Background

1. There is no end to mobile revolution in the world. There are more mobile phones in the world than the population. A mobile in the hands of people has unlimited value for country’s economic growth and its excellent governance.

2. The knowledge of real time and accurate location of a mobile apart from opening up many commercial applications has made the possibility of its very fruitful utilization for National Security and Public Safety (NSPS). When this real time and accurate location is made available to the family members and friends of a person in distress, there is a very good chance that some near and dear family member or friend would be able to extend possible assistance to the victim needing rescue and relief from an intended crime either being planned or even being committed by the criminals. As a parallel, if this location is also made available to 100 police instantaneously, the victim can hope that the Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) would quickly marry up with the family and/or friend(s) at the scene of the crime sooner than later and together they would rescue the person. Such a scenario gives huge safety and security comfort to the citizens as they know that in the event of unfortunate situations, they can expect both their family member(s) and/or friend(s) together with the LEAs to come to their help.

3. A mobile National Family Locator and People Monitoring (NFLPM) integrated with 100 police when provided as an essential G2C service has the greatest potential of making India a safe country to live.

Power of NFLPM

4. NFLPM is awesome for family safety and security involving women, children, elderly persons and spouses. Whether the person is traveling or not, the sense of safety and security provided by NFLPM is highly comforting. Some illustrative scenarios are enumerated below :-

(a) The victim can press a button on the mobile and send an alert in less than two minutes along with the location to family, friends and police asking for help.

(b) If not in a position to press any button on the mobile, the victim can press a key on the wearable wrist band to achieve the same results or even shake the mobile vigorously for the needful.

(c) The person can schedule alerts to the family and/or friend(s) notifying his/her arrival at designated locations like reaching school, office, market, home, tuition center etc.

(d) Family and/or friend(s) can also seek location of the person on demand.

(e) In case of an untoward incident, family and/or friend(s) can also dial 100 police and lodge an instant phone FIR giving location and authorization to police to track the victim basically to reach the location in the honking and blaring and speeding PCR vans ordered to be moved from the nearest police booth/post/station.

(f) In such a scenario, the victim instantly gets the much needed physical support of the family and/or friend(s) and the police together, making the rescue efforts most productive and positive results oriented.

(g) The person can be anywhere, so long as there is a mobile network, the real time and accurate location of the victim plays a very big role in the rescue operation giving much longer reaction time to the entire search and rescue efforts.

Implementation of NFLPM

5. Mobile Operators

(a) BSNL is chosen as an anchor operator to lead the NFLPM. BSNL uses its own Location Determination Infrastructure (LDI) like GMLC and SMLC and interconnects with networks of all other operators. For location, BSNL thus is the interconnection seeker and other operators are interconnection providers.

(b) BSNL seeks essential subscriber and network data from all other operators and then meets all the location requests from provisioning to delivery.

(c) The billing is done by respective operators based upon the common NFLPM subscriber data maintained and updated by the NFLPM providers on behalf of BSNL.

6. LEAs. Police sets up Mobile Location Monitoring Center (MLMC) of Micro, Small, Medium and Large (MSML) size at each level of its operation like police station, district, zone and state.

7. NFLPM Providers. Two NFLPM providers are selected through global tendering process just like MNP operators, one for North and East and the other for South and West.

8. IVR Providers. Two IVR providers are selected to integrate NFLPM with 100 police IVR.

9. Project Management. TCIL is mandated with resources, funds and powers to be the prime contractor to deliver NFLPM.

10. NFLPM Architecture. NFLPM architecture as a unique innovation to locate any mobile on any network in the country is also shown as a diagram.

11. Implementation Approach through Pilot Projects.

(a) Two pilot NFLPM projects in parallel are executed, one in a metro and the other in a large district of a big state in about six months time.

(b) Once, the pilot projects are successful, NFLPM is replicated throughout the nation in about 18 month’s time.

12. Operations and Maintenance (O&M). After the complete project delivery of NFLPM, BSNL manages the operations of NFLPM as an essential G2C service.

Economics

13. Cost.

(a) BSNL incurs incremental cost to beef up its LDI as also builds up a cloud from its own budget. It may not be more than 100 Cr

(b) Operators are basically interconnection providers and thus their cost is minimal to be met out of their own budget.

(c) Police establishes MSML size MLMCs @ 40,000 for micro size at a police station, 60,000 for small size at each district, 80,000 for medium size at each zone and 100,000 for large size at a state. This is not more than 100 Cr and comes from police budget.

(d) NFLPM providers bring their product, install, integrate, test and commission in the cloud and interconnection. One time cost involved in this is paid out of BSNL capex of 100 Cr.

(e) IVR providers bring their product and install, integrate, test and commission in the police cloud for 100. One time cost for this is paid out of police capex of 100 Cr

(f) TCIL does the project management @ 15 % of capex making it to be 30 Cr

14. Revenue.

(a) NFLPM is an essential G2C service and there is very nominal charge of 50/- per family per month for smart phone and 30/- per family per month for feature phone levied by the government.

(b) Assuming that 20 % families (50 million) subscribe to NFLPM, BSNL collects 160 Cr per month.

(c) Revenue share is worked out as follows :-

a. 2* IVR providers                 – 5% each
b. 2*NFLPM providers            – 10 % each
c. BSNL for O&M                  – 10 %
d. BSNL and all operators   – 60 % on prorata as per active subs availing of NFLPM as a G2C service

Some other use cases of NFLPM as a G2C Service

15. Many young boys/girls and women from tribal areas of almost all states are brought to towns and cities with the promise of jobs. Even if state provides them mobile phones, their mobile location can help the family and/or friend(s) and the police to track and rescue them from the clutches of the criminals.

16. Search and rescue in case of any disaster situation like Uttarakhand tragedy, storms, floods, earthquake etc.

17. Search and rescue in case of terrorist attacks.

18. Riots control in case of any communal violence like Muzzafarnagar riots.

19. Enforcement Directorate (ED) and other state agencies charged with investigation of bribe and corruption cases.


Broadband India Forum (BIF)

Supported by

1. Ethnic Minority Foundation(EMF), India

NFLPM Architecture as a Unique Innovation to Locate any Mobile on any Network in the Country (Refers to Para 10)