'Other networks are less efficient than Sankhya Vahini'

The Vajpayee government's election agenda for governance clearly stated that the Indian Telecom sector would not be opened to foreign companies. While emphasizing their commitment to swadeshi, the agenda had promised to strengthen the DoT and VSNL to develop into an international player by taking up projects abroad. So doesn't Sankhya Vahini violate the government policies?

The telecom policy of the government of India limits foreign ownership in the telecom services sector to 49 per cent. The equity participation of IUNet in Sankhya Vahini is 49 per cent and is as per the permissible limits set by the government for this sector. This is, therefore, by no means a fraud on the people and clearly no special concessions in this regard have been made to the Sankhya Vahini project. This project will strengthen DoT significantly, allowing it to offer new services and products. The infusion of state-of-the-art technology into DoT's network would greatly enhance its value far more than what it would have been were it simply to tender away its fiber.

Sankhya Vahini will be set up as a partnership with DoT bringing a pair of dark fibers and cash towards its 45 per cent equity. IUNet will bring state-of-the-art equipment, to generate and provide gigabit bandwidth, and cash for its equity. The concept that DoT would be able to tender the fibers away for billions of dollars is erroneous. The cost of fiber in many parts of the world, in both rural and urban areas, is well documented and forms a mere fraction of the total data network cost.

This fraction becomes still smaller when the network is enriched with content. Tendering the fiber away, without partnering in the development of technology and the network, will be a major loss to DoT that more than ever needs an infusion of technology and content to compete with the upcoming private providers. The value of DoT will only be enhanced by this process, and not by mere sale of fibers without becoming a major stakeholder.

Why did not the DoT scout for other partners?

It is possible to invite tenders for buying equipment and for services, but it is difficult to use this process to look for a strategic partner who provides a long-term relationship for technology, equipment and content. Collaboration with other telecom services providers or equipment manufacturers would have provided mere equipment and not content or long-term partnerships in the development of technology. Only universities are the repositories of educational content and unbiased technological research and applications.

Carnegie Mellon University, besides being a leader in the field of IT and internetworking technologies, has also demonstrated a long-term commitment to India in various fields. Amongst a few of its many IT projects, CMU is currently advising the government of Maharashtra on the Indian Institute of Software Engineering and the government of Andhra Pradesh on the Indian Institute of Information Technology, and the Software Engineering Institute of CMU has a tie-up with Mahindra-British Telecom, amongst others. Its Software Engineering Institute has certified over 35 Indian companies, and CMU signed a Memorandum of Understanding almost a year back with the Indian Department of Electronics (now the Ministry of Information Technology) to generate applications for Sankhya Vahini.

IUNet, the special purpose vehicle set up by Carnegie Mellon, offers a unique opportunity for DoT and India to benefit from its technology, know-how, and relationships with leading technology providers all with no fees or royalties. CMU is both an undisputed leader in the field of information technology and has demonstrated a deep commitment to India through several collaborative projects and is therefore an ideal partner for DoT in this venture.

If going for international bidding was time-consuming, why didn't DoT look for more experienced, and established companies?

It is important to recognize that the idea for a high-speed nation-wide data network, of the speed, design, and delivering the services proposed and freeing it from the constraints and legacy of voice network technologies, was conceived by us (Dr Reddy and Dr Arunachalam). We offered this suggestion to the IT Taskforce and Telecom Commission, and were directed to work with DoT on such a project.

DoT could not have "tendered for this project" as this was not merely for equipment or for requisitioned services. By agreeing for a joint venture with Carnegie Mellon, DoT has opted for an innovation to leapfrog in technology.

It is worth mentioning that no other network in the world today can be designed like Sankhya Vahini's because most network companies, such as AT&T, Sprint, etc, have large amounts of legacy equipment they must incorporate while using the newer technologies that Sankhya Vahini will deploy.

This makes other networks less efficient compared to Sankhya Vahini, which has no such legacy equipment or design.

It is said that both of you are "the US government representatives" in the Sankhya Vahini board of directors.

This question does not really merit a response except to categorically state that there is no involvement or participation of the US government whatsoever in this project either in technology or in equity or in the boards of either Sankhya Vahini or IUNet. Needless to say, Sankhya Vahini is set up as an Indian company. It will comply with all security and other laws of India. On its board, there will be three members from IUNet which shall include me and Dr Raj Reddy, three from DoT, one from the Indian educational institutions, plus the managing director, who will also be an Indian.

All members of the board, excepting the managing director, shall be non-executive directors. From the numerical angle, it is an Indian majority board in every sense.

Won't Sankhya Vahini encourage brain drain?

Quite the contrary. The Sankhya Vahini network will in fact cause a greater number of jobs to be created in India and also cause a large number of Indians who have migrated abroad to become entrepreneurs in the country.

The lack of a broadband infrastructure has been stated as one of the key constraints for the growth of the software and high-technology industries in the country. The Sankhya Vahini network will allow for the unprecedented growth of this industry in the years to come, increasing foreign exports and also causing a growth in the number of IT jobs that are created within India.

It is estimated that there is a shortage of about 250,000 IT professionals in Europe alone. It is quite possible for India to corner a sizeable fraction of this market while still keeping its talents within the country through high-speed connectivity and a robust network that Sankhya Vahini would provide.

Is Carnegie Mellon the only American university participating in such large-scale and commercial ventures outside the US?

No. Many American universities are sought after by corporations and governments seeking collaboration for their expertise. While other US universities have been charging foreign governments and corporations millions of dollars for their expertise and collaboration, CMU, because of our perseverance has agreed to come forward to work as partners with DoT and Indian educational institutions free of any technology transfer costs.

Recently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology signed an agreement with the UK government and Cambridge University to collaborate to develop technologies, products and companies to improve the productivity and competitiveness of British manufacturing industries. The UK government is paying US $ 108 million for this collaboration, in addition to the US $ 27 million that it would raise from UK industries.

Even some east Asian countries are paying US universities tens of millions of dollars requisitioning their services in technology.

While there are a few US universities that have the technical expertise for such projects, and a few that have links to Indian universities and institutions, only Carnegie Mellon has the combined ability to successfully partner in a venture like Sankhya Vahini in India. It is to the venture's benefit that Carnegie Mellon has offered to partner for free, with no royalty, technology transfer, or sweat equity charges.

Will Carnegie Mellon continue to support this project? What is the guarantee that the university will continue to be associated with Sankhya Vahini?

Yes, Carnegie Mellon is totally supportive of the project. This can be seen from the university's commitment defined in the joint venture agreement to keep majority voting rights in IUNet for a period of five years.

What are the benefits of Sankhya Vahini to India?

At present it is difficult for Indian educational institutions to subscribe to large bandwidth connectivity because it is very costly. They can, however, afford to pay the marginal costs if the network could also be accessible to other commercial customers, including local and regional ISPs that are bandwidth-starved now. Without such a broadband network (100-1000 times faster) it would be impossible for all educational institutions to participate in the burgeoning information technology revolution.

With this bandwidth and connectivity, it is possible to include other institutes of learning that are now being set up in the country.

Through Sankhya Vahini, India will have state-of-the-art modern, high-bandwidth data infrastructure that will provide necessary bandwidth for both educational and commercial applications. Without a globally collaborative venture such as Sankhya Vahini, it would take India many years to set up such infrastructure. China already has more than 10,000 km of high bandwidth network infrastructure. However, this is a hybrid network largely used for voice telephony.

With Sankhya Vahini, India will establish a data network that leapfrogs many networks now being set up around the world. It will offer world-class bandwidth at internationally competitive prices.

What will be the opportunities arising from Sankhya Vahini?

We believe that this network will enable major opportunities for India to provide human resources and intellectual capital that are in short supply worldwide. India will also increase its software contributions. For the information revolution, communications is the fuel for the engine of growth as coal was at the beginnings of the industrial revolution.

Using IT, it is possible to address major societal problems such as illiteracy, lack of empowerment, and global non-competitiveness. We strongly believe that with its reach and richness, IT will provide the means for eliminating such societal maladies with distance education, tele-medicine, tele-agriculture and tele-collaboration.

Considering the speed with which the technology is increasing (bandwidth is tripling every year and computing power is doubling every 18 months), it is difficult to predict with any mount of uncertainty what the future will be. All the earlier predictions have failed by underestimating the outcome (the so-called rear view mirror effect). For example, there is an estimated global annual scarcity of over 400,000 software engineers in the coming years.

India can really fill this gap by proving skilled human resources in IT, first by training adequate number of software engineers to meet the global needs of the IT and second by enabling them to work from India without having to travel abroad.

The economic consequences of this in increasing the local employment are well-known. The trickle-down effects of such growth will not remain just with niche IT personnel, but will spread throughout the economy and the country.

The quality of Indian software is highly regarded globally. More than 35 Indian companies have acquired CMM software quality certification given by SEI of Carnegie Mellon University. India has the largest number of companies with CMM certification, an attractive qualification in bidding for global software contracts.

The availability of large bandwidth will also enable India to climb up the value chain from computer services such as client-servers and servicing legacy systems to globally partnering software development at the cutting edges of technology including communications, multi-media and virtual reality.

Today, the global software market is estimated to be 500 billion dollars and India can realize a sizeable fraction of this growing market. If Japan is regarded as the global supplier of memory chips, Singapore for disk drives, we would like to see India as the global capital for software development.

India can also transfer a large number of web sites it currently hosts abroad. A number of public sector undertakings and government entities, because of a lack of adequate networking infrastructure, host their web sites outside India. This is also true for various corporations and e-commerce start-ups. Already there are confirmed opportunities for India to host large computer server farms for users in Asia. This will be possible only with large and guaranteed availability of bandwidth.

While we discuss the applications to software engineering and IT above, we believe that more applications and uses will appear in areas that will benefit citizens, commerce, and quality of life. The minimization of transaction costs (imagine the efforts involved in getting a ration card or ordering a gas cylinder!) and increase in transparency will be drivers for the increasing use of computers and networked information. These benefits would be available to all persons, including through the use of multiple language processors and transcription systems.

Incidentally, Carnegie Mellon is the world leader in research into speech recognition and automatic translation systems. Just like telephone kiosks revolutionized the accessibility of voice telephony in India, we believe that Sankhya Vahini, working with a large number of Internet service providers and cybercafes, will engineer this societal revolution. Called positive feedback in economics jargon, innovative use of IT applications are contributing to an impressive growth in even the mature and reasonably efficient US economy. Management guru Paul Drucker considers such unexpected synergistic developments as the benefits of the IT revolution.

IT consists of three elements: computers, connectivity, and content. India will have no difficulty developing content for its national needs and for global requirements. The growth of computers in India is impressive and will accelerate further when cheaper machines become available. In fact, with greater bandwidth, far less expensive machines can be used for networked applications, for example, the web TV or other Internet appliances.

The connectivity that Sankhya Vahini plans to establish will provide the necessary third element of this troika.

Design: Rajesh Karkera

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