Reliance Infotel LTE Deployment – 4 Strategies
Reliance -Infotel Broadband has BWA spectrum and planned to deploy LTE across circles. LTE in 2011 was an emerging technology being developed by 3GPP. From an operators perspective, LTE provided technical benefits such as more flexible spectrum usage and fewer nodes and economic benefits such as increased spectrum efficiency and optimized backhaul.
LTE as a technology was more suited to portfolio expansion from existing 2G/3G operations to include a diverse range of mobile service elements rather than as a pure LTE deployment. The spectrum sharing norm proposed by the DoT came to the rescue of RIL, which could then enter into spectrum sharing agreements with RCOM to provide voice services using 2G services and data using the LTE network with hotspot deployment.
Reliance’s Four stratgies of LTE deployment Read the rest of this entry »
What are the 4 Key Drivers for LTE in India ?
In our view there are four key drivers: network, devices, international deployments, and deployments by China – the largest telecom market.
On the international network side, the two standards FD and TD are very similar – both OFDMA. Most vendors are Shutting Down their Wimax Ventures and are shifting to TD-LTE. TD is designed for use in unpaired spectrum, is likely to have better scale, and is arriving in time to help address the surge in wireless data traffic. Softbank in Japan has begun commercial deployment, Bharti and RIL – Infotel Broadband are in the process of rolling out in BWA spectrum in India (going straight to TD).
On the handset-device side, the key is the commercial deployment of the multi-mode chipset from Read the rest of this entry »
Airtel Posts100% m-o-m increase in Dongle Sales – EDGE vs 3G for Internet
Airtel and other old telecom players Idea / Vodafone have embarked on a strategy to push under-utilized 3G networks. They are probably pulling a business strategy leaf out of developed markets where there is no disparity between EDGE and 3G-based data pricing.
One interesting thing we observed is 2.5G (EDGE) data uptake has started to gain traction given the increased subscriber awareness due to heavy 3G promotion. One key reason behind this could be the disparity between per MB rates on EDGE vs 3G. The company has been trying to wean away subscribers from 3G by reducing the perceived gap i.e. they first slashed 3G rates by 50% and followed it up by increasing EDGE rates by 100%. The operators will need to further reduce this arbitrage to help 3G gain traction, in our opinion.
Airtel 3G active users is at 27% of the total subscriber base and it witnesses a 100% m-o-m increase in dongle sales. Read the rest of this entry »
LTE Rollout Status – LTE Vs 3G vs WiMax vs EVDO Internet
Augere is a wireless broadband provider with operations in Pakistan & Bangladesh (using WiMax). It has also won the BWA spectrum in India for the MP circle in the auctions held last year and plans to launch services using LTE. Even though the number of deployments of WiMax outnumbers LTE today, equipment vendors are now focusing on TD-LTE which should help reduce both equipment as well as end user cost.
LTE Broadband DonglesThe current cost of a LTE dongles cost US$60. The company expects this to come down to US$20-30 over the next 1-2 years with rising scale. Besides, TD-LTE is already being built into some chipsets, which too should help in a relatively faster transition.
LTE Vs 3G The BWA spectrum auctioned – 20MHz of unpaired spectrum in the 2300MHz band is adequate for providing TD-LTE services. It is superior Read the rest of this entry »
MTNL Launches Fiber Optic FTTH Broadband in Delhi
State Owned MTNL has launched high-speed 10 Mbps FTTH – Fiber To The Home Broadband Internet Services in Delhi. FTTH is providedo n a separate Optical Fiber Network and not on the Copper Wired infrastructure that MTNL has in place.
MTNL FTTH broadband Plans – The Biggest Disadvantage of these plans is they come with Fair Usage Policy.
- FTTH-590 – 2 Mbps upto 5GB download, 512 Kbps thereafter
- FTTH-690 – 4 Mbps upto 7 GB download, 512 Kbps thereafter
Wireless / Mobile Data Usage Gaining Traction
With 3G being launched in Most Tier – I and Tier II Indian Cities, we hot the road to understand the Wireless Data consumption. While at Delhi, we bumped into these 3 Girls, who were so addicted to their Mobile SmartPhones, they Surf while they Shop and Eat. Convinced by the way 3G is gaining traction, we spoke to Telecom Operators and her is the Key Takeaway on All India basis.
Smartphones in India on an average consume 200-250MB/month on plain-vanilla GPRS packages [2.5G]. A 3G enabled smartphone is averaging 400-500MB/month and a 3G tablet is at 2.0GB/month currently. The large GSM operators have 3G sub base of ~ 2.0-3.0m each as only around 5-10% of the handsets are 3G enabled.
One should note the fact that Tablets having made their first appearance in 2010 are witnessing data usage that is 5x that of a 3G smartphone.
Wireless / Mobile Broadband Data usage is however set to grow as Read the rest of this entry »
TD-LTE Multimode Dongle – Best Suited for India ?
The 3G ecosystem (handsets/content) is developing rapidly in India. However, the cost structure is still very high compared to the average ARPU of Wireless Subscribers of Rs 180.
The whole new market which 3G Operators are targeting is – Data Services / Wireless internet. Qualcomm estimates data as % of revenues to increase to 30% by 2016 (from 15% currently) and expects smartphones to show 233% growth in India from 2010-2015.
Qualcomm has recently launched multi-mode TD-LTE devices by Huawei, ZTE, Quanta and Bandrich using MDM9x00 Read the rest of this entry »
Top News + Travel + Sports Sites
comScore just a while ago released data on the Top News, Travel and Sports sites in India based on the number of visitors. Here is the Results.
Travel: The Top sites in Travel are topped by rail websites and online travel agents. 19.4 percent of web users visited the Indian Railways site in March, and average usage on that site, as well as on IndiaRailInfo.com, is about half an hour.
- Indian Railways [irctc.co.in]
- Yatra Online
- MakeMyTrip
- ClearTrip
- Expedia
- Other sites like Travelocity and MustSeeIndia have also gained significant popularity
News:58 percent of Indian web users visited a News/Info site, a category that is similarly popular among web Read the rest of this entry »