing and is as high as 17% in the health

care industry, 10% in the telecommunications and consumer
products markets, and averages 9% across all vertical markets.

5. Over 80% of companies use external advertisements to search

for agents and 72% use recruitment agencies, both of which
involve significant costs

6. Call/contact center location clustering is increasing and has

caused severe shortages of qualified staff in places such as Dublin
(Ireland), Omaha, Nebraska (United States), New Brunswick
(Canada), and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). In most countries
with major call/ contact center clusters, recruitment is becoming
very difficult

7. There has been a rapid increase in the growth of the call/contact

center industry.

8. The growth of CRM and multimedia interaction will require skilled

and experienced agents, and training costs will increase
accordingly.

Management guidlinges for a productive call

center

Call centers need to tread the thin line between improving service, sales,
and revenue on the one hand and controlling costs on the other. When the
proper balance is struck by effective management of the call center, the
result will be a company that is more efficient and more productive on all
levels. To achieve these dual objectives, the cost of hiring, training, and
measuring the performance of CSRs needs to be managed carefully.
The significant contribution of the human element to the success or
failure of a call center operation, and the statistics just described,
present call center managers with the following human resource
challenges: Hiring competent, skilled CSR
 aspect of call center management—staff selection and training—and the
application of proven management techniques to ensure a productive call
center environment and the effective management of the all-important
human resource

Workforce Management system (WFM)

One of the most important tools available to call center managers is the
workforce management system WFM However, despite the wealth of
technology available to manage call center operations and the critical
nature of workforce management, workforce management systems are
used in onlyabout 10% of call centers, according to industry sources and
surveys conducted over the past few years.The first WFM applications
were relatively unsophisticated compared to current products; however,
they significantly reduced the time required. to do simple agent
scheduling. These applications were fed data from the ACD but were
normally stand-alone solutions with limited or no integration,
which meant the call center scheduler did not have a particularly
accurate picture of what needed to be done. The WFM system did not
improve the call center managers’ knowledge so much as it assisted
them in reaching similar conclusions more quickly

Workforce management in the call center has beendefined as

the artand science of having the right number of CSRs available at
the right time, to answer an accurately forecasted volume of
incoming calls at the desired service level, with quality.”A number
of software products are available to accomplish this objective,
and their capability to accurately predict call volume and then
staff accordingly is very attractive. More call centers should
incorporate this software tool to make the task easier.
The 10% of call centers that do use workforce management software are
among the most advanced call center operations, with high call volumes,
extensive use of technology, and high productivity levels.There are reasons
why many centers do not use these productivity products, however,
including the following.

COST

WFM can be expensive; systems that predict call volume and match staff
schedules to that volume can cost between $50,000 and $100,000 or more
 High maintenance

The perception that a fully configured WFM system requires scheduling,

feeding data in, going over the data that comes out, and providing full- time
supervision of the system may be true in some cases. When a system is
complex,more training is required to run it, especially when scheduling and
predicting are required across multiple sites

Cultural barriers
Greater market penetration faces “cultural” barriers, in this
case, the culture of the traditional call center where more
emphasis is placed on managingthe call and its flow through
the system than on managing the workforce.
Limited promotion of WFM product capabilities

Companies that develop and supply WFM software have not provided a
complete description of the benefits, perhaps because these vendors do
not see the need, or because they do not have the level of competency or
industry experience to appreciate the need.

Complexity

is often The disparity between the actual complexity required to

develop the best possible schedule and the apparent simplicity of
creating a schedule
not recognized.Call center managers have a range of options for creating a
schedule, froma manual, back-of-the envelope calculation to using
formulas in a simple spreadsheet with a special calculator to input the
center’s variables to ultimately using a five- or six-figure full-fledged
computer program. Achieving the highest level of workforce productivity
does require some powerfulsoftware,
and it will be expensive.

Workforce management systems for multimedia

centers

WFM solutions will become a key CRM-enabling technology in the

multimedia call/contact center. It is an application that may provide a
solution to both agent attrition and multimedia staffing. Businesses will
be able to provide the right agents to the right customer and to leverage
customer segmentation for a superior level of customer service.Without
a means of accurately forecasting how much human resource will be
needed to keep customers and agents satisfied while keeping costs to a
minimum, businesses. could have every sophisticated e-application
available but fail to reach an acceptable service level.
The cost of running a contact/call center is considerable in most
enterprises,and the center traditionally has been viewed as a cost center—a
necessary evil. This perception has resulted in keeping expenditures on
technology, people, and business processes to a minimum. The advent of
the CRM approach and its impact on call centers, and vice versa, have
meant that leading businesses in sectors such as financial services, retail,
and telecommunications are beginning to view their contact centers as
profit generators. Revenue growth is encouraged through cross selling
and upselling support, and costs are kept low through implementing
solutions such as IVR,predictive dialers, and other technologies that have
been developed to streamline call center operations. In the multimedia
contact center, as in the traditional call center, the aim of workforce
management software is to have the right agents available to help
customers at the right time. A sophisticated yet easy-to-use solution,this
software has become one of the most useful tools currently available to a
call/contact center manager, from both the customer satisfaction andagent
retention perspectives. Although WFM is not a total solution, it enables the
business to resource the center as it wishes. The key attribute of superior
workforce management software is its flexibility, particularly in a
multimedia environment. The advent of CRM and multimedia customer
contacts means that WFM is destined to play an increasingly important
role in most major call/contact centers, supporting both the management
of multimedia interactions and also allowing businesses to focus on
customers’needs and resource the center effectively.As previously
noted,despite a relatively low profile in the past, interest n workforce
management solutions has begun to grow. Leading companies
are learning that there are major savings to be realized with WFM as
well as opportunities to increase customer and agent satisfaction in a
relatively cost-effective manner. Before WFM became available, call
center managersspent days at a time working out agent staffing
schedules with only a computer spreadsheet to help. A complex task
requiring a great degree of skill to perform, the schedule was prone to
error through last-minute changes of circumstance, lack of historical
data, or plain human mistakes. Even when successfully accomplished,
the level of detail and accuracy in the schedule often left something to
be desired.
 Advanced WFM to support multimedia and CRM

The primary reason for implementing a new workforce

management solution in a call/contact center operation is
multimedia contact and CRM. There is much more to
implementing a multimedia contact center than simply offering
e-mail and various flavors of live CSR assistance. In terms
of cost and service levels, if a corporation is not able to support the
new channels adequately, it would be better to offer only telephony.
(see Figure3.2) Similarly, a business determined to become CRM-
focused must be aware of how it will be perceived by its customers if
it promotes the use of new customer contact channels but does not
maintain them. One of the most interesting and important aspects of
these new channels, from a call/contact center management
viewpoint, is that they are outsidetraditional telephony queue theory.
Multichannel and multidevice interactions—for example, those
initiated by a phone call but requiring e-mail and Web collaboration to
be completed successfully—mean that interaction management has
suddenly become more complex.Many companies invite customers
to contact them by e-mail and then treat this channel of contact much
as though it was an eye-catching postaladdress on correspondence.
If these companies then fail to support the
Telecommunications in India

India's telecommunication network is the second largest in the world by

number of telephone users (both fixed and mobile phone) with 1.183 billion
subscribers as on 31 May 2019. It has one of the lowest call tariffs in the world
enabled by mega telecom operators and hyper-competition among them. As on
31 July 2018, India has the world's second-largest Internet user-base with 460.24
million broadband internet subscribers in the country. As of 31 December 2018,
India had a population of 130 crore people (1.3 billion), 123 crore (1.23
billion) Aadhaar digital biometric identity cards, 121 crore (1.21 billion) mobile
phones, 44.6 crore (446 million) smartphones, 56 crore (560 million or 43% of
total population) internet users up from 481 million people (35% of the country's
total population) in December 2017, and 51 per cent growth in e-commerce.

Major sectors of the Indian telecommunication industry are telephone, internet

and television broadcast industry in the country which is in an ongoing process of
transforming into next generation network, employs an extensive system of
modern network elements such as digital telephone exchanges, mobile switching
centres, media gateways and signalling gateways at the core, interconnected by
a wide variety of transmission systems using fibre-optics or Microwave radio
relay networks. The access network, which connects the subscriber to the core,
is highly diversified with different copper-pair, optic-fibre and wireless
technologies. DTH, a relatively new broadcasting technology has attained
significant popularity in the Television segment. The introduction of private FM
has given a fillip to the radio broadcasting in India. Telecommunication in India
has greatly been supported by the INSAT system of the country, one of the
largest domestic satellite systems in the world. India possesses a diversified
communications system, which links all parts of the country by telephone,
Internet, radio, television and satellite.
Indian telecom industry underwent a high pace of market liberalisation and
growth since the 1990s and now has become the world's most competitive and
one of the fastest growing telecom markets. The Industry has grown over twenty
times in just ten years, from under 37 million subscribers in the year 2001 to over
846 million subscribers in the year 2011. India has the world's second-
largest mobile phone user base with over 1157.04 million users as of July 2018.

Telecommunication has supported the socioeconomic development of India and

has played a significant role to narrow down the rural-urban digital divide to some
extent. It also has helped to increase the transparency of governance with the
introduction of e-governance in India. The government has pragmatically used
modern telecommunication facilities to deliver mass education programmes for
the rural folk of India.

According to London-based telecom trade body GSMA, the telecom sector

accounted for 6.5% of India's GDP in 2015, or about ₹9 lakh
crore (US$130 billion), and supported direct employment for 2.2 million people in
the country. GSMA estimates that the Indian telecom sector will contribute ₹14.5
lakh crore (US$210 billion) to the economy and support 3 million direct jobs and 2
million indirect jobs by 2020.

Telecommunication is the transmission of signs, signals, messages, words,

writings, images and sounds or information of any nature by wire, radio, optical or
other electromagnetic systems. Telecommunication occurs when the exchange
of information between communication participants includes the use
of technology. It is transmitted through a transmission media, such as over
physical media, for example, over electrical cable, or via electromagnetic
radiation through space such as radio or light. Such transmission paths are often
divided into communication channels which afford the advantages of multiplexing.
Since the Latin term communication is considered the social process of
information exchange, the term telecommunications is often used in its plural
form because it involves many different technologies.

Early means of communicating over a distance included visual signals, such

as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags and
optical heliographs. Other examples of pre-modern long-distance communication
included audio messages such as coded drumbeats, lung-blown horns, and loud
whistles. 20th- and 21st-century technologies for long-distance communication
usually involve electrical and electromagnetic technologies, such
as telegraph, telephone, and teleprinter, networks, radio, microwave
transmission, fiber optics, and communications satellites.

A revolution in wireless communication began in the first decade of the 20th

century with the pioneering developments in radio communications by Guglielmo
Marconi, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909, and other notable
pioneering inventors and developers in the field of electrical and electronic
telecommunications. These included Charles Wheatstone and Samuel
Morse (inventors of the telegraph), Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the
telephone), Edwin Armstrong and Lee de Forest (inventors of radio), as well
as Vladimir K. Zworykin, John Logie Baird and Philo Farnsworth (some of the
inventors of television).

Communications in India

Gross adjusted ₹160,814

revenue (2017) crore (US$23 billion

Telephony

Total telephone 1.183 billion (May 2019)

subscribers

Mobile subscribers 1.161 billion (May 2019)

Fixed 21.29 million (May 2019)

line subscribers

Monthly telephone -620,000 (May 2019)

additions (Net)

Teledensity 89.92%
(May 2019)

Urban Teledensity 160.79%

(May 2019)

Rural Teledensity 56.74%

(May 2019)

Internet access

Internet users 636.73 million (Mar 2019)

Broadband 581.51 million (May 2019)

subscribers

Internet penetration 48.48%

(Mar 2019)

Share of World 17% (31 Dec 2018)

Internet Users

country code top- .in

level domain

Broadcasting

Private television 902 (Mar 2019)

 channels

Private FM radio 356 (Mar 2019)

stations

History

The beginning

Telecommunications in India began with the introduction of the telegraph. The

Indian postal and telecom sectors are one of the world’s oldest. In 1850, the first
experimental electric telegraph line was started between Calcutta and Diamond
Harbour. In 1851, it was opened for the use of the British East India Company.
The Posts and Telegraphs department occupied a small corner of the Public
Works Department, at that time.
The construction of 4,000 miles (6,400 km) of telegraph lines was started in
November 1853. These connected Kolkata (then Calcutta) and Peshawar in the
north; Agra, Mumbai (then Bombay) through Sindwa Ghats, and Chennai (then
Madras) in the south; Ootacamund and Bangalore. William O'Shaughnessy, who
pioneered the telegraph and telephone in India, belonged to the Public Works
Department, and worked towards the development of telecom throughout this
period. A separate department was opened in 1854 when telegraph facilities
were opened to the public.

In 1880, two telephone companies namely The Oriental Telephone Company Ltd.
and The Anglo-Indian Telephone Company Ltd. approached the Government of
India to establish telephone exchange in India. The permission was refused on
the grounds that the establishment of telephones was a Government monopoly
and that the Government itself would undertake the work. In 1881, the
Government later reversed its earlier decision and a licence was granted to
the Oriental Telephone Company Limited of England for opening telephone
exchanges at Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and Ahmedabad and the first formal
telephone service was established in the country. On 28 January 1882, Major E.
Baring, Member of the Governor General of India's Council declared open the
Telephone Exchanges in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. The exchange in
Calcutta named the "Central Exchange" had a total of 93 subscribers in its early
stage. Later that year, Bombay also witnessed the opening of a telephone
exchange.

Further developments and milestones

 Pre-1902 – Cable telegraph.

 1902 – First wireless telegraph station established between Sagar
Island and Sandhead.
 1907 – First Central Battery of telephones introduced in Kanpur.
 1913–1914 – First Automatic Exchange installed in Shimla.
 1927 – Radio-telegraph system between the UK and India, with Imperial
Wireless Chain beam stations at Khadki and Daund. Inaugurated by Lord
Irwin on 23 July by exchanging greetings with King George V.
 1933 – Radiotelephone system inaugurated between the UK and India.
 1947 - First Electronics & Telecommunications Engineering department
started in India at the Government Engineering College, Jabalpur.
 1953 – 12 channel carrier system introduced.
 1960 – First subscriber trunk dialling route commissioned
between Lucknow and Kanpur.
 1975 – First PCM system commissioned between Mumbai City
and Andheri telephone exchanges.
 1976 – First digital microwave junction.
 1979 – First optical fibre system for local junction commissioned at Pune.
 1980 – First satellite earth station for domestic communications established
at Sikandarabad, U.P..
 1983 – First analogue Stored Programme Control exchange for trunk
lines commissioned at Mumbai.
 1984 – C-DOT established for indigenous development and production
of digital exchanges.
 1995 – First mobile telephone service started on non-commercial basis on 15
August 1995 in Delhi.
 1995 – Internet Introduced in India starting with Laxmi Nagar, Delhi 15 August
1995
Development of Broadcasting

Radio broadcasting was initiated in 1927 but became state responsibility only in
1930. In 1937 it was given the name All India Radio and since 1957 it has been
called Akashvani. Limited duration of television programming began in 1959, and
complete broadcasting followed in 1965. The Ministry of Information and
Broadcasting owned and maintained the audio-visual apparatus—including the
television channel Doordarshan—in the country prior to the economic reforms of
1991. In 1997, an autonomous body was established in the name of Prasar
Bharti to take care of the public service broadcasting under the Prasar Bharti Act.
All India Radio and Doordarshan, which earlier were working as media units
under the Ministry of I&B became constituents of the body.

Pre-liberalisation statistics

While all the major cities and towns in the country were linked with telephones
during the British period, the total number of telephones in 1948 numbered only
around 80,000. Post independence, growth remained slow because the
telephone was seen more as a status symbol rather than being an instrument of
utility. The number of telephones grew leisurely to 980,000 in 1971, 2.15 million
in 1981 and 5.07 million in 1991, the year economic reforms were initiated in the
country.

Liberalisation and privatisation

Liberalisation of Indian telecommunication in industry started in 1981 when Prime

Minister Indira Gandhi signed contracts with Alcatel CIT of France to merge with
the state owned Telecom Company (ITI), in an effort to set up 5,000,000 lines per
year. But soon the policy was let down because of political opposition. Attempts
to liberalise the telecommunication industry were continued by the following
government under the prime-minister-ship of Rajiv Gandhi. He invited Sam
Pitroda, a US-based Non-resident Indian NRI and a former Rockwell
International executive to set up a Centre for Development of Telematics(C-DOT)
which manufactured electronic telephone exchanges in India for the first
time. Sam Pitroda had a significant role as a consultant and adviser in the
development of telecommunication in India.

In 1985, the Department of Telecom(DoT) was separated from Indian Post &
Telecommunication Department. DoT was responsible for telecom services in
entire country until 1986 when Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL)
and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) were carved out of DoT to run the
telecom services of metro cities (Delhi and Mumbai) and international long
distance operations respectively.

The demand for telephones was ever increasing and in the 1990s Indian
government was under increasing pressure to open up the telecom sector for
private investment as a part of Liberalisation-Privatisation-Globalisation policies
that the government had to accept to overcome the severe fiscal crisis and
resultant balance of payments issue in 1991. Consequently, private investment in
the sector of Value Added Services (VAS) was allowed and cellular telecom
sector were opened up for competition from private investments. It was during
this period that the Narsimha Rao-led government introduced the National
Telecommunications policy (NTP) in 1994 which brought changes in the following
areas: ownership, service and regulation of telecommunications infrastructure.
The policy introduced the concept of telecommunication for all and its vision was
to expand the telecommunication facilities to all the villages in
India. Liberalisation in the basic telecom sector was also envisaged in this
policy. They were also successful in establishing joint ventures between state
owned telecom companies and international players. Foreign firms were eligible
to 49% of the total stake. The multi-nationals were just involved in technology
transfer, and not policy making.

During this period, the World Bank and ITU had advised the Indian Government
to liberalise long distance services to release the monopoly of the state owned
DoT and VSNL and to enable competition in the long distance carrier business
which would help reduce tariff's and better the economy of the country. The Rao
run government instead liberalised the local services, taking the opposite political
parties into confidence and assuring foreign involvement in the long distance
business after 5 years. The country was divided into 20 telecommunication
circles for basic telephony and 18 circles for mobile services. These circles were
divided into category A, B and C depending on the value of the revenue in each
circle. The government threw open the bids to one private company per circle
along with government owned DoT per circle. For cellular service two service
providers were allowed per circle and a 15 years licence was given to each
provider. During all these improvements, the government did face oppositions
from ITI, DoT, MTNL, VSNL and other labour unions, but they managed to keep
away from all the hurdles.

In 1997, the government set up TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India)

which reduced the interference of Government in deciding tariffs and policy
making. The political powers changed in 1999 and the new government under the
leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee was more pro-reforms and introduced better
liberalisation policies. In 2000, the Vajpayee government constituted the Telecom
Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) through an amendment of
the TRAI Act, 1997. The primary objective of TDSAT's establishment was to
release TRAI from adjudicatory and dispute settlement functions in order to
strengthen the regulatory framework. Any dispute involving parties like licensor,
licensee, service provider and consumers are resolved by TDSAT. Moreover, any
direction, order or decision of TRAI can be challenged by appealing in
TDSAT. The government corporatised the operations wing of DoT on 1 October
2000 and named it as Department of Telecommunication Services (DTS) which
was later named as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). The proposal of
raising the stake of foreign investors from 49% to 74% was rejected by the
opposite political parties and leftist thinkers. Domestic business groups wanted
the government to privatise VSNL. Finally in April 2002, the government decided
to cut its stake of 53% to 26% in VSNL and to throw it open for sale to private
enterprises. TATA finally took 25% stake in VSNL.

This was a gateway to many foreign investors to get entry into the Indian telecom
markets. After March 2000, the government became more liberal in making
policies and issuing licences to private operators. The government further
reduced licence fees for [cellular service providers and increased the allowable
stake to 74% for foreign companies. Because of all these factors, the service fees
finally reduced and the call costs were cut greatly enabling every common
middle-class family in India to afford a cell phone. Nearly 32 million handsets
were sold in India. The data reveals the real potential for growth of the Indian
mobile market. Many private operators, such as Reliance
Communications, Jio, Tata Indicom, Vodafone, Loop Mobile, Airtel, Idea etc.,
successfully entered the high potential Indian telecom market. In the initial 5–6
years the average monthly subscribers additions were around 0.05 to 0.1 million
only and the total mobile subscribers base in December 2002 stood at 10.5
millions. However, after a number of proactive initiatives taken by regulators and
licensors, the total number of mobile subscribers has increased rapidly to over
929 million subscribers as of May 2012.

In March 2008, the total GSM and CDMA mobile subscriber base in the country
was 375 million, which represented a nearly 50% growth when compared with
previous year. As the unbranded Chinese cell phones which do not
have International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers pose a serious
security risk to the country, Mobile network operators therefore suspended the
usage of around 30 million mobile phones (about 8% of all mobiles in the country)
by 30 April 2009. Phones without valid IMEI cannot be connected to cellular
operators.

India has opted for the use of both the GSM (global system for mobile
communications) and CDMA (code-division multiple access) technologies in
the mobile sector. In addition to landline and mobile phones, some of the
companies also provide the WLL service. The mobile tariffs in India have also
become the lowest in the world. A new mobile connection can be activated with a
monthly commitment of US$0.15 only.

Licence cancellation

On 2 February 2012 the Supreme Court ruled on petitions filed by Subramanian

Swamy and the Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) represented
by Prashant Bhushan, challenging the 2008 allotment of 2G licenses, cancelling
all 122 spectrum licences granted during A. Raja (Minister of Communications &
IT from 2007 to 2009), the primary official accused's term as communications
minister. and described the allocation of 2G spectrum as "unconstitutional and
arbitrary". The bench of GS Singhvi and Asok Kumar Ganguly imposed a fine
of ₹50 million (US$720,000) on Unitech Wireless, Swan Telecom and Tata
Teleservices and a ₹5 million (US$72,000) fine on Loop Telecom, S Tel, Allianz
Infratech and Sistema Shyam Tele Services. According to the ruling the then
granted licences would remain in place for four months, after which time the
government would reissue the licences.
Consolidation

Post starting of the commercial operation of Reliance Jio in September 2016, the
telecom market saw a huge change in terms of falling tariff rates and reduction of
data charges, which changed the economics for some of the telecom players.
This resulted in exit of many smaller players from the market. Players like
Videocon and Systema sold their spectrum under spectrum trading agreements
to Airtel and RCOM respectively in Q4 2016.

On 23 February 2017, Telenor India announced that Bharti Airtel will takeover all
its business and assets in India and deal will be completed in 12 months
timeframe. On 14 May 2018, Department of Telecom approved the merger
of Telenor India with Bharti Airtel paving the way for final commercial closing of
the merger between the two companies. Telenor India has been acquired by
Airtel almost without any cost.

On 12 October 2017, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire the consumer
mobile businesses of Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices
Maharastra Ltd (TTML) in a debt-free cash-free deal. The deal was essentially
free for Airtel which incurred TTSL's unpaid spectrum payment liability. TTSL will
continue to operate its enterprise, fixed line and broadband businesses and its
stake in tower company Viom Networks. The consumer mobile businesses of
Tata Docomo, Tata Teleservices (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra
Limited (TTML) have been merged into Bharti Airtel from 1 July 2019.

Reliance Communications had to shut down its 2G and 3G services including all
voice services and only offer 4G data services from 29 December 2017, as a
result of debt and a failed merger with Aircel. Surprisingly, the shut down was
shortly after completion of acquisition of MTS India on 31 October 2017. In
February 2019, the company filed for bankruptcy as it was unable to sell assets
to repay its debt. It has an estimated debt of ₹ 57,383 crore against assets worth
₹18,000 crore.
Aircel shut down its operations in unprofitable circles including, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh
(West) from 30 January 2018. Aircel along with its units - Aircel Cellular and
Dishnet Wireless - on 1 March 2018, filed for bankruptcy in the National
Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Mumbai due to huge competition and high
levels of debt.

Vodafone and Idea Cellular completed their merger on 31 August 2018, and the
merged entity is renamed to Vodafone Idea Limited. The merger created the
largest telecom company in India by subscribers and by revenue, and the second
largest mobile network in terms of number of subscribers in the world. Under the
terms of the deal, the Vodafone Group holds a 45.1% stake in the combined
entity, the Aditya Birla Group holds 26% and the remaining shares will be held by
the public. However, even after the merger both the brands have been continued
to carry their own independent brands.

With all this consolidation, the Indian Mobile market has turned into four players
market with Jio as the number one player with revenue market share of 31%
, Vodafone Idea Limited in second position with revenue market share of 30%
and Airtel India with revenue market share of 28%. The government operator
BSNL/MTNL is in the distant 4th position with approx market share of 11%.

Telephony

Private-sector and two state-run businesses dominate the telephony segment.

Most companies were formed by a recent revolution and restructuring launched
within a decade, directed by Ministry of Communications and IT, Department of
Telecommunications and Minister of Finance. Since then, most companies
gained 2G, 3G and 4G licences and engaged fixed-line, mobile and internet
business in India. On landlines, intra-circle calls are considered local calls while
inter-circle are considered long distance calls. Foreign Direct Investment policy
which increased the foreign ownership cap from 49% to 100%. The Government
is working to integrate the whole country in one telecom circle. For long distance
calls, the area code prefixed with a zero is dialled first which is then followed by
the number (i.e., to call Delhi, 011 would be dialled first followed by the phone
number). For international calls, "00" must be dialled first followed by the country
code, area code and local phone number. The country code for India is 91.
Several international fibre-optic links include those to Japan, South Korea, Hong
Kong, Russia, and Germany. Some major telecom operators in India include the
privately owned companies like Vodafone Idea, Airtel, and Reliance Jio and the
state-owned companies- BSNL and MTNL.

Telegraph and telephone

On 25 July 1837 the first commercial electrical telegraph was demonstrated by

English inventor Sir William Fothergill Cooke, and English scientist Sir Charles
Wheatstone. Both inventors viewed their device as "an improvement to the
[existing] electromagnetic telegraph" not as a new device.

Samuel Morse independently developed a version of the electrical telegraph that

he unsuccessfully demonstrated on 2 September 1837. His code was an
important advance over Wheatstone's signaling method. The first transatlantic
telegraph cable was successfully completed on 27 July 1866, allowing
transatlantic telecommunication for the first time.

The conventional telephone was patented by Alexander Bell in 1876. Elisha

Gray also filed a caveat for it in 1876. Gray abandoned his caveat and because
he did not contest Bell's priority, the examiner approved Bell's patent on March 3,
1876. Gray had filed his caveat for the variable resistance telephone, but Bell
was the first to write down the idea and the first to test it in a
telephone.[88] Antonio Meucci invented a device that allowed the electrical
transmission of voice over a line nearly thirty years before in 1849, but his device
was of little practical value because it relied on the electrophonic effect requiring
users to place the receiver in their mouths to "hear". The first commercial
telephone services were set-up by the Bell Telephone Company in 1878 and
1879 on both sides of the Atlantic in the cities of New Haven and London.

Market share of mobile network operators as on 31 July 2019

 Vodafone Idea Limited: 380 million (32.5%)

 Jio: 339.8 million (29.1%)
 Airtel: 328.5 million (28.1%)
 BSNL: 116.59 million (10.0%)
 MTNL: 3.38 million (0.3%)

Landline

Before the New Telecom Policy was announced in 1999, only the Government-
owned BSNL and MTNL were allowed to provide land-line phone services
through copper wire in India with MTNL operating
in Delhi and Mumbai and BSNL servicing all other areas of the country. Due to
the rapid growth of the cellular phone industry in India, landlines are facing stiff
competition from cellular operators, with the number of wireline subscribers fell
from 37.90 million in December 2008 to 23 million in December 2017. This has
forced land-line service providers to become more efficient and improve their
quality of service. As of July 2018, India has over 22 million wireline customers.

Mobile telephony

In August 1995, then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Jyoti Basu made the first
mobile phone call in India to then Union Telecom Minister Sukhram. Sixteen
years later 4G services were launched in Kolkata in 2012.

With a subscriber base of more than 1,179.32 million (as of July 2018), the
mobile telecommunications system in India is the second largest in the world and
it was thrown open to private players in the 1990s. GSM was comfortably
maintaining its position as the dominant mobile technology with 80% of the
mobile subscriber market, but CDMA seemed to have stabilised its market share
at 20% for the time being.

Wired telephony market share as on 31 July 2019[53]

 BSNL: 10.41 million (50.2%)

 Airtel: 4.3 million (20.8%)
 MTNL: 3.2 million (15.4%)
 Tata Docomo: 1.81 million (8.7%)
 Reliance: 0.64 million (3.1%)
 Vodafone Idea: 0.36 million (1.7%)
The country is divided into multiple zones, called circles (roughly along state
boundaries). Government and several private players run local and long distance
telephone services. Competition, especially after entry of Reliance Jio, has
caused prices to drop across India, which are already one of the cheapest in the
world.[57] The rates are supposed to go down further with new measures to be
taken by the Information Ministry.

In September 2004, the number of mobile phone connections crossed the

number of fixed-line connections and presently dwarfs the wireline segment
substantially. The mobile subscriber base has grown from 5 million subscribers in
2001 to over 1,179.32 million subscribers as of July 2018. India primarily follows
the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band. Recent operators also operate in
the 1800 MHz band. The dominant players are Vodafone Idea, Airtel, Jio,
and BSNL/MTNL. International roaming agreements exist between most
operators and many foreign carriers. The government allowed Mobile number
portability (MNP) which enables mobile telephone users to retain their mobile
telephone numbers when changing from one mobile network operator to another.

Transistors

The development of transistor technology has been fundamental to

modern electronic telecommunication. The first transistor, a point-contact
transistor, was invented by William Shockley, Walter Houser Brattain and John
Bardeen at Bell Labs in 1947. The MOSFET (metal-oxide-silicon field-effect
transistor), also known as the MOS transistor, was later invented by Mohamed
Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. The MOSFET is the building block
or "workhorse" of the information revolution and the information age, and the
most widely manufactured device in history. MOS technology, including
MOS integrated circuits and power MOSFETs, drives the communications
infrastructure of modern telecommunication. Along with computers, other
essential elements of modern telecommunication that are built from MOSFETs
include mobile devices, transceivers, base station modules, routers, RF power
amplifiers, microprocessors, memory chips, and telecommunication circuits.

According Edholm's law, the bandwidth of telecommunication networks has been

doubling every 18 months. Advances in MOS technology, including MOSFET
scaling (increasing transistor counts at an exponential pace, as predicted
by Moore's law), has been the most important contributing factor in the rapid rise
of bandwidth in telecommunications networks.

Computers and the Internet

On 11 September 1940, George Stibitz transmitted problems for his Complex

Number Calculator in New York using a teletype, and received the computed
results back at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. This configuration of a
centralized computer (mainframe) with remote dumb terminals remained popular
well into the 1970s. However, already in the 1960s, researchers started to
investigate packet switching, a technology that sends a message in portions to its
destination asynchronously without passing it through a centralized mainframe. A
four-node network emerged on 5 December 1969, constituting the beginnings of
the ARPANET, which by 1981 had grown to 213 nodes. ARPANET eventually
merged with other networks to form the Internet. While Internet development was
a focus of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) who published a series
of Request for Comment documents, other networking advancements occurred
in industrial laboratories, such as the local area network (LAN) developments
of Ethernet (1983) and the token ring protocol (1984)
Wireless telecommunication

The wireless revolution began in the 1990s, with the advent of digital wireless
networks leading to a social revolution, and a paradigm shift from wired
to wireless technology, including the proliferation of commercial wireless
technologies such as cell phones, mobile telephony, pagers, wireless computer
networks, cellular networks, the wireless Internet, and laptop and handheld
computers with wireless connections. The wireless revolution has been driven by
advances in radio frequency (RF) and microwave engineering, and the transition
from analog to digital RF technology. Advances in metal-oxide-semiconductor
field-effect transistor (MOSFET, or MOS transistor) technology, the key
component of the RF technology that enables digital wireless networks, has been
central to this revolution.

Frequency bands

As of 2016, India has deployed telecom operations in a total of 8 radio frequency

bands.
Subscriber base by circle

India is divided into 22 telecom circles:

Landline Wireless
subscriber base subscriber base Teledensity
Telecom circle in million in million (September
(December (December 2014)
2017) 2017)

Andhra Pradesh &

1.52 84.31 81.06
Telangana

Assam 0.14 22.60 50.41

Bihar & Jharkhand 0.27 84.28 47.66

Delhi 3.22 55.54 232.22

Gujarat & Daman &

1.29 70.59 93.34
Diu

Haryana 0.30 25.46 80.31

Himachal Pradesh 0.12 10.57 109.56

0.11 13.12 69.98

Jammu and
 Landline Wireless
subscriber base subscriber base Teledensity
Telecom circle in million in million (September
(December (December 2014)
2017) 2017)

Kashmir

Karnataka 2.25 67.20 94.20

Kerala &
1.99 41.01 95.96
Lakshadweep

Kolkata 0.81 29.06 73.0

Madhya Pradesh &

0.97 73.10 57.04
Chhattisgarh

Maharashtra & Goa

1.76 94.38 92.20 *
(including Mumbai )

Mumbai* 3.02 38.32 Not available *

North East ^** 0.11 12.81 72.00

Orissa 0.27 34.02 63.41

Punjab 0.88 36.06 103.49

 Landline Wireless
subscriber base subscriber base Teledensity
Telecom circle in million in million (September
(December (December 2014)
2017) 2017)

Rajasthan 0.61 67.80 76.18

Tamil
Nadu(including
2.37 87.02 114.71
Chennai since
2005)[63]

Uttar Pradesh(East) 0.48 100.77 58.09(Combined)*

Uttar
Pradesh(West) & 0.35 62.32 58.09(Combined)*
Uttarakhand

West
Bengal(including 0.28 58.00 73.40 *
Kolkata)***

Population statistics are available state-wise only. ^** North east circle includes
Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, &
Tripura ^*** West Bengal circle includes Andaman-Nicobar and Sikkim
Internet

The history of the Internet in India started with launch of services by VSNL on 15
August 1995. They were able to add about 10,000 Internet users within 6
months. However, for the next 10 years the Internet experience in the country
remained less attractive with narrow-band connections having speeds less than
56 kbit/s (dial-up). In 2004, the government formulated its broadband policy which
defined broadband as "an always-on Internet connection with download speed of
256 kbit/s or above." From 2005 onward the growth of the broadband sector in
the country accelerated, but remained below the growth estimates of the
government and related agencies due to resource issues in last-mile access
which were predominantly wired-line technologies. This bottleneck was removed
in 2010 when the government auctioned 3G spectrum followed by an equally
high-profile auction of 4G spectrum that set the scene for a competitive and
invigorated wireless broadband market. Now Internet access in India is provided
by both public and private companies using a variety of technologies and media
including dial-up (PSTN), xDSL, coaxial cable, Ethernet, FTTH, ISDN, HSDPA
(3G), 4G, WiFi, WiMAX, etc. at a wide range of speeds and costs.

According to the Internet And Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), the Internet
user base in the country stood at 190 million at the end of June, 2013, which rose
to 378.10 million in January 2018. Cumulative Annual Growth rate (CAGR) of
broadband during the five-year period between 2005 and 2010 was about 117
per cent.

There were 204 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) offering broadband services in
India as of 31 December 2017. As of January 2018, the top five ISPs in terms
subscriber base were Reliance Jio (168.39 million), Bharti Airtel (75.01 million),
Vodafone (54.83 million), Idea Cellular (37.33 million) and BSNL (21.81
million). In 2009, about 37 per cent of the users access the Internet from cyber
cafes, 30 per cent from an office, and 23 per cent from home. However, the
number of mobile Internet users increased rapidly from 2009 on and there were
about 359.80 million mobile users at the end of January 2018, with a majority
using 4G mobile networks.

One of the major issues facing the Internet segment in India is the lower average
bandwidth of broadband connections compared to that of developed countries.
According to 2007 statistics, the average download speed in India hovered at
about 40 KB per second (256 kbit/s), the minimum speed set by TRAI, whereas
the international average was 5.6 Mbit/s during the same period. In order to
attend this infrastructure issue the government declared 2007 as "the year of
broadband". To compete with international standards of defining broadband
speed the Indian Government has taken the aggressive step of proposing a $13
billion national broadband network to connect all cities, towns and villages with a
population of more than 500 in two phases targeted for completion by 2012 and
2013. The network was supposed to provide speeds up to 10 Mbit/s in 63
metropolitan areas and 4 Mbit/s in an additional 352 cities. In February 2018, the
average broadband speed of fixed line connection in India was 20.72 mbps,
which is less than the global average download speed of 42.71 mbps. In terms of
mobile internet speed, India performed quite poorly, with average speed of 9.01
mbps when compared with global average mobile broadband speed was 22.16
mbps.

As of December 2017, according to Internet and Mobile Association of India, the

Internet penetration rate in India is one of the lowest in the world and only
accounts for 35% of the population compared to the global average internet
penetration is over 54.4%. Another issue is the digital divide where growth is
biased in favour of urban areas; according to December 2017 statistics, internet
penetration in urban India was 64.84%, whereas internet penetration in rural India
is only 20.26%. Regulators have tried to boost the growth of broadband in rural
areas by promoting higher investment in rural infrastructure and establishing
subsidised tariffs for rural subscribers under the Universal service
obligation scheme of the Indian government.
As of May 2014, the Internet was delivered to India mainly by 9 different
undersea fibres, including SEA-ME-WE 3, Bay of Bengal Gateway and Europe
India Gateway, arriving at 5 different landing points.

Net neutrality

In March 2015, the TRAI released a formal consultation paper on Regulatory

Framework for Over-the-top (OTT) services, seeking comments from the public.
The consultation paper was criticised for being one sided and having confusing
statements. It was condemned by various politicians and internet users. By 18
April 2015, over 800,000 emails had been sent to TRAI demanding net neutrality.

The TRAI on 8 February 2016, notified the Prohibition of Discriminatory Tariffs for
Data Services Regulations, 2016 which barred telecom service providers from
charging differential rates for data services.

The 2016 Regulation, stipulates that:

1. No service provider can offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data

services on the basis of content.
2. No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or
contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that
the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or
charged by the service provider for the purpose of evading the prohibition
in this regulation.
3. Reduced tariff for accessing or providing emergency services, or at times
of public emergency has been permitted.
4. Financial disincentives for contravention of the regulation have also been
specified.
5. TRAI may review these regulations after a period of two years.
Television broadcasting

Television broadcasting began in India in 1959 by Doordarshan, a state run

medium of communication, and had slow expansion for more than two
decades. The policy reforms of the government in the 1990s attracted private
initiatives in this sector, and since then, satellite television has increasingly
shaped popular culture and Indian society. However, still, only the government
owned Doordarshan has the licence for terrestrial television broadcast. Private
companies reach the public using satellite channels; both cable television as well
as DTH has obtained a wide subscriber base in India. In 2012, India had about
148 million TV homes of which 126 million has access to cable and satellite
services.

INSAT-1B satellite: Broadcasting sector in India is highly dependent on INSAT system.

Following the economic reforms in the 1990s, satellite television channels from
around the world—BBC, CNN, CNBC, and other private television channels
gained a foothold in the country. There are no regulations to control the
ownership of satellite dish antennas and also for operating cable television
systems in India, which in turn has helped for an impressive growth in the
viewership. The growth in the number of satellite channels was triggered by
corporate business houses such as Star TV group and Zee TV. Initially restricted
to music and entertainment channels, viewership grew, giving rise to several
channels in regional languages, especially Hindi. The main news channels
available were CNN and BBC World. In the late 1990s, many current affairs and
news channels sprouted, becoming immensely popular because of the alternative
viewpoint they offered compared to Doordarshan. Some of the notable ones
are Aaj Tak (run by the India Today group) and STAR News, CNN-IBN, Times
Now, initially run by the NDTV group and their lead anchor, Prannoy
Roy (NDTV now has its own channels, NDTV 24x7, NDTV Profit and NDTV
India). Over the years, Doordarshan services also have grown from a single
national channel to six national and eleven regional channels. Nonetheless, it has
lost the leadership in market, though it underwent many phases of modernisation
in order to contain tough competition from private channels.

Today, television is the most penetrative media in India with industry estimates
indicating that there are over 554 million TV consumers, 462 million with satellite
connections, compared to other forms of mass media such as radio or
internet. Government of India has used the popularity of TV and radio among
rural people for the implementation of many social-programmes including that of
mass-education. On 16 November 2006, the Government of India released
the community radio policy which allowed agricultural centres, educational
institutions and civil society organisations to apply for community based FM
broadcasting licence. Community Radio is allowed 100 watts of Effective
Radiated Power (ERP) with a maximum tower height of 30 metres. The licence is
valid for five years and one organisation can only get one licence, which is non-
transferable and to be used for community development purposes.

Radio and television

As of June 2018, there are 328 private FM radio stations in India. Apart from the
private FM radio stations, All India Radio, the national public radio broadcaster of
India, runs multiple radio channels. AIR’s service comprises 420 stations located
across the country, reaching nearly 92% of the country’s area and 99.19% of the
total population. AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 179 dialects.
 AIR Radio Tower

Starting in 1894, Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi began developing a wireless

communication using the then newly discovered phenomenon of radio waves,
showing by 1901 that they could be transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean. This
was the start of wireless telegraphy by radio. Voice and music were
demonstrated in 1900 and 1906, but had little early success.

Millimetre wave communication was first investigated

by Bengali physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose during 1894–1896, when he
reached an extremely high frequency of up to 60 GHz in his experiments. He also
introduced the use of semiconductor junctions to detect radio waves, when
he patented the radio crystal detector in 1901.

World War I accelerated the development of radio for military communications.

After the war, commercial radio AM broadcasting began in the 1920s and
became an important mass medium for entertainment and news. World War
II again accelerated development of radio for the wartime purposes of aircraft and
land communication, radio navigation and radar. Development of stereo FM
broadcasting of radio took place from the 1930s on-wards in the United States
and displaced AM as the dominant commercial standard by the 1960s, and by
the 1970s in the United Kingdom.

On 25 March 1925, John Logie Baird was able to demonstrate the transmission
of moving pictures at the London department store Selfridges. Baird's device
relied upon the Nipkow disk and thus became known as the mechanical
television. It formed the basis of experimental broadcasts done by the British
Broadcasting Corporation beginning 30 September 1929. However, for most of
the twentieth century televisions depended upon the cathode ray tube invented
by Karl Braun. The first version of such a television to show promise was
produced by Philo Farnsworth and demonstrated to his family on 7 September
1927. After World War II, the experiments in television that had been interrupted
were resumed, and it also became an important home entertainment broadcast
medium.

Next-generation networks (NGN)

Historically, the role of telecommunication has evolved from that of plain

information exchange to a multi-service field, with Value Added Services
(VAS) integrated with various discrete networks like PSTN, PLMN, Internet
Backbone etc. However, with decreasing ARPU and increasing demand for VAS
has become a compelling reason for the service providers to think of the
convergence of these parallel networks into a single core network with service
layers separated from network layer. Next-generation networking is such a
convergence concept which according to ITU-T is:

A next-generation network (NGN) is a packet-based network which can provide

services including Telecommunication Services and able to make use of multiple
broadband, quality of Service-enabled transport technologies and in which
service-related functions are independent from underlying transport-related
technologies. It offers unrestricted access by users to different service providers.
It supports generalised mobility which will allow consistent and ubiquitous
provision of services to users.
Access network: The user can connect to the IP-core of NGN in various ways,
most of which use the standard Internet Protocol (IP). User terminals such as
mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and computers can register
directly on NGN-core, even when they are roaming in another network or country.
The only requirement is that they can use IP and Session Initiation
Protocol (SIP). Fixed access (e.g., digital subscriber line (DSL), cable
modems, Ethernet), mobile access (e.g. W-CDMA, CDMA2000, GSM, GPRS)
and wireless access (e.g.WLAN, WiMAX) are all supported. Other phone
systems like plain old telephone service and non-compatible VoIP systems, are
supported through gateways. With the deployment of the NGN, users may
subscribe to many simultaneous access-providers providing telephony, internet
or entertainment services. This may provide end-users with virtually unlimited
options to choose between service providers for these services in NGN
environment.

The hyper-competition in telecom market, which was effectively caused by the

introduction of Universal Access Service (UAS) licence in 2003 became much
tougher after 3G and 4G competitive auction. About 670,000 route-kilometer
(419,000-mile) of optical fibres has been laid in India by the major operators,
including in the financially nonviable rural areas and the process
continues. Keeping in mind the viability of providing services in rural areas, the
government of India also took a proactive role to promote the NGN
implementation in the country; an expert committee called NGN eCO was
constituted in order to deliberate on the licensing, interconnection and Quality of
Service (QoS) issues related to NGN and it submitted its report on 24 August
2007. Telecom operators found the NGN model advantageous, but huge
investment requirements have prompted them to adopt a multi-phase migration
and they have already started the migration process to NGN with the
implementation of IP-based core-network.
Regulatory environment

LIRNEasia's Telecommunications Regulatory Environment (TRE) index, which

summarises stakeholders' perception on certain TRE dimensions, provides
insight into how conducive the environment is for further development and
progress. The most recent survey was conducted in July 2008 in eight Asian
countries, including Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Pakistan,
Thailand, and the Philippines. The tool measured seven dimensions: i) market
entry; ii) access to scarce resources; iii) interconnection; iv) tariff regulation; v)
anti-competitive practices; and vi) universal services; vii) quality of service, for the
fixed, mobile and broadband sectors.

The results for India, point out to the fact that the stakeholders perceive the TRE
to be most conducive for the mobile sector followed by fixed and then broadband.
Other than for Access to ScarceResources the fixed sector lags behind the
mobile sector. The fixed and mobile sectors have the highest scores for Tariff
Regulation. Market entry also scores well for the mobile sector as competition is
well entrenched with most of the circles with 4–5 mobile service providers. The
broadband sector has the lowest score in the aggregate. The low penetration of
broadband of mere 3.87 against the policy objective of 9 million at the end of
2007 clearly indicates that the regulatory environment is not very conducive.

In 2013 the home ministry stated that legislation must ensure that law
enforcement agencies are empowered to intercept communications.

S-band spectrum scam

In India, electromagnetic spectrum, being a scarce resource for wireless

communication, is auctioned by the Government of India to telecom companies
for use. As an example of its value, in 2010, 20 MHz of 3G spectrum
was auctioned for ₹677 billion (US$9.8 billion). This part of the spectrum is
allocated for terrestrial communication (cell phones). However, in January 2005,
Antrix Corporation (commercial arm of ISRO) signed an agreement with Devas
Multimedia (a private company formed by former ISRO employees and venture
capitalists from USA) for lease of S band transponders (amounting to 70 MHz of
spectrum) on two ISRO satellites (GSAT 6 and GSAT 6A) for a price of ₹14
billion (US$200 million), to be paid over a period of 12 years. The spectrum used
in these satellites (2500 MHz and above) is allocated by the International
Telecommunication Union specifically for satellite-based communication in India.
Hypothetically, if the spectrum allocation is changed for utilisation for terrestrial
transmission and if this 70 MHz of spectrum were sold at the 2010 auction price
of the 3G spectrum, its value would have been over ₹2,000 billion (US$29 billion).
This was a hypothetical situation. However, the Comptroller and Auditor General
of India considered this hypothetical situation and estimated the difference
between the prices as a loss to the Indian Government.

There were lapses on implementing Government of India procedures.

Antrix/ISRO had allocated the capacity of the above two satellites to Devas
Multimedia on an exclusive basis, while rules said it should always be non-
exclusive. The Cabinet was misinformed in November 2005 that several service
providers were interested in using satellite capacity, while the Devas deal was
already signed. Also, the Space Commission was kept in the dark while taking
approval for the second satellite (its cost was diluted so that Cabinet approval
was not needed). ISRO committed to spending ₹7.66 billion (US$110 million) of
public money on building, launching, and operating two satellites that were
leased out for Devas.

In late 2009, some ISRO insiders exposed information about the Devas-Antrix
deal, and the ensuing investigations resulted in the deal being annulled. G.
Madhavan Nair (ISRO Chairperson when the agreement was signed) was barred
from holding any post under the Department of Space. Some former scientists
were found guilty of "acts of commission" or "acts of omission". Devas and
Deutsche Telekom demanded US$2 billion and US$1 billion, respectively, in
damages. Government of India's Department of Revenue and Ministry of
Corporate Affairs initiated an inquiry into Devas shareholding.

The Central Bureau of Investigation concluded investigations into the Antrix-

Devas scam and registered a case against the accused in the Antrix-Devas deal
under Section 120-B, besides Section 420 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with
13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 on 18 March 2015 against the then Executive Director of
Antrix Corporation, two officials of USA-based company, Bangalore based private
multimedia company, and other unknown officials of Antrix Corporation or
Department of Space.

Devas Multimedia started arbitration proceedings against Antrix in June 2011. In

September 2015, the International Court of Arbitration of the International
Chamber of Commerce ruled in favour of Devas, and directed Antrix to pay
US$672 million (Rs 44.35 billion) in damages to Devas. Antrix opposed the
Devas plea for tribunal award in the Delhi High Court.

Revenue and growth

The adjusted gross revenue in the telecom service sector was ₹160,814
crore (equivalent to ₹1.7 trillion or US$24.4 billion in 2018) in 2017 as
against ₹198,207 crore (equivalent to ₹2.1 trillion or US$30.8 billion in 2018) in
2016, registering a negative growth of 18.87%. The major contributions to this
revenue are as follows (in INR Crores):
 Calendar Calendar Q2 18

Year 2016 Year 2017 % (June)

Service Provider Change
(in INR (in INR
(in INR
Crores) Crores)
Crores)

Vodafone Idea 64,116 59,538 -7.14 8226.80

Airtel 52,017 39,050 -24.92 6809.78

BSNL 13,110 10,564 -19.42 2273.58

Reliance Jio -303 7,466 2563.90 7125.69

Tata Docomo 9,957 6,478 -34.94 553.98

Aircel 11,164 5,082 -54.48 -

Reliance
5,825 3,061 -47.45 149.12
Communications

MTNL 478.61 556.87 -14.05 440.24

Quadrant 140 4 -97.04 5.89

Videocon 4,712 0 - -

Total 1,63,605 1,22,613 -25.06 25585.07

Note:

 Airtel has acquired Telenor India in May 2018 and the data of Airtel and Telenor
India has been merged.

 On 31 August 2018, Vodafone and Idea merged to form the world's second-
largest telcom company, and the largest in India and officially known as
 Calendar Calendar Q2 18

Year 2016 Year 2017 % (June)

Service Provider Change
(in INR (in INR
(in INR
Crores) Crores)
Crores)

Vodafone Idea Limited and both the companies data has been merged.
 On 1 November 2017, MTS India merged with Reliance Communications and
their data has been merged.
 Videocon shut down its network and discontinued operations in the Gujarat and
UP (West) circles on 26 December 2015, and in the Haryana, Madhya Pradesh,
Bihar and UP (East) circles on 11 May 2016.
 Reliance Communications discontinued it's wireless voice services on 29
December 2017, but has continued its data and B2B services till 2018. Reliance
Communications filed for bankruptcy as it was unable to sell it's assets
to Reliance Jio and closed it's operations under mobile network division on 26
February 2019.
 On 28 February 2018 Aircel filed for bankruptcy at NCLT and has discontinued
operations.
 Quadrant discontinued its wireless mobile services in April 2017, however, it
has continued to provide wired line services in Punjab circle.
 On July 2016, Virgin Mobile India and T24 Mobile has been merged their virtual
network operations into Tata Docomo.
 Bharti Airtel acquired consumer mobile businesses of Tata Teleservices which
includes Tata Docomo in debt free deal on 1 July 2019.

International

 Nine satellite earth stations – 8 Intelsat (Indian Ocean) and 1 Inmarsat (Indian
Ocean region).
 Nine gateway exchanges operating from Mumbai, New Delhi,
Kolkata, Chennai, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Gandhinagar, Hyderabad and Tri
vandrum.

Submarine cables

 LOCOM linking Chennai to Penang, Malaysia

 India-UAE cable linking Mumbai to Al Fujayrah, UAE.
 SEA-ME-WE 2 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 2)
 SEA-ME-WE 3 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 3) – Landing
sites at Cochin and Mumbai. Capacity of 960 Gbit/s.
 SEA-ME-WE 4 (South East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe 4) – Landing
sites at Mumbai and Chennai. Capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s.
 Fibre-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG-FEA) with a landing site at Mumbai
(2000). Initial design capacity 10 Gbit/s, upgraded in 2002 to 80 Gbit/s,
upgraded to over 1 Tbit/s (2005).
 TIISCS (Tata Indicom India-Singapore Cable System), also known as TIC
(Tata Indicom Cable), Chennai to Singapore. Capacity of 5.12 Tbit/s.
 i2i – Chennai to Singapore. Capacity of 8.4 Tbit/s.
 SEACOM From Mumbai to the Mediterranean, via South Africa. It joins
with SEA-ME-WE 4 off the west coast of Spain to carry traffic onward to
London (2009). Capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s.
 I-ME-WE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) with two landing sites at
Mumbai (2009). Capacity of 3.84 Tbit/s.
 EIG (Europe-India Gateway), landing at Mumbai(2011). Capacity of 3.84
Tbit/s.
 TGN-Eurasia Landing at Mumbai (2012), Capacity of 1.28 Tbit/s
 TGN-Gulf Landing at Mumbai (2012), Capacity Unknown.
 MENA (Middle East North Africa)(Announced).(due ?), Capacity of 5.76
Tbit/s.
Key concepts

Modern telecommunication is founded on a series of key concepts that

experienced progressive development and refinement in a period of well over a
century.

Basic elements

Telecommunication technologies may primarily be divided into wired and wireless

methods. Overall though, a basic telecommunication system consists of three
main parts that are always present in some form or another:

 A transmitter that takes information and converts it to a signal.

 A transmission medium, also called the physical channel that carries the
signal. An example of this is the "free space channel".
 A receiver that takes the signal from the channel and converts it back into
usable information for the recipient.

For example, in a radio broadcasting station the station's large power amplifier is
the transmitter; and the broadcasting antenna is the interface between the power
amplifier and the "free space channel". The free space channel is the
transmission medium; and the receiver's antenna is the interface between the
free space channel and the receiver. Next, the radio receiver is the destination of
the radio signal, and this is where it is converted from electricity to sound for
people to listen to.

Sometimes, telecommunication systems are "duplex" (two-way systems) with a

single box of electronics working as both the transmitter and a receiver, or
a transceiver. For example, a cellular telephone is a transceiver. The
transmission electronics and the receiver electronics within a transceiver are
actually quite independent of each other. This can be readily explained by the
fact that radio transmitters contain power amplifiers that operate with electrical
powers measured in watts or kilowatts, but radio receivers deal with radio powers
that are measured in the microwatts or nanowatts. Hence, transceivers have to
be carefully designed and built to isolate their high-power circuitry and their low-
power circuitry from each other, as to not cause interference.

Telecommunication over fixed lines is called point-to-point

communication because it is between one transmitter and one receiver.
Telecommunication through radio broadcasts is called broadcast
communication because it is between one powerful transmitter and numerous
low-power but sensitive radio receivers.

Telecommunications in which multiple transmitters and multiple receivers have

been designed to cooperate and to share the same physical channel are
called multiplex systems. The sharing of physical channels using multiplexing
often gives very large reductions in costs. Multiplexed systems are laid out in
telecommunication networks, and the multiplexed signals are switched at nodes
through to the correct destination terminal receiver.

Analog versus digital communications

Communications signals can be sent either by analog signals or digital signals.

There are analog communication systems and digital communication systems.
For an analog signal, the signal is varied continuously with respect to the
information. In a digital signal, the information is encoded as a set of discrete
values (for example, a set of ones and zeros). During the propagation and
reception, the information contained in analog signals will inevitably be degraded
by undesirable physical noise. (The output of a transmitter is noise-free for all
practical purposes.) Commonly, the noise in a communication system can be
expressed as adding or subtracting from the desirable signal in a
completely random way. This form of noise is called additive noise, with the
understanding that the noise can be negative or positive at different instants of
time. Noise that is not additive noise is a much more difficult situation to describe
or analyze, and these other kinds of noise will be omitted here.

On the other hand, unless the additive noise disturbance exceeds a certain
threshold, the information contained in digital signals will remain intact. Their
resistance to noise represents a key advantage of digital signals over analog
signals.

Telecommunication networks

A telecommunications network is a collection of transmitters, receivers,

and communications channels that send messages to one another. Some digital
communications networks contain one or more routers that work together to
transmit information to the correct user. An analog communications network
consists of one or more switches that establish a connection between two or
more users. For both types of network, repeaters may be necessary to amplify or
recreate the signal when it is being transmitted over long distances. This is to
combat attenuation that can render the signal indistinguishable from the
noise. Another advantage of digital systems over analog is that their output is
easier to store in memory, i.e. two voltage states (high and low) are easier to
store than a continuous range of states.

Communication channels

The term "channel" has two different meanings. In one meaning, a channel is the
physical medium that carries a signal between the transmitter and the receiver.
Examples of this include the atmosphere for sound communications, glass optical
fibers for some kinds of optical communications, coaxial cables for
communications by way of the voltages and electric currents in them, and free
space for communications using visible light, infrared waves, ultraviolet light,
and radio waves. Coaxial cable types are classified by RG type or "radio guide",
terminology derived from World War II. The various RG designations are used to
classify the specific signal transmission applications. This last channel is called
the "free space channel". The sending of radio waves from one place to another
has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an atmosphere between the
two. Radio waves travel through a perfect vacuum just as easily as they travel
through air, fog, clouds, or any other kind of gas.

The other meaning of the term "channel" in telecommunications is seen in the

phrase communications channel, which is a subdivision of a transmission
medium so that it can be used to send multiple streams of information
simultaneously. For example, one radio station can broadcast radio waves into
free space at frequencies in the neighborhood of 94.5 MHz (megahertz) while
another radio station can simultaneously broadcast radio waves at frequencies in
the neighborhood of 96.1 MHz. Each radio station would transmit radio waves
over a frequency bandwidth of about 180 kHz (kilohertz), centered at frequencies
such as the above, which are called the "carrier frequencies". Each station in this
example is separated from its adjacent stations by 200 kHz, and the difference
between 200 kHz and 180 kHz (20 kHz) is an engineering allowance for the
imperfections in the communication system.

In the example above, the "free space channel" has been divided into
communications channels according to frequencies, and each channel is
assigned a separate frequency bandwidth in which to broadcast radio waves.
This system of dividing the medium into channels according to frequency is called
"frequency-division multiplexing". Another term for the same concept is
"wavelength-division multiplexing", which is more commonly used in optical
communications when multiple transmitters share the same physical medium.

Another way of dividing a communications medium into channels is to allocate

each sender a recurring segment of time (a "time slot", for example,
20 milliseconds out of each second), and to allow each sender to send messages
only within its own time slot. This method of dividing the medium into
communication channels is called "time-division multiplexing" (TDM), and is used
in optical fiber communication. Some radio communication systems use TDM
within an allocated FDM channel. Hence, these systems use a hybrid of TDM and
FDM.

Modulation

The shaping of a signal to convey information is known as modulation.

Modulation can be used to represent a digital message as an analog waveform.
This is commonly called "keying"—a term derived from the older use of Morse
Code in telecommunications—and several keying techniques exist (these
include phase-shift keying, frequency-shift keying, and amplitude-shift keying).
The "Bluetooth" system, for example, uses phase-shift keying to exchange
information between various devices. In addition, there are combinations of
phase-shift keying and amplitude-shift keying which is called (in the jargon of the
field) "quadrature amplitude modulation" (QAM) that are used in high-capacity
digital radio communication systems.

Modulation can also be used to transmit the information of low-frequency analog

signals at higher frequencies. This is helpful because low-frequency analog
signals cannot be effectively transmitted over free space. Hence the information
from a low-frequency analog signal must be impressed into a higher-frequency
signal (known as the "carrier wave") before transmission. There are several
different modulation schemes available to achieve this [two of the most basic
being amplitude modulation (AM) and frequency modulation (FM)]. An example of
this process is a disc jockey's voice being impressed into a 96 MHz carrier wave
using frequency modulation (the voice would then be received on a radio as the
channel "96 FM"). In addition, modulation has the advantage that it may use
frequency division multiplexing (FDM).
Society

Telecommunication has a significant social, cultural and economic impact on

modern society. In 2008, estimates placed the telecommunication industry's
revenue at $4.7 trillion or just under 3 percent of the gross world product (official
exchange rate). Several following sections discuss the impact of
telecommunication on society.

Economic impact
Microeconomics

On the microeconomic scale, companies have used telecommunications to help

build global business empires. This is self-evident in the case of online
retailer Amazon.com but, according to academic Edward Lenert, even the
conventional retailer Walmart has benefited from better telecommunication
infrastructure compared to its competitors. In cities throughout the world, home
owners use their telephones to order and arrange a variety of home services
ranging from pizza deliveries to electricians. Even relatively poor communities
have been noted to use telecommunication to their advantage. In Bangladesh's
Narshingdi district, isolated villagers use cellular phones to speak directly to
wholesalers and arrange a better price for their goods. In Côte d'Ivoire, coffee
growers share mobile phones to follow hourly variations in coffee prices and sell
at the best price.

Macroeconomics

On the macroeconomic scale, Lars-Hendrik Röller and Leonard

Waverman suggested a causal link between good telecommunication
infrastructure and economic growth. Few dispute the existence of a correlation
although some argue it is wrong to view the relationship as causal.

Because of the economic benefits of good telecommunication infrastructure,

there is increasing worry about the inequitable access to telecommunication
services amongst various countries of the world—this is known as the digital
divide. A 2003 survey by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
revealed that roughly a third of countries have fewer than one mobile subscription
for every 20 people and one-third of countries have fewer than one land-line
telephone subscription for every 20 people. In terms of Internet access, roughly
half of all countries have fewer than one out of 20 people with Internet access.
From this information, as well as educational data, the ITU was able to compile
an index that measures the overall ability of citizens to access and use
information and communication technologies. Using this measure, Sweden,
Denmark and Iceland received the highest ranking while the African countries
Nigeria, Burkina Faso and Mali received the lowest.

Social impact

Telecommunication has played a significant role in social relationships.

Nevertheless, devices like the telephone system were originally advertised with
an emphasis on the practical dimensions of the device (such as the ability to
conduct business or order home services) as opposed to the social dimensions. It
was not until the late 1920s and 1930s that the social dimensions of the device
became a prominent theme in telephone advertisements. New promotions started
appealing to consumers' emotions, stressing the importance of social
conversations and staying connected to family and friends.

Since then the role that telecommunications has played in social relations has
become increasingly important. In recent years, the popularity of social
networking sites has increased dramatically. These sites allow users to
communicate with each other as well as post photographs, events and profiles for
others to see. The profiles can list a person's age, interests, sexual preference
and relationship status. In this way, these sites can play important role in
everything from organising social engagements to courtship.

Prior to social networking sites, technologies like short message service (SMS)
and the telephone also had a significant impact on social interactions. In 2000,
market research group Ipsos MORI reported that 81% of 15- to 24-year-old SMS
users in the United Kingdom had used the service to coordinate social
arrangements and 42% to flirt.

Government

Many countries have enacted legislation which conforms to the International

Telecommunication Regulations established by the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), which is the "leading UN agency for information
and communication technology issues". In 1947, at the Atlantic City Conference,
the ITU decided to "afford international protection to all frequencies registered in
a new international frequency list and used in conformity with the Radio
Regulation". According to the ITU's Radio Regulations adopted in Atlantic City, all
frequencies referenced in the International Frequency Registration Board,
examined by the board and registered on the International Frequency List "shall
have the right to international protection from harmful interference".

From a global perspective, there have been political debates and legislation
regarding the management of telecommunication and broadcasting. The history
of broadcasting discusses some debates in relation to balancing conventional
communication such as printing and telecommunication such as radio
broadcasting. The onset of World War II brought on the first explosion of
international broadcasting propaganda. Countries, their governments, insurgents,
terrorists, and militiamen have all used telecommunication and broadcasting
techniques to promote propaganda. Patriotic propaganda for political movements
and colonization started the mid-1930s. In 1936, the BBC broadcast propaganda
to the Arab World to partly counter similar broadcasts from Italy, which also had
colonial interests in North Africa.

Modern insurgents, such as those in the latest Iraq War, often use intimidating
telephone calls, SMSs and the distribution of sophisticated videos of an attack on
coalition troops within hours of the operation. "The Sunni insurgents even have
their own television station, Al-Zawraa, which while banned by the Iraqi
government, still broadcasts from Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, even as coalition
pressure has forced it to switch satellite hosts several times."

On 10 November 2014, President Obama recommended the Federal

Communications Commission reclassify broadband Internet service as
a telecommunications service to preserve net neutrality.

Modern media
Worldwide equipment sales

According to data collected by Gartner and Ars Technica sales of main

consumer's telecommunication equipment worldwide in millions of units was:

Equipme 197 198 198 199 199 199 199 200 200 200 200 200
nt / year 5 0 5 0 4 6 8 0 2 4 6 8

Compute
0 1 8 20 40 75 100 135 130 175 230 280
rs

Cell N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 180 400 420 660 830 100
phones 0

Telephone

In a telephone network, the caller is connected to the person they want to talk to
by switches at various telephone exchanges. The switches form an electrical
connection between the two users and the setting of these switches is
determined electronically when the caller dials the number. Once the connection
is made, the caller's voice is transformed to an electrical signal using a
small microphone in the caller's handset. This electrical signal is then sent
through the network to the user at the other end where it is transformed back into
sound by a small speaker in that person's handset.

As of 2015, the landline telephones in most residential homes are analog—that

is, the speaker's voice directly determines the signal's voltage. Although short-
distance calls may be handled from end-to-end as analog signals, increasingly
telephone service providers are transparently converting the signals to digital
signals for transmission. The advantage of this is that digitized voice data can
travel side-by-side with data from the Internet and can be perfectly reproduced in
long distance communication (as opposed to analog signals that are inevitably
impacted by noise).

Mobile phones have had a significant impact on telephone networks. Mobile

phone subscriptions now outnumber fixed-line subscriptions in many markets.
Sales of mobile phones in 2005 totalled 816.6 million with that figure being almost
equally shared amongst the markets of Asia/Pacific (204 m), Western Europe
(164 m), CEMEA (Central Europe, the Middle East and Africa) (153.5 m), North
America (148 m) and Latin America (102 m). In terms of new subscriptions over
the five years from 1999, Africa has outpaced other markets with 58.2%
growth. Increasingly these phones are being serviced by systems where the
voice content is transmitted digitally such as GSM or W-CDMA with many
markets choosing to deprecate analog systems such as AMPS.
There have also been dramatic changes in telephone communication behind the
scenes. Starting with the operation of TAT-8 in 1988, the 1990s saw the
widespread adoption of systems based on optical fibers. The benefit of
communicating with optic fibers is that they offer a drastic increase in data
capacity. TAT-8 itself was able to carry 10 times as many telephone calls as the
last copper cable laid at that time and today's optic fibre cables are able to carry
25 times as many telephone calls as TAT-8. This increase in data capacity is due
to several factors: First, optic fibres are physically much smaller than competing
technologies. Second, they do not suffer from crosstalk which means several
hundred of them can be easily bundled together in a single cable. Lastly,
improvements in multiplexing have led to an exponential growth in the data
capacity of a single fibre.

Assisting communication across many modern optic fibre networks is a protocol

known as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). The ATM protocol allows for the
side-by-side data transmission mentioned in the second paragraph. It is suitable
for public telephone networks because it establishes a pathway for data through
the network and associates a traffic contract with that pathway. The traffic
contract is essentially an agreement between the client and the network about
how the network is to handle the data; if the network cannot meet the conditions
of the traffic contract it does not accept the connection. This is important because
telephone calls can negotiate a contract so as to guarantee themselves a
constant bit rate, something that will ensure a caller's voice is not delayed in parts
or cut off completely. There are competitors to ATM, such as Multiprotocol Label
Switching (MPLS), that perform a similar task and are expected to supplant ATM
in the future.

Radio and television

In a broadcast system, the central high-powered broadcast tower transmits a

high-frequency electromagnetic wave to numerous low-powered receivers. The
high-frequency wave sent by the tower is modulated with a signal containing
visual or audio information. The receiver is then tuned so as to pick up the high-
frequency wave and a demodulator is used to retrieve the signal containing the
visual or audio information. The broadcast signal can be either analog (signal is
varied continuously with respect to the information) or digital (information is
encoded as a set of discrete values).

Digital television standards and their adoption worldwide

The broadcast media industry is at a critical turning point in its development, with
many countries moving from analog to digital broadcasts. This move is made
possible by the production of cheaper, faster and more capable integrated
circuits. The chief advantage of digital broadcasts is that they prevent a number
of complaints common to traditional analog broadcasts. For television, this
includes the elimination of problems such as snowy pictures, ghosting and other
distortion. These occur because of the nature of analog transmission, which
means that perturbations due to noise will be evident in the final output. Digital
transmission overcomes this problem because digital signals are reduced to
discrete values upon reception and hence small perturbations do not affect the
final output. In a simplified example, if a binary message 1011 was transmitted
with signal amplitudes [1.0 0.0 1.0 1.0] and received with signal amplitudes [0.9
0.2 1.1 0.9] it would still decode to the binary message 1011— a perfect
reproduction of what was sent. From this example, a problem with digital
transmissions can also be seen in that if the noise is great enough it can
significantly alter the decoded message. Using forward error correction a receiver
can correct a handful of bit errors in the resulting message but too much noise
will lead to incomprehensible output and hence a breakdown of the transmission.

In digital television broadcasting, there are three competing standards that are
likely to be adopted worldwide. These are the ATSC, DVB and ISDB standards;
the adoption of these standards thus far is presented in the captioned map. All
three standards use MPEG-2 for video compression. ATSC uses Dolby Digital
AC-3 for audio compression, ISDB uses Advanced Audio Coding (MPEG-2 Part
7) and DVB has no standard for audio compression but typically uses MPEG-1
Part 3 Layer 2. The choice of modulation also varies between the schemes. In
digital audio broadcasting, standards are much more unified with practically all
countries choosing to adopt the Digital Audio Broadcasting standard (also known
as the Eureka 147 standard). The exception is the United States which has
chosen to adopt HD Radio. HD Radio, unlike Eureka 147, is based upon a
transmission method known as in-band on-channel transmission that allows
digital information to "piggyback" on normal AM or FM analog transmissions.

However, despite the pending switch to digital, analog television remains being
transmitted in most countries. An exception is the United States that ended
analog television transmission (by all but the very low-power TV stations) on 12
June 2009 after twice delaying the switchover deadline. Kenya also ended analog
television transmission in December 2014 after multiple delays. For analog
television, there were three standards in use for broadcasting color TV (see a
map on adoption here). These are known as PAL (German
designed), NTSC (American designed), and SECAM (French designed). For
analog radio, the switch to digital radio is made more difficult by the higher cost of
digital receivers. The choice of modulation for analog radio is typically between
amplitude (AM) or frequency modulation (FM). To achieve stereo playback, an
amplitude modulated subcarrier is used for stereo FM, and quadrature amplitude
modulation is used for stereo AM or C-QUAM.
Internet

The Internet is a worldwide network of computers and computer networks that

communicate with each other using the Internet Protocol (IP). Any computer on
the Internet has a unique IP address that can be used by other computers to
route information to it. Hence, any computer on the Internet can send a message
to any other computer using its IP address. These messages carry with them the
originating computer's IP address allowing for two-way communication. The
Internet is thus an exchange of messages between computers.

The OSI reference model

It is estimated that 51% of the information flowing through two-way

telecommunications networks in the year 2000 were flowing through the Internet
(most of the rest (42%) through the landline telephone). By the year 2007 the
Internet clearly dominated and captured 97% of all the information in
telecommunication networks (most of the rest (2%) through mobile phones). As
of 2008, an estimated 21.9% of the world population has access to the Internet
with the highest access rates (measured as a percentage of the population) in
North America (73.6%), Oceania/Australia (59.5%) and Europe (48.1%). In terms
of broadband access, Iceland (26.7%), South Korea (25.4%) and the Netherlands
(25.3%) led the world.

The Internet works in part because of protocols that govern how the computers
and routers communicate with each other. The nature of computer network
communication lends itself to a layered approach where individual protocols in
the protocol stack run more-or-less independently of other protocols. This allows
lower-level protocols to be customized for the network situation while not
changing the way higher-level protocols operate. A practical example of why this
is important is because it allows an Internet browser to run the same code
regardless of whether the computer it is running on is connected to the Internet
through an Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection. Protocols are often talked about in
terms of their place in the OSI reference model (pictured on the right), which
emerged in 1983 as the first step in an unsuccessful attempt to build a universally
adopted networking protocol suite.

For the Internet, the physical medium and data link protocol can vary several
times as packets traverse the globe. This is because the Internet places no
constraints on what physical medium or data link protocol is used. This leads to
the adoption of media and protocols that best suit the local network situation. In
practice, most intercontinental communication will use the Asynchronous
Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol (or a modern equivalent) on top of optic fiber. This
is because for most intercontinental communication the Internet shares the same
infrastructure as the public switched telephone network.

At the network layer, things become standardized with the Internet Protocol (IP)
being adopted for logical addressing. For the World Wide Web, these "IP
addresses" are derived from the human readable form using the Domain Name
System (e.g. 72.14.207.99 is derived from www.google.com). At the moment, the
most widely used version of the Internet Protocol is version four but a move to
version six is imminent.

At the transport layer, most communication adopts either the Transmission

Control Protocol (TCP) or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP). TCP is used when
it is essential every message sent is received by the other computer whereas
UDP is used when it is merely desirable. With TCP, packets are retransmitted if
they are lost and placed in order before they are presented to higher layers. With
UDP, packets are not ordered nor retransmitted if lost. Both TCP and UDP
packets carry port numbers with them to specify what application or process the
packet should be handled by. Because certain application-level protocols
use certain ports, network administrators can manipulate traffic to suit particular
requirements. Examples are to restrict Internet access by blocking the traffic
destined for a particular port or to affect the performance of certain applications
by assigning priority.

Above the transport layer, there are certain protocols that are sometimes used
and loosely fit in the session and presentation layers, most notably the Secure
Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols. These
protocols ensure that data transferred between two parties remains completely
confidential. Finally, at the application layer, are many of the protocols Internet
users would be familiar with such as HTTP (web browsing), POP3 (e-
mail), FTP (file transfer), IRC (Internet chat), BitTorrent (file sharing)
and XMPP (instant messaging).

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) allows data packets to be used

for synchronous voice communications. The data packets are marked as voice
type packets and can be prioritized by the network administrators so that the real-
time, synchronous conversation is less subject to contention with other types of
data traffic which can be delayed (i.e. file transfer or email) or buffered in
advance (i.e. audio and video) without detriment. That prioritization is fine when
the network has sufficient capacity for all the VoIP calls taking place at the same
time and the network is enabled for prioritization i.e. a private corporate style
network, but the Internet is not generally managed in this way and so there can
be a big difference in the quality of VoIP calls over a private network and over the
public Internet.
Local area networks and wide area networks

Despite the growth of the Internet, the characteristics of local area

networks (LANs)—computer networks that do not extend beyond a few
kilometers—remain distinct. This is because networks on this scale do not require
all the features associated with larger networks and are often more cost-effective
and efficient without them. When they are not connected with the Internet, they
also have the advantages of privacy and security. However, purposefully lacking
a direct connection to the Internet does not provide assured protection from
hackers, military forces, or economic powers. These threats exist if there are any
methods for connecting remotely to the LAN.

Wide area networks (WANs) are private computer networks that may extend for
thousands of kilometers. Once again, some of their advantages include privacy
and security. Prime users of private LANs and WANs include armed forces and
intelligence agencies that must keep their information secure and secret.

In the mid-1980s, several sets of communication protocols emerged to fill the

gaps between the data-link layer and the application layer of the OSI reference
model. These included Appletalk, IPX, and NetBIOS with the dominant protocol
set during the early 1990s being IPX due to its popularity with MS-
DOS users. TCP/IP existed at this point, but it was typically only used by large
government and research facilities.

As the Internet grew in popularity and its traffic was required to be routed into
private networks, the TCP/IP protocols replaced existing local area network
technologies. Additional technologies, such as DHCP, allowed TCP/IP-based
computers to self-configure in the network. Such functions also existed in the
AppleTalk/ IPX/ NetBIOS protocol sets.

Whereas Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) or Multiprotocol Label Switching

(MPLS) are typical data-link protocols for larger networks such as WANs;
Ethernet and Token Ring are typical data-link protocols for LANs. These
protocols differ from the former protocols in that they are simpler, e.g., they omit
features such as quality of service guarantees, and offer collision prevention.
Both of these differences allow for more economical systems.

Despite the modest popularity of IBM Token Ring in the 1980s and 1990s,
virtually all LANs now use either wired or wireless Ethernet facilities. At the
physical layer, most wired Ethernet implementations use copper twisted-pair
cables (including the common 10BASE-T networks). However, some early
implementations used heavier coaxial cables and some recent
implementations (especially high-speed ones) use optical fibers. When optic
fibers are used, the distinction must be made between multimode fibers
and single-mode fibers. Multimode fibers can be thought of as thicker optical
fibers that are cheaper to manufacture devices for, but that suffers from less
usable bandwidth and worse attenuation—implying poorer long-distance
performance.

Transmission capacity

The effective capacity to exchange information worldwide through two-way

telecommunication networks grew from 281 petabytes of (optimally
compressed) information in 1986, to 471 petabytes in 1993, to 2.2
(optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and to 65 (optimally compressed)
exabytes in 2007. This is the informational equivalent of two newspaper pages
per person per day in 1986, and six entire newspapers per person per day by
2007. Given this growth, telecommunications play an increasingly important
role in the world economy and the global telecommunications industry was
about a $4.7 trillion sector in 2012. The service revenue of the global
telecommunications industry was estimated to be $1.5 trillion in 2010,
corresponding to 2.4% of the world's gross domestic product (GDP).
 CONCLUSION
“A process involving the selection, production and transmission of signs in
such a ways as to help a receiver perceive a meaning similar to that in the
mind of communicator.”
-Wallace C. Fotheringham

Communication is essential for eo-operation, collaboration, co-ordination,

monitoring, managing and messaging. Without good communication, men cannot
survive in this modern world. Telecom is the basis for good communication,
through which user can transmit voice, data, and ultimately video.
Since all the three form of communication can be accommodated on this
main hardware telecom network structure, telecom has to be a part of an
infrastructure required for the ever all modernization process. As a result, people
need to understand its rural applications and implications. Telecom technology
becomes a critical element for all information. Telecom is considered to be the
prime mover at least in the advanced countries for economy, commerce, social and
cultural development. The ultimate, benefit of telecom is to distribute development
more equitably.The history of relationship of telecommunication technology and
telecommunication services has been closely linked. It has been a history where
key events have followed a generally smooth parabolic curve commonly employed
in technological projecting.This curve is actually the connection of a series of
successive curve represented by emerging technologies and series. Just as one
technology has begun slowing down and producing marginal returns and just when
service demand seemed to be outpacing the technology, the next bright new
technology has come right along on cue to herald a new golden era. What is so
unusual is that a continuing series of dramatic breakthroughs i.e., a doubling of
capacity has occurred in both new technologies and service demand for so long.
Indeed, on the average, digital communication capabilities have doubled about
every 5years ever since 1850. Let’s face it folks, the “Telecommunication
revolution” are now a senior citizen. Indeed, telecommunications technology has
produced almost as many new generations as a lustful rabbit colony.Significant
growth of many new service can be expected in the 1980s and1990s in addition to
conventional telephone, television, radio, telex, telegraph,data service and
conventional mobile communications e.g., citizen band radios.These new services
will most likely be both national and international in scope, although certain
services like broadcast TV and cable TV will be primarily or exclusively national,
while maritime mobile services will likely be largely international in scope.Yet,
advances in telecommunications in developing countries will occur.
Some new services, such as broadcast satellite service, could allow major leaps
forward by developing countries without them first establishing a broad national
telecommunications infrastructure. Such technological leap-forging may be vital,
since a growing gap between “Information and Telecommunication Rich”
societies and “information and telecommunications, poor” societies could be
highly disruptive to the economic and political stability of the world. This has
become a serious concern of the ITU who in turn is attempting to persuade the
World Bank (IDRB) and the Un Development Programme (UNDP) to incorporate
telecommunications development as a priority goal for the 1980s.The key to rapid
progress in developing countries is of course maximum investment in
telecommunications services in the educational and economic sectors, while
minimizing investment in entertainment, consumer and luxury telecommunications
service.Indians all know that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is
internationally famous for its telecom operations. But only a very few would know
that origin and development of BSNL and its environmental developments and the
ups and downs of such a large Telecom Services, which depends on a huge
manpower, with having invest of capital through quite a few mechanized
processes engineering.Today BSNL is the number one Telecommunication
Company the largest public sector undertaking of India with authorized share
capital of $36oo million and net worth of $13.85 billion. In the modern society for
the communication purpose the demand for BSNL land line and mobile
connection service expand from year to year and it has a network of ever 50
million lines covering more than 5000 towns with ever 40 million telephones
connections with digital technology. SUGGESTIONS
Suggestions for the improvement of the facilities of BSNL, derived out of
the Questionnaires supplied more than 15 telephones customers (users) (among
mobile users). Now this 156 years old of telephone industry of BSNL is facing
very heavy competition with other private competitors.If the BSNL has to come
forward to introduce many more programme andalso to reduce SMS charge and
outgoing roaming charges.Billing system of BSNL should be changed. Common
method of billion should be used to all areas both rural and urban.Even though
BSNL has lot of programmes and facilities, but the people especially in rural areas
does not know it. So Telecommunication department and BSNL should take
effective steps to market their network in better manner. BSNL should act sharply
and quickly to meet its customers demand, at the same time BSNL should change
its technological and communicative modes along with competitors in the market.
More steps should be taken to improve the telephone networking system to
extend to remote rural areas. Both telecommunication department and the BSNL
have the important role to play in the years to come, for the prospects of telephone
industries in India.