ravi_patent
-
Content count
636 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Posts posted by ravi_patent
-
-
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/idea-issues-3640-connections-to-one-person/403737/
Telecom service provider Idea Cellular has issued a whopping 3,640 connections to one person and the company he owns, Limco Sales Corporation.
“Idea Cellular had issued 3,640 post-paid connections to a single person and his company Limco Sales Corporation in Delhi and as per the report of the Department of Telecom, the bulk connections have been rented out to other customers,” Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
“The practice of providing mobile connections to an individual without maintaining his identity particulars has security implications and operational activities of security agencies are hampered due to non-availability of identity of a suspected target,” Pilot said.
According to licence conditions, vigilance should be exercised in providing bulk telephone connections for a single user as well as for a single location. Provision of 10 or more connections may be taken as bulk for this purpose, he said.
The home ministry has said security agencies are facing problems in establishing identity of actual users in cases where bulk connections have been activated in the name of a single user, location or an organisation and the numbers have been further distributed or rented out for use.
-
the fortunes of BSNL are linked to the fall of DMK!
-
Taking the tariff war to a new low, Uninor, a JV between Unitech and Norway-based Telenor, today offered an up to 60 per cent discount on one paise-per- second tariffs, depending upon the location and timing of a call.
Calls can now cost as low as 0.4 paise per second and this would be available on local, as well as domestic long distance (STD) calls, the company said in a statement here.
This can put further pressure on the revenue of mobile firms after the companies introduced a per second pulse.
At present, Uninor services are available in 13 circles of UP (East and West), Bihar, Orissa, Kolkata, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The company has a pan-India licence. Telenor has a majority stake of over 67 per cent in the joint venture.
The new tariff, called 'Dynamic Pricing', would be available on a recharge tariff of Rs 26 with a validity of three months.
Going by the maximum discount offered by the company, a one-minute call could cost as low as 24 paise compared to 60 paise charged by other operators.
Different discounts across different locations are possible for companies as they can save on paying termination charges to another operator in case the call is on the same network.
The discount would be maximum whenever a call is on the same network.
uninor was resisting attempts to be in tariff war till recently.probably having realised the rules of the tariff game uninor seems to jumped into the arena
just 1 day after making a staement that"I want Uninor to be lowest on costs in India" the new MD started his work!
-
^
thanks for in depth analysis
-
now i understood about trai's order! kesav
-
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/07/21/stories/2010072154080100.htm
Reliance Industries is said to be in talks to invest in the Hyderabad-based Notion Ink, which is developing a “made in India” tablet computer that is already being pitched against Apple's iPad.
It is learnt that the talks, which could even lead to RIL picking up a majority stake in Notion Ink, are centred on the Adam tablet, which is scheduled for a worldwide launch later this year.
A tablet PC is a laptop equipped with a stylus or a touchscreen.
RIL's interest could have been triggered by the fact that the Adam has been touted as an “Apple iPad killer” in many quarters. The product has been generating enormous buzz on tech Web sites and gadget blogs since an early prototype was put up for demonstration at consumer tech trade shows earlier this year.
An RIL spokesperson said, “We do not comment on speculation as a matter of company policy.” Officials at Notion Ink said the same.
Notion Ink was established by six IITans and an MBA graduate who were able to integrate two breakthrough power saving components — nVidia's Tegra 2 chip and a PixelQi screen.
The buzz is that Adam has twice the battery life and performance of the iPad.
Starting at $325, the Adam tablet PC is around 36 per cent cheaper than the starting price of an iPad — $499. Moreover, Pixel Qi screen technology makes it easier to read under bright light, technology experts say.
The deal with Notion Ink is also expected to help RIL in its quest to garner a significant share of the Indian broadband market. RIL recently re-entered the Indian telecom market through its Rs 4,500-crore acquisition of Infotel, which has bagged broadband wireless access spectrum for all 22 circles
Given the high propensity of a tablet PC to consume bandwidth, RIL could bundle the Adam tablet with its broadband services to target high-end users in India, Mr Kunal Bajaj, Director, of technology advisory firm Analysys Mason, told Business Line. “From Notion Ink's perspective, the funds infused by RIL could help in setting up its manufacturing and distribution networks.”
Apple's iPad is not yet sold in India. Interestingly, in a blog posting dated June 9, Notion Ink co-founder Mr Rohan Shravan, said: “We have closed the final round of funding and are now in perfect sync with our investors. This is extremely good news for everyone. I say that because if we have global ambitions, there must be someone who can help us achieve that. And now we have got the muscle power… I cannot reveal the amount of investment, but it's a big day for Notion Ink!”
Analyst firm ABI Research has predicted that eight million media tablet devices will be sold this year.
-
can any body please identify the cause of the horizontal white line appearing on the monitor..is it time to dump the monitor or a small issue to worry about
-
Commercial LTE devices will be available in the market by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal
Alcatel Lucent has been working in the WiMAX space for long. What prompted the shift to LTE and how ready are you for the technology?
We are as ready as we can be. Globally, we have already won two big contracts and are deploying Verizon’s commercial LTE network across 25 cities in the US later this year. AT&T will launch soon after. There are other two contracts, which we have not made public. There are also 50 LTE trials being conducted globally with key service providers.
LTE is a fourth generation technology with capabilities built on 3GPP standard, which has linkages with other networks including 2G and 3G. It can be integrated with other networks. It is beneficial from India’s point of view, where licences have just been granted and networks will start to roll out. Since there is no pan-India 3G operator, there will be gaps in network. But with LTE, 3G operators will have an option to partner with LTE operators to fill gaps. Whether it is CDMA/EVDO or HSPCA, LTE can provide interoperability. WiMAX, on the other hand, cannot do that.
But a section of the industry contends that LTE is about two years away and that WiMAX is the technology to be deployed today. Isn’t it a bit too early to bet on LTE?
I have heard those discussions which say WiMAX is a more mature technology than LTE. That is not true. Two things are important for a technology to succeed — network ecosystem and device ecosystem. We already have LTE network,which we are deploying commercially and there are others coming up. So, it is not true that LTE will take two years to be deployed. On the device side, we are working with four device partners and four more are coming up. We are actively building the device ecosystem.
Commercial LTE devices will be available in the market by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal. The deployment time between WiMAX and LTE is shrinking. The operators are now rethinking their strategy in favour of LTE, since ultimately everyone will move to LTE. And, India, I think is moving very quickly. I see vendor selection announcements in the next six months. Maybe, India will have LTE a bit later than other parts of the world, but it will attract demand rapidly. I see networks launching in 2010. There is not much difference between the two technologies but the interoperability factor is crucial.Alcatel Lucent has lagged behind its competitors in the 2G space.
Now, in 4G and LTE too, the Chinese vendors have higher number of patents. How will you combat competition?
Chinese vendors may have more patents, but, having a commercially-deployable solution is different. From patent perspective, we are at a comfortable position and have already deployed commercial network. We have Bell Labs backing us and we will definitely grab the market. We maintain key LTE patents in all part of the technology — from radio access to IP backhaul to IMS to enhanced packet core. We are a leader in creating such an ecosystem and LTE is about IP and we are the undisputed leader in IP communications technology.
Alcatel Lucent and C-DoT have a research centre in India. Will it be converted to focus solely on LTE and what happens to the WiMAX patents the company has acquired?
The Chennai centre is working on a lot of platforms simultaneously. The discussions on LTE have already begun, but WiMAX development will also continue there. It would not be just for LTE. We are still working on WiMAX so the patents are not null and void. We have increased focus on LTE and some of the WiMAX patents we have acquired are applicable to LTE also.
How does the India opportunity for LTE look like compared with other markets and what early breakthroughs has the technology made in India?
There is a significant momentum in the US, the first market for LTE, which is maturing. LTE is the broadband standard there. That will naturally extend to other areas. We see significant business in India too. We are talking to the operators who have announced their commitment to LTE (Qualcomm and RIL’s Infotel). We will have trials here too, that is definitely on our agenda. The global momentum LTE is acquiring is important. Globally, 450 service providers have announced their decision to move to LTE. Having a single standard for broadband is important because it makes it simple. Going forward, there will be shrinkage in WiMAX platform and expansion in LTE.
In India, already two players have announced their commitment to LTE and here the key thing will be the partnerships between LTE and 3G for roaming agreements. Alcatel Lucent is working on several applications in various segments, including automotive and healthcare, that will be very useful, as with LTE one can think of a number of innovations because of high bandwidth. Also, the consumer satisfaction in case of a break down or emergency will be faster. Then, there are new market segments coming up like cable operators who are looking to offer services like voice over internet protocol (VoIP) through LTE. Also, public safety is another segment where LTE services can be used effectively.
The company had plans to develop India as one of its global services hub. When do you see it materialising?
The discussions are on, it is being worked out. A decision is expected by next month. India is a very important market for us.
-
@ramesh
from ur reasoning i fail to understand why phone manufacturer( samsung) shall be greedy over cdma customers than gsm ?
regading qualcom royalities
see https://www.trefis.com/company?article=18888#
where it says
"Royalty Rate Litigation
Qualcomm charges royalties on each CDMA handset sold; and one time licensing fees from CDMA handset vendors to use its proprietary technology.
Royalty rates have always been a debatable issue and the tussle between CDMA handsets vendors and Qualcomm has taken larger proportions as is evidence from an increasing number of lawsuits against Qualcomm. The famous lawsuit filed by Nokia against Qualcomm is one such example".
-
@kesav
from my recent memory..
lg gsm handset having mp3 player costs around 1600
lg cdma having mp3 player costs around 2700
do u still believe that royalties are not the reason..pl see
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2006/07/03/stories/2006070303350200.htm
-
^
so airtel network will be congestion free( high arpu spenders will go there) ,whereas mtnl's will be unable to deliver 3g promise..
-
@kesav
if patents can increase prices ,(from quallcomm experience) what benefit we indians will have if indian companies also secure patents? jus qurious
-
because of the qualcomm royalties cdma providers like reliance/ tata could not do fake activations and were denied the govt sponsered free lunch(spectrum based on numbers).anil ambani made attempts to convine quallcom ceo to reduce royalties to what chinese are paying.but failed. only then he decided to join gsm league!
-
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Telecom//articleshow/6154662.cms
Market leader Bharti Airtel today cautioned that 3G mobile services will not come cheap, especially for subscribers in metros, as service providers had to pay dearly for spectrum.
"Take the example of Delhi itself, or Mumbai. The amount for spectrum that has been charged is close to Rs 3,500 crore each... Just to recover license fees and input cost, it works out to be Rs 700-900 per month," Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal said.
Amid highly aggressive bidding for 3G spectrum, Bharti Airtel won 13 circles, including Delhi and Mumbai, paying Rs 12,295.46 crore, the highest among service providers.
The company could not achieve the objective of a pan-India 3G foot print as the prices rose beyond a reasonable level due to various factors like the auction format, a severe shortage of spectrum and also ensuing policy uncertainty, it had said.
Asked by when the service would be launched by Bharti, Mittal said, "Some time later this year. We will wait for the spectrum allocation, which is promised in September, a few months after that."
In fact, not only Bharti, but no operator could bag the pan-India 3G spectrum. The three leading mobile operators -- Bharti, Vodafone and Reliance Communications -- managed to win 3G spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai, which could lead to a tariff war in these two metros.
In the rest of the circles, especially in the C-category, the tariffs may not be very high.
Elaborating on the rationale for differential tariffs, Mittal said "My view is that certain circles, it would be circle dependent, like C circle and all will not be very expensive, but in circles that have gone very high in the 3G auction, price will have to adjust for itself."
"The pricing of subscriber tariffs have to be based on the input cost. Any industry relies on input cost and here, the input cost is spectrum and it has gone high," he said.
Since Bharti did not get pan-India spectrum for 3G, the company has started a dialogue with operators in circles where it is not present for an arrangement to offer undisrupted 3G services to its subscribers.
Asked which are the operators with whom Bharti has started talks, Mittal said, "We are talking to anybody whoever is in a particular circle, because there are different operators in different circles.
"In nine circles where we are not present, our teams are talking to the people who have the spectrum and we are going to build the network. Nobody has got pan-India license. So people will need something from us. We will have to give something back. All I would say is informal discussions, it's still early days, have started," he added.
-
MoneyControl
Monday, July 12, 2010
There is something about technology companies that makes them want to dominate the world. Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Google and even Apple all want the world to veer around to their point of view and therefore their products. Maybe it is something to with the transient nature of technology advantage. Those who manage to be dominant, even for a short-while, are seen as visionaries. And then there are those who are almost in that camp but not quite. For much of its life Qualcomm has been in the latter camp — the almost-Microsoft.
It was founded in 1985 by MIT professor-turned-entrepreneur, Irwin Jacobs, together with six of his friends. They had invented a proprietary technology that became the seed for the wireless standard CDMA, a technique that allows large amounts of information to be transmitted over limited wireless spectrum by using complex matching algorithms.
CDMA began to be adopted by the world’s mobile operators from the mid-90s after years of relentless hard-selling by Jacobs, backed up by equally relentless patenting by his engineers in the
R&D department.
Globally, this strategy has been very successful. Today, the company founded by Jacobs is led by his son Paul, and sits on a pile of over USD 18 billion in cash while generating another USD 2-3 billion in free cash flows every year!
While this is brilliant in itself, India had eluded Qualcomm’s grasp. It has not made too much money here because its business model has just not worked here. However, things might be on the cusp of a change for Qualcomm because of a change in market dynamics and some canny risk-taking by the company to adapt its business model to fit this changed scenario. A win here will not only get it success in India, but also sink the ambition armada of its longtime foe, Intel, and with it, spell the endgame for the rival wireless standard backed by it — WiMAX.
Qualcomm’s model as it exists is simple. Be inventive, file as many patents as possible in wireless communication, and then build products around those or wait for people to queue up to use those patents and pay a nice royalty to the company.
Qualcomm’s patents are critical to almost all major wireless standards on the GSM, CDMA and even LTE (Long Term Evolution) sides, helping it squeeze a royalty out of quite literally anyone and everyone. An army of its lawyers and patent experts go after any company that dares touch its wireless IP without paying for it.
The Way It Works
People tried to design around Qualcomm’s 3G patents but it was very tough because all patents are usually inter-related,” says Shiv Putcha, an analyst with telecom consulting firm Ovum. “Most patents can be traced back to original innovations and patents that were at the root. You simply can’t get around it,” he says. Nokia and Samsung both found this out the hard way. In 2008, after a three-year legal battle over the use of its technologies in Nokia’s phones, Qualcomm won USD 2.3 billion from the world’s largest phone maker and an assured stream of annual royalties over the next 15 years. In 2009 it won USD 1.3 billion from Samsung plus additional royalties over 15 years.
The biggest chunk of Qualcomm’s revenue, over 60% of roughly USD 10 billion annually, comes from selling its own proprietary chipsets to mobile phone, notebook or data card makers. It is the world’s largest “fabless” chip maker, meaning it designs its chips but outsources their manufacturing to others.
Another 30% — and this is the interesting part, one which gives it a profit margin of nearly 85-90% — comes from licensing its formidable IP (intellectual property) around wireless communication (over 12,000 US and over 50,000 international patents) to chip makers like Texas Instruments or Infineon, mobile phone makers like Nokia or Samsung and equipment makers like Huawei or Alcatel-Lucent. For instance, it takes between 4-5% of the wholesale price of any CDMA or 3G phone made or sold anywhere in the world.
Don’t Say Hip, Say Cheap
In India, however, CDMA phones — the essence of Qualcomm’s business — never took off, though CDMA’s entry into the Indian market in 2000 was one of the most disruptive events in Indian telecom history. That’s because Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications (RCOM) used CDMA technology as a Trojan horse into Indian mobile telephony, passing it off (wrongly) as a cross between a fixed and mobile service.
Though this flash-bang entry established Qualcomm firmly in India, it left the company with two serious issues.
First, its CDMA platform, though more advanced than GSM on most counts, quickly got relegated to the lowest end of the price and consumer segments because CDMA operators like Reliance presented it as a poor man’s technology. They did this to quickly mop up the millions of lower-income potential subscribers still not signed up for GSM.
Qualcomm also alienated itself from GSM incumbents like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone (then Hutch) who felt, rightly, that it was the ammunition provider for their upstart, backdoor competitors.
The net result was that Qualcomm was left picking up low value crumbs from the bottom one-fourth of India’s mobile market — CDMA subscribers. For close to 10 years Qualcomm has remained in that position. And now that the two members of the CDMA camp — RCOM and Tata Teleservices — had both switched allegiance to GSM, people expected Qualcomm to stay down, and out.
There Will Be Changes
But in technology as in politics, to quote Bob Dylan, “…the loser now/Will be later to win.” A change in circumstances in India and some humble learning means Qualcomm could be a force to reckon with in the near future.
The first star that heralded its new fortune was the successful completion of India’s 3G auctions. Because Qualcomm’s IP is embedded in all 3G technologies, it will make a 4-5% cut off every 3G phone that will now be sold in India. In one shot it stands to make money out of almost every new phone sold in India versus just CDMA phones earlier.
_“Till now India was driving the very low end for us, with profits significantly lower than other markets. But there will be a massive change once 3G kicks off because we’ll work with all the operators, including those that saw us as their enemy,” says Paul Jacobs. “The average selling prices of our phones will go up as well. Over 2014, as a market for us, India might then only be surpassed by China,” he adds.
The second omen was on March 11, at a press conference in New Delhi’s Oberoi hotel, when Kanwalinder Singh, its India head said, “Today I’m very proud to announce that Qualcomm has invested one billion US dollars into India.”
Singh did not spend that money in building offices, hiring thousands of new employees or buying local businesses. He spent it to buy 20 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi and the states of Haryana and Kerala. Qualcomm was one of the six companies that won precious spectrum to offer high speed “4G” wireless broadband to Indians. The $1 billion spent in India was its single largest bet anywhere around the world.
The funny thing though is that Qualcomm is betting on deploying a technology that it didn’t think much of to begin with, a commercially unproven technology called TD-LTE originally developed by the Chinese.
Learning from the Chinese
The Chinese government, in the mid-90s, decided to develop a technology to avoid paying royalties to Western companies like Qualcomm. They created TD-SCDMA, a 3G wireless standard. But it never really took off. The Chinese, in order to avoid paying royalties, had to reinvent the wheel. This made their technology cumbersome and inefficient.
The Chinese pumped more resources into it and refined it into TD-LTE. They also roped in two large Western partners, Verizon and Vodafone, to conduct joint trials of LTE combing the Western (FD) flavour with its own (TD) one. Julian Grivolas, an analyst with Ovum in Paris who tracks the LTE space closely, says China’s goal was to make sure that this joint LTE becomes the next equivalent of the mobile world’s ubiquitous GSM standard.
But the company that took advantage of this trend the fastest was the one which was the last to join the LTE party — Qualcomm. For that it had to swallow its pride and abandon Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), a 4G technology it had been developing for many years. In late 2008, it abandoned UMB to focus exclusively on LTE when it saw big operators tilting towards it. A few years earlier it had already spent over USD 800 million to acquire Flarion, a company with a significant amount of patents in areas related to LTE.
Qualcomm smartly co-opted its erstwhile foe China into becoming an ally by announcing plans to build new “multi-mode” mobile chipset that would combine the version of LTE that Qualcomm and a galaxy of mobile companies like Ericsson and Nokia had developed along with what the Chinese had developed.
Given that a significant chunk of TD-LTE patents rest with Chinese companies like China Mobile, Huawei and ZTE, the only way Qualcomm would have integrated them into its own offerings would be by cross-licensing — basically sharing patents with them. The Chinese are returning the love because a global acceptance of TD-LTE will mean cheaper equipment prices for its mobile operators and larger markets for its equipment vendors.
With TD-LTE under his belt, Jacobs knew he had WiMAX cornered.
“TD-LTE parked its tank right on WiMAX’s lawn. And there was going to be conflict,” says Gabriel Brown, an analyst with telecom consulting firm Heavy Reading in London.
Intel Meets Its Match
It was back in 2002 that Intel bet big on a fledgling technology called WiMAX which allowed for high-speed wireless broadband with speeds up to 30 Mbps over distances as large as 40-50 km. Faced with plateauing sales of its mainstay PC processors, it figured that consumers would rush to upgrade to newer processors embedded with WiMAX. The importance of WiMAX to Intel can be judged from the fact that it gave the responsibility for popularising it to Sean Maloney, an executive vice-president at Intel, widely slated to become its next CEO
nder Maloney’s leadership Intel became the de-facto cheerleader for WiMAX, investing huge resources
to present WiMAX as the best 4G option for consumers, especially in developing countries.
A key reason for Intel’s bullishness was because WiMAX was designed to work better over “unpaired spectrum”. All wireless communication take place over two types of spectrum: Paired, meaning there are two equal chunks of spectrum to send and receive information, and unpaired, meaning there’s just one unbroken chunk for receiving or sending. Repeated attempts to get Intel to answer to queries were met with no response.
Voice conversations, being symmetric (carrying one party’s voice is as important as carrying the other’s) have traditionally been carried over paired spectrum. In contrast, data is usually asymmetric, meaning we tend to download much more than we upload, and is hence better suited for unpaired spectrum.
But as wireless data traffic skyrocketed around the world over the last few years, regulators in country after country kept coming up short of enough paired spectrum to feed their telecom operators with. Which was good for WiMAX, but bad for FD-LTE.
“There was an uneasy sort of detente that WiMAX was going to be used for unpaired spectrum and [FD] LTE over paired spectrum. There was no agreement or anything, just assumptions on the part of a lot of people,” says Brown.
Until one fine day the Chinese decided to make LTE work over unpaired spectrum as well. That technology was TD-LTE.
The result: Operators around the world, even WiMAX ones like Clearwire in the US and Yota in Russia, decided to cast their lot with TD-LTE. Big equipment backers like Nokia and Cisco backed out too. And now with India, a market large enough to tilt the fortunes of a new standard, appearing to veer towards TD-LTE, WiMAX and Intel are in a spot of bother and Qualcomm with a fairly open field. “WiMAX is a proven technology,” says Jacobs, before mischievously adding, “Proven to be a failure!”
Those in the know of things say Qualcomm’s intention is not to build out its own 4G network in India, but only to conduct limited demo trials in its four circles to show that TD-LTE works as advertised, especially alongside 3G and 2G. Within a couple of years we might see one or more operators, like Airtel or Vodafone, become equity partners with Qualcomm in a new joint venture. It will be the operators who will then use the 20 MHz spectrum that it won to build their own 4G networks.
In the interim, Qualcomm will lean on the 3G operators to only buy equipment that can easily be upgraded to LTE, thus keeping an open door for 4G. It will also try to cobble together a “nationwide alliance of the best operators”, says Singh, so “everyone’s 3G and LTE works together.”
A few years earlier, Singh might have found it hard to convince Indian operators to collaborate. But faced with a new competitor in the form of Reliance Industries, the blue whale in the ocean of Indian industry, they may not have any option but to bury their differences and follow the light from Qualcomm’s torch.
Countdown to 4G
So far, mobile networks have been designed primarily to carry voice rather than data, though every iteration since the 1990s has allowed for faster and faster data transmission speeds. The world’s first “fourth generation” (4G) networks, when they start appearing from 2012, will instead be designed primarily for high-speed data transmission. Here’s how mobile networks have been evolving.
First, There Was Voice
The first GSM mobile networks in the early 1990s (called second generation, or 2G) were designed to carry voice. Users could still exchange SMSes sent over idle signalling channels. Qualcomm’s 2G rival to GSM — cdmaOne — too was optimised for voice, but significantly provided for data transmission at speeds of up to 14.4 Kbps.
Need for (Data) Speed
With the Internet gaining popularity, there was a need for faster data traffic. Enter 3G and 3.5G. CDMA became the technical foundation for 3G in all camps (W-CDMA for GSM; EV-DO for CDMA), offering speeds up to 2 Mbps. These evolved into the 3.5G standards HSPA and EV-DO Rev. A & B, respectively. Many thought ubiquitous mobile television and video calls were finally here, but that didn’t happen. In 2007, WiMAX was added to the list of 3G standards. It was designed almost purely for wireless broadband to begin with.
Finally, 4G
Many mistakenly refer to WiMAX and LTE, a rival high-speed standard, as 4G. Neither comes close to the 1 Gbps data download speed that 4G needs.
-
@kesav: +1 for your analysis
-
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/07/08/stories/2010070853030700.htm
Broadband wireless auction winners allotted spectrum
The Government on Wednesday released broadband spectrum to those operators who had won broadband wireless access (BWA) auction.
Only Qualcomm and Augere have not yet been given the permission to start using the spectrum as they are foreign players and have to fulfil the regulations under the Foreign Investment Promotion Board.
Qualcomm will also have to acquire an Internet service provider's licence and divest at least 26 per cent stake to an Indian entity before it can claim its spectrum. But others including Reliance Industries-owned Infotel have got at least a two-month head-start over 3G players.
Telecom companies that won 3G spectrum during the recently-concluded auction will get air waves only by September. 3G spectrum will be given by September after BSNL finalises vendors for the Defence optical fibre cable network.
The gap in allocation is because BWA spectrum is already available with the DoT while 3G air waves will be released by the Defence after BSNL issues the purchase order to suppliers for the optical fibre network.
This gap in allocation means that Indian operators such as Reliance Industries-owned Infotel, Aircel, Bharti Airtel and Tikona can start rolling out their broadband network immediately.
Industry sources said that Reliance could start services by Diwali. Market watchers, however, said that the two-month lead may not result in any major advantage to the new broadband players such as Infotel as they will to start building a network from scratch which takes time.
Also technologies such as LTE, which is proposed to be deployed by most of the BWA winners, is still not commercially available.
On the other hand, 3G technologies are already available and most operators including Vodafone have said that they will launch services by the end of this year.
The Government has received more than Rs 1.06 lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. DoT said that the high cost of spectrum will not have any impact on tariffs.
The Government is now looking to replicate the auction model for selling other public resources and for awarding contracts by various departments.
DoT has been asked to give a detailed presentation to departments at the Centre and at the State-level.
-
We’ll be extremely aggressive on the price front of smart phones, we don’t intend to make vendor margin.
http://telecomyatra.afaqs.com/news/?sid=1066_MTS+to+introduce+smartphones+for+customers+in+July
MTS, the CDMA mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices (SSTL), plans to introduce smartphones for its customers next month. The smartphone line-up will include BlackBerry, Windows and Android devices. The company plans to keep prices competitive. Leonid Musatov, chief marketing officer, SSTL, told Telecom Yatra at the sidelines of a press conference held here, “We plan to make smartphones available for our customers beginning this July. We’ll be extremely aggressive on the price front, we don’t intend to make vendor margin.”
He added, “We want to offer innovative offerings like dual technology smartphones. I also believe that Android is the most convenient way for a consumer to use mobile internet.” MTS will announce a few partnerships in the coming two to three months, which will focus on educating people on the use of mobile internet.
The CDMA operator also expects that the Russian government’s investment of $677 million (over Rs 3,000 crore) in the mobile operator will close soon. “The Russian parliament Duma has approved the proposal and four or five ministries are currently involved in finalising things. We expect to close it by the end of quarter three”, Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer, SSTL, told reporters.
MTS currently provides CDMA mobile services in 12 of India's 22 telecom service areas and has announced that it has crossed the five million subscribers mark in the country. To celebrate the occasion, the company also announced Unlimited MBlazer and Win Win packs. While the former allows users to access unlimited data for 30 days at a price of Rs 999, the Win Win pack offers a mix of various packages from which the users can choose the features they want.
Rozanov revealed that last month the operator successfully added nearly half a million subscribers and expects to double its subscriber base within few months.
Talking about the company’s future plans, Musatov said, “We expect to break even in 2013. The business is going in the right direction. Our primary aim is to become the primary SIM of our subscriber base. We’ll also be introducing some innovative value added services in a few months.”
-
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/ew/2010/06/21/stories/2010062150020100.htm
After the hugely successful 3G auction where the exchequer earned in excess of Rs 67,000 crore, the broadband wireless access (BWA) auction has brought in more cheer to the Finance Ministry. The earnings from BWA and 3G auctions combined, at Rs 1,06,000 crore, is more than three times what the government had initially budgeted from the sale of spectrum. This will help ease the large fiscal deficit of the government.
First, let us understand what BWA spectrum is being used for globally. Globally, spectrum in the 2.3 GHz, 2.5 GHz and 3.3GHz is being used for WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). WiMax is a standards-based technology enabling the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. Till now, there have been over 400 planned and commercial WiMAX networks across 118 countries.
Companies are deploying WiMax to provide nomadic broadband or at-home broadband connectivity across whole cities or countries. Additionally, given the relatively low cost to deploy a WiMax network (in comparison with GSM, DSL or fibre-optic), it is being used to provide rural connectivity or connectivity in areas where DSL or fibre-optic is economically unviable. WiMax is also an alternative to provide backhaul for cellular (GSM or CDMA) networks.
In a sample study of 17 markets in which WiMax licences were sold via auctions, it has been found that the median and average price per MHz per population for WiMax spectrum was $0.013 and $0.031, respectively. The cost of WiMax spectrum is affected by several factors, including population characteristics, buying power of potential customers, broadband and mobile penetration, spectrum allocation, and the competitive landscape.
In India, with 20 MHz spectrum available in the 2.3 & 2.5 GHz band, operators are likely to adopt nomadic WiMax (802.16e). In the longer term, operators have an option to upgrade to TD-LTE at relatively lower cost as both the technologies are based on the OFDMA standard. The spectrum is likely to be used for both fixed residential and enterprise broadband access in urban areas and to provide connectivity to common services centres, education institutes and health centres in rural areas.
The pan-India BWA spectrum is valued at Rs 12,848 crore, over seven times the reserve price of Rs 1,750 crore. Over and above the spectrum cost, operators will need to spend an additional $500 million to $1 billion over the next three-four years to deploy the network.
The ratio of clearing price to the reserve price was 7.3x, higher compared with 4.8x in the case of pan-India 3G spectrum. Multiple reasons have contributed to this high ratio. In some circles, such as Tamil Nadu and Punjab, the bid for BWA spectrum has exceeded the 3G bids. In BWA, 20MHz of TDD spectrum has been auctioned against 2x5MHz in 3G, clearly allowing operators to launch much more data-intensive services, target many more subscribers with the similar level of network deployment as compared with 3G, ceteris paribus. Further, there were 11 bidders for two slots of BWA spectrum against nine bidders competing for three slots in the case of 3G.
Other factors such as alternate uses of the spectrum like deployment of TD-LTE, deployment of voice, etc, could have also contributed to the high bidding intensity leading to high bid prices. Though the eco-system for TD LTE is at least two years away, winners are widely expected to use India as a large test market which could provide it sufficient scale and hence lower device costs for further deployment in global markets. For a change, India could be in a position to drive change in the global telecom eco-system.
However, operators might have weighed in a couple of factors, which could have affected the bid prices negatively. The lack of an adequate and mature eco-system for hand-held based WiMax devices is the main one. As a result, the target market for WiMax is constrained to the PC/laptop population, at least initially (as compared with relatively medium to high-end subscribers in 3G with much higher scale).
As anticipated, post the end of the 3G auctions, operators who successfully bid in multiple circles have been less aggressive in the BWA auctions. Quite like in 3G, the price of BWA spectrum has gone way beyond what most analysts had predicted. As a result, operators are likely to price services high to ensure returns. However, that could result in slower adoption of services among the masses. Therefore, operators will have to finely tread this thin line. That could be critical for BWA to take off in a big way in India.
What BWA spectrum will do is enable India to move to the next level of broadband growth. Operators will be in a position to provide high-speed mobile data. The spectrum provides the ability to deliver quality knowledge content, e-governance, e-commerce and telemedicine services at affordable costs to people across the country. The digital dividend through broadband growth will help transform India into a global hub for telecom, media and Internet services.
-
SSTL is planning to launch EVDO enabled smart phones in the Indian market within a few weeks. “We are talking to almost all the big brands to bring in variety in handsets,” Rozanov said.
-
http://www.sakaaltimes.com/SakaalTimesBeta/20100528/4952124951197941098.htm
Following the auction of spectrum for GSM mobile service providers, government of India is likely to undertake a similar exercise for releasing spectrum to CDMA service providers.
Recently, the country witnessed first 3G spectrum auction for GSM service providers. The availability of spectrum will enable mobile operators to provide new services like TV on mobile, games, and music, while also improving voice quality and reducing call drops.
“Currently, we are offering second generation (2G) services, which are on par with 3G service. But like GSM operators, we too are looking at further upgrading our services, for which we have to migrate to next generation technology, which is 3G. We are in talks with the government. We expect that a similar auction of spectrum for CDMA operators will happen in next six months to one year,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Sistema Shyam Tele Services Limited (SSTL) T Narasimhan told Sakal Times.
SSTL, a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and the Shyam Group of India owns the CDMA mobile telephony brand MTS.
The government has earned Rs 67,719 crore as its share of the revenue from the spectrum bid. In all, 71 3G slots were allocated over 22 telecom divisions in the country. However, Narasimhan said that for CDMA spectrum auction, the government may not earn such high amount.
“The CDMA players are much lesser in number than GSM players, the number of bidders will be very less. This in turn may result in lesser revenues for the government. However, everything depends upon the spectrum available. We will go for very high speed services up to 7 mbps,” he said.
The availability of more spectrum for CDMA players not only means enhanced services, but also saving more capital expenditure.
“CDMA by its definition is better spectrum efficient technology. In case of data card, 2G GSM can't give more than 200 kbps speed, hence the user will not get broadband experience. CDMA 2G speed is 3.1 mbps. After availability of spectrum, GSM downloading speed can go up to 5 mbps. CDMA speed can reach up to 7 mbps. So the CDMA players will always have an upper edge over GSM service providers,” Chief Operating Officer of Mumbai, Maharashtra and Goa, SSTL, Suubodh Kumar Srivastava said.
GOING HIGH
Shrivastata said that the CDMA players are currently operating on 800 Mhz bandwidth and are looking at functioning at 1900 Mhz after release of spectrum
-
^
coz since 2003 all the telecom ministers hapeend to be from TN
@hitesh
idea was not a pan india operator ..in that sense
-
@Hitesh
videocon network varies between good to worse
among newcomers idea, uninor, MTS are good in Chennai urban area
-
i had the experience with kshah who was putting into practice what he was preaching above.Kudos to KShah and for Dhiraj for raising this issue.My vote was for 1st option
Television Orders - TRAI
in Indian Telecom / General News
Posted · Report reply
@kesav
Broadcasters are planning for court room rather than our drawing rooms
(media reports i have read make me belive so)