Broadband and Internet India

We are hopeful of getting licences in all circles and would start operations depending on the receipt of the approvals.

We will invest over Rs 2,500 crore to strengthen our existing network and extend our presence to new circles. We will invest in brand promotion to increase our visibility. More promotional activities will be seen in national TV and print, other than regional media houses.

I had thought of consolidation in the Indian Mobile space with smaller operators who held less than 2 or 3 circles to sell out to others. Sure they sold, but to foreign entities. Sivsankran sold Aircel to Maxis and Spice sold 49% to Telekom Malaysia. Aircel has also applied for 8 more licenses in India.

Hutch along with Radio Mirchi - India’s leading FM Radio provider, HP and Nokia has launched Visual Radio service in India. What is Visual Radio anyway ? It lets the user receive the local FM broadcast on his cell phone along with video being fed into it for users viewing pleasure. Hutch is the first operator to offer such a service in India.

Bharti-Airtel which recently crossed 25 million subscribers mark has reported outstanding quarterly profits for the quarter ending June-30th. Quarterly sales were up 53 percent compared to a year ago at Rs3860 crores and profits up 48 percent at Rs755 crores. Bharti also beat analysts expectations of 9% QoQ growth to achieve 13%. This was expected because of the strong addtions in subscribers.

I will defer to analyze the results until we get Reliance Communications’ results on July-31st.

Qualcomm is committed to help the industry drive handset prices down and it involves multiple players and has nothing to do with negotiations on royalties with operators as they do not pay it.

• 1991 - Private TV Channel gets the nod. Telephone subscriber base is at 4 Million.
• 1992 - ZEE TV is the first private channel operator in India. 0.41 Million homes with Cable TVs
• 1994 - Bids invited by Govt from private telecom operators to provide mobile services.
• 1995 - Government formulates Cable TV networks regulation act.
• 1996 - Private companies get into FM radio
• 1997 - TRAI comes into existence. Total TV homes in India reaches 60 Million
• 2001 - Government allows DTH. Permites 20% FDI in Telecom and 22 private FM stations launched. PC prices crash.
• 2002 - Mobile subscriber base is at 13 Million. Bandwidth prices are reduced by 25%.
• 2003 - Government issues DTH licenses and tables comprehensive Broadband and Convergence bill.
• 2004 - Zee becomes the first DTH services provider in India. Mobile phone subscribes base at 2.6 million.
• 2005 - Government clears FM Radio expansion. CDMA mobile service providers begin operations. Total mobile subscriber base around 80 Million
• 2006 - VoIP is legalized.Indian media and entertainment industry values at Rs35,300 crores($7.6 Billion). 65 Million cable and satellite TV homes. 110 Million TV homes. 8 Million DTH subscribers. FM radio licenses cross 300 mark. Mobile subscriber base at record level of 105 Million. ILD/ISD charges have come down to round Rs3.0/Minute via calling card. Check out for all the updates on Telecom and Mobile in India during 2006.

Internet telephony services can be offered in India either by an ISP specifically permitted to do so or by a unified access service licensee. However, several service providers such as Skype, Net2Phone, Yahoo, and MSN, are providing Internet telephony services to people in India. Most of these foreign service providers do offer termination in Indian fixed-line telephones as well.

Also, such service offering is resulting in loss of revenue to the Government by way of licence fee as well as by way of service tax.

On the directions of the government of India, Indian ISPs have started censoring and blocking web properties. This was first noticed by Indian bloggers and upon inquiring with their respective ISPs, the actions are confirmed. Unfortunately, Blogspot and TypePad are the targets till now.”

There’s an ongoing discussion of the censorship on GoogleGroups.

Kindly respect and uphold the actions of Government of India as we are all safe in the hands of an able Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Lets wait for an official press release from the Government.

Bharti-Airtel known to the world for innovative business practices is now planning to implement the concepts of Supply Chain Management, adopted by manufacturing companies to bring down and streamline its expenditure. ET has more details.

Contextual applications would become the next big thing in VAS, where advertisers could project their message in an entertainment video at the right moment to gain maximum impact on the consumer.

The fixed landline market is India is currently under-served, specially in smaller town and villages, on account of inadequate infrastructure. With this, we will be able to target about 200 million households in the country. The FWP subscribers are likely to increase at 5 million per annum. This service will have all the facilities available to mobile users.

DOT (Department of Telecom, India) has clarified that mobile operators in India can hold only either of the two licenses - GSM or CDMA in any given cricle. This is a severe blow to Reliance Communication’s GSM expansion plans. DOT had earlier sought Reliance’s roadmap for GSM plan which the company hasn’t submitted yet. DOT has clarified that the entry of 5th GSM operator in any circle would be subject to availability of spectrum. DOT is also concerned about migrating Reliance’s huge customer base from CDMA to GSM. But why would DOT try to supress some technology ?

Insiders are speculating that Reliance is already looking at avenues to convert existing CDMA handsets to be compatible with GSM by means of a buy-back and or free talk time to compensate its customers.

I would like to summarize the entire Convergence. In coverage on the issue involving Reliance, Tata, Qualcomm, GSM or CDMA and Spectrum.

It started in the first week of June when Anil Ambani’s Reliance Telecom applied for GSM license. Then I got an insight about Reliance’s call to switch to GSM - Mainly demanding Qualcomm for network independence and lower royalties. The costly CAPEX for its CDMA to migrate to CDMA2000(3G equivalent for CDMA). June 24th I reporetd that Qualcomm stock was severely beaten down as my insiders told me about possible downgrade as Reliance accounts for 8% of Qualcomm’s bottomline and also Nokia killed its CDMA handset plans.

Qualcomm CEO Jacobs in India. Jacobs and Tata’s talk fail, alleges spectrum policy was flawed and the war breaks out. IT Minister Maran and COAI clarify spectrum is not the issue. Reliance and Qualcomm have marathon meetings without any outcome. Reliance Communication’s sticks to its demands.