The Pan-IIT Chapters of USA & Canada have offered to support the initiative whole heartedly to: Facilitate

tate joint research programme between Indian and foreign universities/institutes. Facilitate access to advanced Telecom labs Maintain and share a database of Indian origin Professors / Researchers willing to associate with the TCOE initiative Support Incubation / Entrepreneurship endeavours on a transnational scale

Indian Centers of Research Excellence (ICORE), a US based volunteer group, which catalyzes the development of Centres of Research Excellence in India has also shown keen interest to associate with the TCOE initiative.

Telecom Centres

Cooperation with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

An agreement for cooperation was signed in October 2007 between ITU and the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Govt. of India. The agreement provides for collaboration between ITU Centres of Excellence Network and TCOE India initiative.

ofExcellence
I N D I A

Associate Sponsorship
Apart from principal Industry sponsors, TCOE initiative also encourages associate sponsors. Alphion Corporation, a US based Telecom equipment provider has joined Vodafone Essar IIT Kharagpur TCOE as an Associate sponsor. Texas Instruments has indicated keenness to join Aircel IISc Bangalore TCOE.

Prime Minister's Words of Encouragement

Dr. Manmohan Singh, Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, in his speech on the occasion of inauguration ceremony of India Telecom 2007 on 12th December 2007, had following words of encouragement for the TCOE initiative, I am happy that enabling R&D environment is being created by setting up Telecom Centres of Excellence through a PPP mode in premier Institutes of higher learning. These will enhance talent pool for R&D, facilitate development of state of art technology & promote country specific innovations. I wish, the initiative all success as this is extremely relevant for maintaining our presence in cutting edge technologies.

Excerpt from the speech of Minister of Communication & IT

Honble MOCIT Thiru A. Raja had this to say, on the occasion of MOU signing ceremony on 12th December 2007. This is one of the most important Public Private Partnership initiatives in the Indian Telecom sector. It also has a unique concept of Coordination Center to facilitate collaborative research and sharing of research findings. With setting up of these 7 COEs, I expect qualitative improvement in telecom research in the country to begin.

Department of Telecommunications Ministry of communication & Information Technology Government of India

Coordination Centre

IIT Kharagpur

IISc Bangalore

IIT Delhi

IIT Kanpur

IIT Mumbai

IIT Madras

Telecom Centres of Excellence, India

C-DOT Campus, Mandi Road, Mehrauli, New Delhi 110030, India Tel: 011-26598680-82 Fax: 011-26805318 Email: director.tcoe.cc@gmail.com

Telecom Centres of Excellence, India

India's Success Story in Telecom
The growth of Indian Telecommunications sector has been astounding, particularly in the last 3 years. India, with 275 million subscribers by the end of 2007, is adding about 8 million new telephone subscribers every month. Wireless subscribers are growing at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of above 90 per cent per annum since 2003. India has third largest network in the world.
600

(f) Macro Infrastructure planning that enables a systematic and sustained growth in a cost effective manner.

(g)

Integration and bench marking of technology that can ultimately lead to standards for manufacturing and/or rendering services.

Establishment of Seven Telecom Centres of Excellence

The TCOE initiative got the much needed impetus with the signing of tri-partite Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) between the Department of Telecom, participating Institutes and the sponsors from the Industry.
Self Sustaining after initial 5 years
DOT
Sponsor Industry

Three Pillars of Telecom COE

Academia

575

Subscriber (millions)

Against this backdrop of rapid growth, the Government of India and Telecom Industry have come out with Telecom Vision 2010, which aims at achieving 500 million mobile connections 40 million Internet subscribers 20 million broadband connections Rural Telecom Coverage of 80 Million subscribers

500 400 300 200 100 0

275
190

The TCOEs, set up in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, are a fine example of the Government, the academia and the Industry working together for the sustained growth and progress of the country.

PPP for Creating Environment of Innovation in Telecom Sector

Dec-06 A

Dec-07 A
A : Achieved, P : Projected

Dec-10 P

Functioning of the Telecom Centres of Excellence

The TCOEs, with strong government encouragement and backing, have adopted a two tier organization structure consisting of a central Governing Council for strategic decision making and local Core Groups, with full autonomy, for managing TCOEs' affairs.

Need for Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOEs)

Having achieved a commendable growth rate in telecom by any standard, the real challenge before the country is to sustain or further accelerate it so that the benefits reach the masses. The explosive growth coupled with the daily innovations in Telecom are throwing not only technical but a whole lot of management, regulatory and socio-economic challenges. The solution to these problems can only come from extensive in-house research and talent development. Also, if the growth rate is to be sustained, the problems of the rural hinterland need to be tackled at a faster pace, as the urban sector will soon get saturated. The TCOE initiative is intended to be all about harnessing Indian talent for the upliftment of Indian people and industry while imparting it a global stature and competitiveness.

Governing Council:
Formed under the chairmanship of Secretary, DoT, it has heads of the seven principal sponsoring organizations and seven academic Institutes and senior Government officials as members. It is the apex decision making body for the TCOEs. The Coordination Centre of TCOEs at New Delhi functions as the Secretariat to the Governing Council.

Governing Council Chairperson: Secretary, DoT

Coordination Centre at C-DOT

Objectives of Telecom Centres of Excellence

The TCOEs will provide platform for think tank activities with the following objectives: (a) Each TCOE will focus on a niche area of activity in the telecom domain to build excellence that is world class. (b) Create an environment of innovation in the top academic institutes of the country to enable absorption of the current technology and develop future ready indigenous capability. (c) Creation of market ready talent pool and continuous talent building endeavor through training of the trainers. (d) Undertake India specific application development that matches with behavioral pattern of the masses and adds value to their day-to-day activities, both economic and social.

Bharti TCOE IIT Delhi

Idea TCOE IIM Ahemdabad

BSNL TCOE IIT Kanpur

Aircel TCOE IISc Bangalore

TCOEs Across India

Coordination Centre, New Delhi IIT Delhi IIT Kanpur

Telecom Technology & Management

Core groups:
Each TCOE has a local Core Group (also known as Steering Committee or Board at some TCOEs). The Core Group, with Institute Director as Chairman and Industry sponsor as Co-chairman, has representatives drawn from the Academia, the Industry and the Government.

Telecom Policy, Regulation, Technology Integration, Multimedia & Customer Care Computational Maths Reliance TCOE IIT Chennai Infrastructure & Energy

Information Security & Disaster Management

Vodafone Essar TCOE IIT Kharagpur

Tata TCOE IITMumbai

Next Generation Network & Technology

Rural Telecom Technology

IIM Ahmedabad IIT Mumbai

IIT Kharagpur

Coordination Centre
Has the responsibility of coordination of activities among all TCOEs to facilitate their working and sharing of knowledge.
IISc Bangalore IIT Chennai

Coordination Centre has been set up with infrastructure and support from C-DOT and has started functioning from CDOT Campus, New Delhi from January 2008.

International Perspectives
Nine reputed foreign universities from five different countries, namely, USA, UK, Australia, Canada & Hong Kong SAR are already collaborating with the TCOEs on regulatory and technological issues in the telecom sector.

(e) Undertake cross-pollination of best practices the world over and make it suitable in Indian context. This will helps in creating optimal models that avoids duplication and wastage of resources, especially in the field of the converging Information & Communication Technology.