The undersea cable between the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Chennai, connecting the Union Territory to the global Internet, has seen a reasonable level of interest from telecom operators, who have to buy bandwidth on the system to be able to serve islanders on mobile and fixed line connections with fast web access.
According to information provided to The Hindu by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), BSNL alone has been allotted 40 GBPS in bandwidth in the largest segment of the 2,300-km long cable, the one between Chennai and Port Blair. Airtel has bought 20 GBPS, and an additional 4.625 GBPS in bandwidth on the smaller parts of the cable, between Port Blair and islands like Car Nicobar, Campbell Bay, Long Island, and Rangat.
The Chennai-Andaman & Nicobar Islands (CANI) cable was inaugurated in August 2020, and soon after, islanders with physically wired home broadband and mobile connections in Port Blair, the capital, saw their speeds improve dramatically. Before the cable system was meticulously laid on the ocean floor — and completed ahead of schedule amidst the COVID-19 pandemic — the bandwidth available to the islands was just less than 1% of what has been thrown open to telecom operators now.
Faster internet
“I have been using broadband since 2012,” Nirman Lall, 39, who runs a lodge about a kilometre away from the National Memorial that used to house Port Blair’s notorious Cellular Jail, said over a phone call.
Tourists needed the Internet to check in for flights and browse online, so he had to get a connection from BSNL that relied on the islands’ heavily strained satellite link to the Internet. “Previously, I was paying ₹12,000 to ₹15,000 during the main [tourist] season,” Mr. Lall said. He recalled that even credit card payments would often not go through.
“Now, I am paying 10% of what I used to pay for ten times the speed,” he said. Mr. Lall had switched over to Airtel, the only other firm that currently offers fixed line broadband in the Union Territory, with two terabytes of data available at high speed. Mr. Lall’s guests managed to hit that data limit in February, he said, reflecting the change in access in an archipelago where tourists have so far been warned to expect limited Internet access.
Telcos dither
Telcos have collectively purchased over 70 GBPS of bandwidth from the system as of March, the USOF disclosed. Tariffs payable to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) were high in the first year (after a brief period where access to the cable system was offered as a free trial), but were slashed in 2021 up to half their previous rate, if telcos were willing to commit to long-term purchases. These changes were outlined in tariff orders made available by the USOF.
An estimate based on the new tariffs would indicate that BSNL is paying the DoT around ₹2 crore a year for the segment between Chennai and Port Blair, plus taxes and other charges. The cost per GBPS drops as telecom operators opt for more bandwidth, incentivising them to buy more space and set up more infrastructure in the islands to actually provide access to the Union Territory’s residents.
In an Right to Information (RTI) response to The Hindu, BSNL said that 167 of the 331 wireless base stations it has installed in the Union Territory are connected to the CANI system.
Airtel and BSNL account for the lion’s share of the purchased bandwidth, with 60 GBPS being allocated to the two telcos. Airtel even launched 5G services in Port Blair on Monday. However, Jio has only bought bandwidth on the Chennai-Port Blair stretch of CANI, and its purchase adds up to 11 GBPS, data it can only serve to users in the islands’ capital. The company has pledged that it will roll out 5G to every taluka in India.
Vodafone Idea has only bought 155 MBPS, the lowest it is allowed to buy under tariffs set by the DoT. “Vodafone service became very bad [in recent times], and in the name of Internet, they were not able to supply anything,” Denis Giles, the editor of the Andaman Chronicle said over a phone call. “They closed down the Port Blair office and are managing everything from Kolkata,” he added. Vodafone Idea has not responded to a request for comment.
Infrastructure woes
Outside Port Blair, the experience of Internet access remains mixed. “As you move away from the city, [Internet] lacks stability, as in some places it’s good, and in other places it’s weak or nil,” Mohammed Irfaan, a dental surgeon from Phoenix Bay, at the heart of Port Blair, said.
The official data — which indicates that only two telcos have bought a small amount of bandwidth between the capital and other islands — reflects this inequality.
Notably, BSNL, which oversaw CANI’s laying, doesn’t appear to have updated its home broadband speeds to reflect the vast bandwidth it now has access to. Tariffs listed on BSNL Andaman & Nicobar Circle’s website indicate that they exclude streaming subscriptions offered in other parts of the country, and only run up to 10 MBPS. Only 93 of its wireless base stations have 4G capability, with most only delivering 2G and 3G bandwidth.
“Even with the introduction of CANI, they [BSNL] could not provide the service adequately,” Dr. Irfaan said, adding he had switched to Airtel at home. Overall, Dr. Irfaan said, there was still much left to be desired. “Even after three years of [CANI’s] launch, the services are not at par to the States of mainland India,” he said.
