Red tape, last-mile issues make 150Mbps internet a mirage

Ground realities

Promising speeds in excess of 150-250Mbps, fibernet expansion in Bengaluru has hit a virtual roadblock. Red tape, poor coordination and acute last-mile connect issues have left most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) stuck with primitive copper wire networks. Speeds hover around 16Mbps or less.

Beckoned by big-banner promotions that assure lightning fast internet, customers are queuing up for connections in big numbers. But a location check is all that the service provider needs to tell the waiting customer that his/her area is not part of the fibernet coverage. Not yet.

Fibernet demands that the existing network of copper cables is replaced entirely with Optic Fibre Cables (OFCs). OFCs have a much larger bandwidth of over 60 terabytes per second (Tbps) compared to 10 gigabytes per second (Gbps) of copper cables, which also start to degrade their data-carrying capacity after 100 metres.

But for a leading ISP with over 90% of its 6,000 km-long network underground, the switch has turned too tough a task. A top official of the ISP, preferring anonymity, attributed the slow transition to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

The problem is this: Cables laid using the trenchless horizontal directional digging (HDD) technique are buried three to five metres underground. When a civic agency digs trenches, the cables are often cut. "Once we locate the cut, we are allowed to repair it until the agency’s project is completed," the official explained.

To address this, the ISP had set up chambers/manholes at intervals of 50 to 100 metres. "But when a road is widened and asphalted, these chambers are closed with bitumen, defeating the entire purpose. This forces us to go overhead. Except for the BMRCL and GAIL, the other agencies don’t share their plans with us."

Keen to spread out its fibernet network, relative newcomer Jio has also found the last-mile lane permits and road-to-house permits tough to get. "Until November 2017-18, the Palike had put a ban on digging. After 2019, Jio had started the process as and when the BBMP permissions came," a company official told DH. The ISP has covered parts of the city, laying the cables over the last eight months.

Analysts say that Jio would leverage its tie-up with Hathway, already entrenched with a widespread network across Bengaluru. To tide over the digging constraints, Jio has also adopted the trenchless HDD technique.