Mass access to Technology in India by Philips and IBM.
Philips, IBM mass access tech for AP
Our Bureau
HYDERABAD, Dec. 21
PHILIPS India Ltd and IBM, along with their content partners - Schoolnet and Apollo Hospital - demonstrated the proof of concept of convergence of television and PC here on Tuesday, and instantaneously bagged their pilot project from the Andhra Pradesh Government. They plan to hold parleys to extend the technology to other spheres of activity to reach the masses.
The pilot project, spearheaded by Philips and IBM to provide a new 'mass access technology' in collaboration with the Andhra Pradesh Government, would enable Indian homes go online with multimedia services through convergence.
The Director of IBM India Research Laboratory, Dr. Alok Aggarwal, said that in a cost-effective way, Smart Vision through Philips CleverCast will provide interactivity and Internet on television sets. Capable of being deployed on a massive scale, Smart Vision through Clevercast uses the existing infrastructure, thereby obviating the need for massive capital investment.
"This interactivity can be achieved through a satellite or cable or through terrestrial television means. The deployment of this technology would bring down the cost of Internet access to about one-tenth the present average cost and provide a vary high bandwidth of about 45 mbps," Dr. Aggarwal said.
The Managing Director of Philips India, Mr. K. Ramachandran, said that for Philips, it was a case of going back to the future. Seventy years ago, Philips introduced incandescent lamps in India, followed by radios. Today, he said, "we bring two-way information access to the common man with Clevercast."
"This technology will help the common man have fast, economical and two-way access to healthcare, education, voicemail, e-governance, information, entertainment and any other on-line services," said Mr. Anken Biswas, General Manager, Philips India.
The concept of the project seems appropriate in the Indian context. It envisages access through an ordinary television set, with the help of a set-top box, or directly through a PC. Philips, which has developed the technologies and is offering them in Europe, has fine-tuned them further, along with IBM. Multimedia transmission through digital data broadcasting provides seamless interactivity. IBM has integrated the contents.
The proof of concept demonstration consisted of remote healthcare, e-governance, TV mail and distance education. However, it has the potential to be scaled up to any other mass usage.
Smart Vision provides satellite, cable, terrestrial TV connectivity for creating a high-speed forward transmission link, over which targeted applications are run locally by various content and service providers. This link is also connected to the Internet backbone, whereby a user can use the same channel to connect to the Internet with very high bandwidth called 'Turbo Internet.'
The existing cable network will enable connectivity to satellite downstream to the end-users' premises. A telephone line will be necessary for the reverse transmission channel to the system back-end. Using a telephone line for the reverse direction is most efficient for these applications currently, as online traffic consists of small requests and large responses, requiring high bandwidth only in the forward direction.
Once regulatory permissions are available, satellite reverse link will be used. Philips is deploying such two-way high bandwidth CleverCast technology in Europe. While users need a television with a 'Smart Vision through Clevercast' card, the terminal equipment has the capabilities of addressing and provide access control.
The remote health care project was developed with the help of Apollo Hospital, Citadel Health Ltd and the Department of Health, Government of Andhra Pradesh.
IT promotion board: The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, who sat through the project demonstration, directed the Government machinery to test-deploy it in at least two projects, including at the district level and the TWINS project, an integrated citizen services project, proposed to commence operations in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. He directed the Government to study the feasibility of deploying the technology to reach the 45,000 Janmabhoomi habitations and also other parts of the State.
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