Telecommunication Infrastructure:Using Statistical Analysis to Identify Significant Factors and to Design Policies for Indian Smart Cities

Connectivity provided by telecommunication infrastructure provides a dominant platform and plays a vital role in realization of a smart city. Objective of this paper is to identify telecommunication indicators that will form the foundation and bridge the gap towards realization of smart cities in India. Smart Cities Council has broadly prepared the Smart Cities Framework which identifies various Technology Enablers that applies to various aspects of smart city realization. Technology enablers of Smart Cities Framework are Instrumentation and control, Connectivity, Interoperability, Security and privacy, Data management, Computing resources, Analytics. They set targets for highspeed broadband access and citywide wireless network and connecting all devices with a citywide multi service communication system etc. Connectivity Index and various telecommunication indicators that drive the connectivity index of 134 countries is collected from various sources. Regression analysis of this data is done to identify the most significant telecommunication indicators that drive the Connectivity Index of Smart Nations. These indicators are further validated with experts from industry and academia. Significant telecommunication indicators that influence the connectivity index include wireless coverage, speed of connection, device cost etc. Policy analysis of Nations with high Connectivity Index is done. Learnings, best practices and policy changes from these countries are analyzed and recommendations derived. Recommendations are captured under both Supply side policies and Demand side policies of telecommunication infrastructure. Supply side of policy changes span across regulatory changes to grants and subsidies, policies to increase public-private-partnership, policies to accelerate penetration, making broadband service basic right of citizens. Demand side policy includes subsidies in supply of PCs, internet access not limited to the young and college educated, digital literacy and adult education.