Indian telecom regulator TRAI’s consultation paper is expected to improve in-building coverage for boosting service quality.
TRAI feels because people spend a large part of their time inside buildings it is important to ensure quality telecom services inside a building – in residential, multi-story building, commercial complex, hotel or airport. TRAI wants to know whether sharing of telecom infrastructure can be made mandatory.
Telecom network operators require an access inside the building to install the telecom infrastructure or lay their cables. “While many infrastructure related issues have been dealt with by the authority in the past, there are issues related to In-building access that are still faced by the TSPs and therefore, remain to be addressed,” said TRAI in its consultation paper.
At present, mobile operators and the building owner or building developer or resident welfare associations (RWA) enter into commercial agreements for in-building deployment. Building owners or building developers delay the negotiations or request exorbitant rents — slowing down the speed of deployment.
TRAI says the proposed guidelines will be applicable to in-building facilities to enable the telecom network operators to obtain proper access on reasonable terms and conditions.
Telecoms can make investments in wired or wireless networks for in-building telecom infrastructure. Telecom operators will connect subscribers through cables such as copper cables, coaxial cables, and optical fiber cable for wired connectivity.
TRAI says wireless connectivity does not always require any in-building telecom infrastructure. In case the signal strengths inside the building are not adequate, installation of in-building equipment to increase the signal strengths inside the building becomes a necessity.
Telecoms need to make investment in in-building solutions (IBS) to provide high speed data. Telecom operators need to place their equipment inside the building for creating Wi-Fi hotspot. The building owner or infrastructure provider should share their infrastructure with other TSPs to reduce infrastructure and transaction costs and help in quicker roll-out of their services.
TRAI had earlier examined the issue of encouraging use of In-building solution (IBS) for better in-building coverage, better quality of service (QoS) and reduction in level of radiated power from Macro cell sites and sharing of IBS amongst service providers.
TRAI feels that it is important to ensure that all TSPs are able to provide mobile and landline services to all the subscribers without any artificial restrictions or hindrance. Telecom stakeholders can submit their suggestions by July 7 and counter-comments by July 14.
Challenges
The issue is not limited to sharing of IBS/ Distributed Antenna System (DAS) systems only, but TSP should get access to all telecom infrastructures including Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) and copper cable for provision of broadband and other telecom services.
It is important for telecom service providers provide mobile coverage / network presence inside big residential / commercial complexes to improve QoS of their networks. TRAI says it is not practical to install individual in-building infrastructure by TSPs as this will result in not only multiplication of network but will also entail huge avoidable cost.
It may not be feasible / advisable to lay down cables again and again on the same land / building by several TSPs.
TRAI said the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is in the process of framing National Building Code of India under which some provision of Common Telecom Infrastructure (CTI) housed inside the buildings for convenient provision of telecom services are being envisaged.