Unraveling a Decade of Misgovernance and Mismanagement.

Growth of any sovereign nation is driven by a proactive government which takes pertinent measures to improve the overall growth of the country. The last ten years of UPA rule will be called a decade of no governance and complete chaos where there is no centralized accountability and responsibility. There is ambiguity everywhere and a dummy prime minister who is only there to become a scapegoat one day.  I still remember the India Shining Movement when the world was looking at us with hope and It started in early nineties when India decided to open its market to the world and harness the fruits of globalization. That was the time when India became the destination of foreign investors as they saw a stable and proactive government lead by A B Vajpayee. NDA didn't inherited a sound economy as there were instability and unrest in Indian parliament in mid and late 90's. NDA took world by surprise by becoming a nuclear nation and taking various economic steps like emphasis on infrastructure and allowing FDI in multiple sectors like telecom, aviation  and even mooted FDI in retail. This was a boost to the manufacturing sector and created a conducive environment for investors (both foreign and domestic) which eventually lead to lesser fiscal deficit and our dollar reserves were in better shape. This was the golden period of indian economy when the sensex was at all time high and the growth was way above 8 percent. 

Suddenly when the situation was about to be ameliorated, Sonia Gandhi came to the rescue of belittled congress party. There is an adage if you have a Gandhi surname people of India want you to be prime minister. Congress party is a family business party where one family has a birth right to be prime minister and the rest of the lot is a whole bunch of sycophants. In India some illiterates start worshiping humans rather than evaluating and voting the  potential educated leaders having caliber and potential. India voted for Gandhi family again and the verdict was for Sonia Gandhi but because of security reasons she turned it down and gave us a dummy sycophant PM. She was well aware of his toadyism attitude , loyalty towards Gandhi family and honesty.  For the last one decade Indian Government is not driven by the prime minister but by the so called "Dual Power" introduced by the king maker UPA Chairperson. This vicious "Dual Power" concept introduced by Mrs Gandhi was misleading in which PM is made responsible for all the bad and the credit goes to her each time. Be it Indo-US nuclear deal, Food Security Bill, UID project or RTI the credit goes to Gandhi family. When it comes to scams like 2G, Coal gate,  CWG etc PM becomes the scapegoat and the buck stops there. I hope country will understand this and will take necessary action at right time to respond well against the conspiracy of the UPA Chairperson which worked against the country.

Our economist PM failed to keep the pace with which economy was growing at the time he took over PMO.  Sometimes i suspect the role of Dr. Manmohan Singh as finance Minister in Narsimha Rao's regime and his hands behind the economic reforms of 90's. Subhramanium Swami claimed that he played an important role in the economic reforms of 90's and he is the one who created blue print of the reforms,  which helped Indian economy thrive and opened Indian market to foreign investments. 2008 world depression was the time when world investors banked on growing economies like BRICS. India was not able to capitalize the opportunity created by 2008 global crisis. Although the global woes continue but nobody is buying the excuse given by UPA government  to defend the falling INR and Indian economy.I feel that India should be least affected because of 2008 recession because our manufacturing sector is cost effective and the exports should soar up and current account deficit should be negligible. Soaring imports especially gold and crude oil is a nightmare affair for any country but shouldn't we learn from a country like japan which has reduced the dependency on crude to a sizable extent. UPA tried to do so by signing civil nuclear dear but they lost its track very early. Recently we have seen Gujarat government harnessing solar and wind energy. There was a proposal by Gujarat govt  to connect the port cities with rail network which can decrease the  dependency on crude. Last but not the least we need to support our manufacturing and agriculture sector. Recently we have brought in Land acquisition bill but there is no way govt land can be allotted to farmers for farming purpose as in other countries like Australia.  These are some of the measures  which along with other successful economic measures which can be taken to boost the declining economy. 
        
Today Indian economy is going through tough times. This is the worst crisis where the foreign and domestic investors have lost the trust in this economy. Current Account deficit is worst hit at the helm of bad performing manufacturing sector and when the crude price and gold price in international market is sky rocketing. GDP's numbers are disheartening and are gradually declining rather than being stagnant or pull back. Fiscal Deficit is increasing and Food Security Bill (FSB) added fuel to the fire. Rather than securing the right to food it will lead to scarcity of food grains in the country. At a time when majority of the small and midsize farmers have stopped cultivating rice, wheat etc and have switched to other lucrative farming options, FSB will not prove a deterrent to secure food. FSB will force government to stop increasing the MSP because otherwise it will increase the subsidy burden which will eventually increase the fiscal deficit. FSB will be misused and will boost corruption.

The help poor of this nation needs from government is free and compulsory education , free healthcare (health insurance) and eradicate unemployment. For the past six decades Indian  government  has failed to implement compulsory child education and still child labor is prevalent in the country. Believe me if you want to eradicate poverty you need to give free and compulsory education. If parents are not able to give education to their children government should immediately take them in their custody and put them in government funded residential schools. We have sufficient funds to give free education to all children including those who are begging on roads , those who are working as household help and those who are working on road side shops and carts. The Women and Child sexual abuse is on the rise and in the last six decades we have failed to secure their rights. We can eradicate this menace if we educate the future of this country.  I think the money which we have allocated for FSB and failed schemes like NREGA  should be used to eradicate poverty by providing residential schools for underprivileged children.

I think the approach we Indians follow is preventive rather than proactive and corrective. India has the top notch potential and today Indians are deriving the world economies and high tech industry is completely influenced by headstrong Indians. I hope the country should follow "India First"  approach and stop fighting on regional and religious lines. We need to stay united and take this country ahead and the onus of this lies on civil society, politicians, economists and think tanks. Jai Bharat Jai Hind.

Development of small cells

Each wireless network is built out using many macro cell base stations, each covering a diameter of up to 3 kilometers and carefully located to minimize radio signal interference.  But the disadvantage of this topology is that coverage is not 100 percent. In order to increase the coverage small cells came into existence. The HetNet topology builds a network that includes existing macro cells and complements them with millions of smaller base stations, including micro cells and pico cells, appearing on lamp posts in urban areas and femto cells appearing in homes, residential high-rise apartments and businesses. The small cells provide a very efficient way to offload high traffic areas from the macro cells and therefore increase cell capacity and optimize spectrum utilization.
Today capacity, coverage and QoE expectations of the user has increased manifold. We need HetNet (heterogeneous networks) rather than macro-only networks to cope up with this growing demand. HetNet is a combination of wireless technologies and radio access options to cost effectively deliver higher throughput.  The key component of HetNet is small cells. Small cells are deployable anywhere both indoors and outdoors. Small cells solution is available for single home subscribers. Home subscribers experience better voice quality with no dropped calls due to dead zones, faster, more reliable data connections and higher data throughput. Small cell solutions are available for the enterprises, which helps extends better customer experience to the businesses. Small cells provide coverage and capacity for urban and rural hotspots. Small cells come with integrated Wi-Fi access points as well.
Small cells boost network capacity. If we move base station near to the UE the throughput and the reliability of the data connection will increase dramatically. Small cells have a flat IP architecture which helps us deliver a much better customer experience with low latency and higher speed. Small cells offer a cost effective solution to increase the coverage and capacity demands. Small cells offload traffic from the macro network which helps in increasing the network capacity without the deployment of new macro sites.
While there is extensive hype in the industry about “multi radio access technology (RAT), multi-vendor” type of HetNet solutions, the more imminent and practical solution is the interference avoidance required when small cells are rapidly added to existing LTE Macro centric networks. In order to resolve the interference problem 3gpp introduced inter cell interference control (ICIC) in Release 8 and more recently, in Release 10, the enhanced ICIC (eICIC) .
The SON standard is defined by the 3GPP and specifies algorithms to enhance the planning, deployment, operation and optimization of the network. Based on this standard, a SON algorithm will run upon startup of the small cells, allowing the device to insert itself into the network without interference. In terms of interference management, 3GPP introduced inter cell interference control (ICIC) in Release 8 and more recently, in Release 10, the enhanced ICIC (eICIC) standards. These standards are specified to mitigate interference in neighboring cells by using the power and frequency domains in the case of ICIC and adding the time domain for eICIC. Both standards rely on the X2 interface to exchange information between eNode B’s and typically require a client/server or hybrid deployment in order to perform the optimization and coordination functions.

LTE: A boon or a boom.

With the advent of smartphones, tabs etc. there is a tremendous growth of data usage. The world is moving towards connecting everything from the household appliances to surveillance devices.      To add to this when everything is connected, intense pressure on the network is bound to happen. This manifold growth in data usage is both a challenge and an opportunity for the MNO’s. The major challenge for the operator is to gratify the growing hunger for data but the agony of the operator is that the bandwidth is a limited resource.

This exponential growth in data usage is a result of smart LTE compatible user devices which can consume huge data in no time. It has introduced a huge competition to capture the smartphones and tabs market. It is pleasing to have a smart device loaded with android or ios, which provides a whole bundle of innovative apps at your disposal. These apps keep you engaged and most of the times you end up being engrossed and hooked up. Today smartphone experience has revolutionizing the way telephony is looked at. People are using live streaming, YouTube and other data hungry apps which are bringing a toll on the network as well as the CSP’s.  Research shows that today connectivity has become a birthright of the user.

LTE is the answer to this churning by decreasing the latency and increasing the speed using OFDMA and optimized network elements. The recommended downlink speed for LTE is 100 mbps and for uplink it is 50 mbps.  LTE is a boon to the high tech industry. The beneficiaries are equipment manufacturers, over-the-top (OTT) service operators like Google, Microsoft, YouTube, Skype, etc. and Communication Service providers (CSP). But the industry is divided over the revenue sharing model. Many feel that this is a boom for the OTT service providers rather than network operators. Others have the view that MNO’s deserve a bite of the revenue generated by the OTT players. But I feel that this is indeed an opportunity for the stagnant telecom industry where the revenues were shrinking due to high competition and limited bandwidth. This is an opportunity for the industry to cash in the digital revolution. Everyone who helps to enhance customer experience should be benefitted. So I feel in spite of fighting over this trivial and useless issue network providers should continue providing dead pipe and OTT players should continue to provide innovative services.  MNO’s should think innovatively to increase the network capability further; ultimately they will be benefitted over a period of time. At the same time no one is stopping them to enter the OTT player’s arena.

LTE is an all-IP, data-only transport technology using packet switching. One challenge for the MNO’s is to satisfy the established quality of service for circuit-switched mobile for telephony and SMS for LTE capable smartphones, while being served on the LTE network. Due to incomplete LTE rollover, interoperability between legacy networks and LTE is also a biggest challenge. The dichotomy between packet switched data and circuit switched voice networks can be addressed by dual radio solutions or single radio solutions. Dual radio solutions use two always-on radios, one for packet switched LTE data and another for circuit switched telephony, and as a data fallback where LTE is not available. Single radio solutions use one radio to handle both types of traffic, and use network signaling to determine when to switch from the PS network to the CS network. This solution is universally accepted for LTE-3GPP network interworking solutions. This switch from the PS network to the CS network is called circuit-switched fallback (CSFB).   In CSFB, when the data session is active and a call comes in, the LTE network pages the device. The device responds with a special service request message to the network, and the network signals the device to move to 2G/3G to accept the incoming call. Similarly when an outgoing call is initiated, the same special service request is used to move the device to 2G/3G to place the outgoing call. CSFB addresses the requirements of the first phase of the evolution of mobile voice services in LTE. CSFB is the first step to enable mainstream LTE devices with the cost, size and battery life advantages of single-radio solutions to LTE data in combination with 2G/3G voice (and data fallback, in non-LTE areas). VoLTE is the most suitable and viable option over CSFB but VoLTE handsets will continue to require CSFB for roaming for quite some time. VoLTE need some time to become a natural choice but for that LTE needs to be ubiquitous.

The finesse of the LTE is yet to come after the blistering growth of LTE in the recent past. With the time investments in LTE network infrastructure will grow and so will the returns on the investment. Nevertheless there are many challenges; there is a solution to every problem and dispute. Everyone will contest for his share of the revenue and the only one who will benefit out of this tussle between OTT and Operators is the customer. Customer experience should be the driving force for all the stakeholders.