Nokia Networks signs 12 telecom deals in India in 1H 2014

Nokia networks today said it has signed 12 telecom deals in India during the first half of 2014. During the same period last year, the company had signed 9 telecom infrastructure deals.It is believed that Nokia Networks has signed a 4G deal with Reliance Jio. However, Nokia Networks officials did not confirm the details.

Sandeep Girotra, head- India region, Nokia Networks, said, “We are engaged with Reliance Jio and other operators. However, we cannot confirm about any such deals.”

“Indian telecom market is reviving thanks to a stable government . we are seeing significant investments in mobile broadband by telecom operators,” Girotra added.

Virotra welcomed spectrum sharing recommendations by telecom regulator TRAI.

“spectrum sharing is a welcome stage. These are initial stages. Spectrum sharing will improve the business conditions of mobile operators. However, we are concerned about preferential market access guidelines. We are also concerned about 10 percent levy imposed on certain telecom equipment. This will be a blow on capex plans of operators,” he added.

Nokia Networks last week said its second quarter sales dipped around 7 percent to €2.6 billion.

Net sales in mobile broadband business unit rose 6 percent year-on-year. This performance was driven by strong sales not just in LTE, but also by double-digit growth in core sales.

Last week, Rajeev Suri, president and chief executive officer, Nokia, said: “We still have work to do to get global services back to growth after our many contract exits during the last two years.”

Nokia Networks has won 10 new managed services deals this year.

On a regional level, two out of our six regions, Asia-Pacific and Greater China, were back to year-on-year growth, and all regions grew sequentially.

“The large LTE rollouts in China are proceeding well for us. Europe, which has been a difficult region for us, declined year-on-year.

North America was largely between major rollouts, though Sprint deployment activities are likely to accelerate in coming quarters.

Nokia Networks posted declines in the Middle East and Africa. However, its telecom deal momentum in the region has strengthened significantly. Latin America remains its most challenging region, partly a result of regulatory changes in Mexico, but also partly due to our earlier overreliance on services in the region and high impact of exits from those projects during our transformation.

Source: Telecomlead

DoT to dial DeiTY to prepare cloud roadmap for government

The telecom department will shortly dial the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeiTY), and not the sector regulator, to formulate a cloud services deployment roadmap for all government organisations.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had initially mandated the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to send recommendations for migrating computing and data storage functions of government organisations to the cloud platform, but is now likely to approach DeiTY, according to an internal DoT note seen by ET. The electronics and IT department is already involved in running cloud services applications with the Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu governments.

The move comes at a time when companies are swiftly migrating core enterprise applications, sales & distribution, financial accounting functions and CRM systems to the cloud platform, by renting server space instead of using their own to unlock efficiencies in processing and data storage, and in turn, reduce costs.

"All government departments are being encouraged to adopt the cloud platform for their e-governance projects initially as part of its MeghRaj, or GI Cloud, initiative," a senior DeiTY official said. The objective, he said, is to step up IT adoption in government and enable it to partner with private technology players to develop India as a global hub for delivering cloud solutions.

DeiTY is also developing a national data centre that will be a repository of e-governance apps.

DeiTY's endeavour to migrate the functions to the cloud platform is also aimed at leveraging cloud computing to deliver affordable e-services, accessed over the Internet. Such e-services could relate to public distribution system and land records and e-health to e-education, although DeiTY has yet to notify the details.

"Implementation of strategies for cloud services in government organisations may not be included in Trai's final recommendations on introduction of cloud-based services in India since the matter is being dealt by DeiTY," the note said. DoT is slated to send an official communication to Trai in this matter.

Indications are that DieTY will come up with recommendations to build secure state-owned data centres, a key element of cloud computing infrastructure. It also likely to suggest ways to overcome data security challenges thrown up by dismal power infrastructure.

Research firm Gartner in a recent forecast predicted that some $4.2 billion would be spent on cloud services in India over the next five years. This is since small enterprises, especially those which are keen on renting computing services rather than directly buying and owning it, would opt for the cloud platform.

Source: ET

GSM operators to coax the Department of Telecommunications to release 1800 MHZ spectrum

GSM operators will soon coax the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to release bulk of 1800 MHz band airwave holdings that will be available with the government in the next auction as they fear "there isn't adequate fall-back spectrum in this frequency band" for incumbents Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications if they can't win back their 900 MHz spectrum in non-metro circles, post expiry of their permits over the next two years. 

GSM operators also want DoT to free up all unused 1800 MHz spectrum with multiple government agencies as licences on only 26 MHz of airwaves in the 1800 MHz band will expire over the next couple of years. 

Some 104 MHz or 'units' of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band is slated to be available in the upcoming auctions, including the 78 MHz left unsold in the February airwaves sale. 

Unlike the February auction when GSM operators in the metros had enough 1800 MHz spectrum to fall back on if they failed to retain their 900 MHz holdings, the situation will be "very different in the ensuing battle for 900 MHz airwaves in non-metro circles, since there isn't enough back-up 1800 MHz spectrum for telcos failing to win back their 900 MHz holdings," a top executive of a noted GSM carrier told ET. Atotal 184 units of spectrum in the 900 MHz band will come up for renewal post-licence expiry over 2015-16. 

The stakes are huge as market leader Bharti Airtel has 900 MHz holdings in 13 non-metro circles, of which six expire by April 2016. Vodafone India, in turn, has the same premium bandwidth in nine nonmetro service areas, and seven of these will need to be bought back. Idea faces an even stiffer challenge as it will have to win back its efficient 900 MHz airwaves in nine nonmetro circles while the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications has to buy back 900 MHz spectrum in seven non-metro circles once these permits expire in December 2015. 

"There's clearly insufficient spectrum for operators whose licences are due for extension to continue their current level of service, which is why, we will urge DoT to auction bulk of the 1800 MHz spectrum inventory with multiple government agencies, including the armed forces," said another executive familiar with the matter. 

Indications are Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the trade body representing GSM carriers like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, will shortly approach DoT secretary Rakesh Garg in this light. 

The COAI is also likely to urge DoT to reshuffle existing 1800 MHz spectrum to make more contiguous or "continuous" bandwidth available to enable delivery of mobile broadband services like 4G. 

At present, only eight contiguous blocks of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band are available in a total four out of India's 22 circles. 

"Though a unified licence allows a telco to offer 4G data services on 1800 MHz frequencies, such spectrum cannot support mobile broadband in India's biggest telecom markets like Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, UP-East and UP-West as it is non-contiguous. Continuous or 'contiguous' spectrum in the 1800 MHz band is available only in Kolkata, Orissa, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu. In the other circles, it is fragmented and can at best be used for 2G services," said the GSM carrier executive quoted above.

Source: ET

Department of Telecommunications may use TRAI's data to reach uncovered areas

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) will shortly ask the sector regulator to determine which areas remain outside mobile coverage ahead of the next spectrum auction.

It's likely to use the data collated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to design the next airwaves sale more effectively, especially with regard to rural rollout obligations for spectrum winners, a top official aware of the matter told ET.

DoT plans to use Trai's inputs to measure India's "unique mobile subscriber" penetration and also review the effectiveness of existing telco rollout obligations. It is keen to quantify unique subscribers as the "number of mobile connections" can be a misleading indicator of penetration since a subscriber can have multiple SIM cards.

Moves to address the issue could also mean mobile service providers having to step up investment, which would add to the pressure on finances at companies already burdened by high spectrum costs and having to keep tariffs low because of competition.

Trai's assessment of gaps in coverage will exclude the northeastern circles, where it has already concluded that some 9,000 villages have no mobile connectivity. The exercise comes at a time when sections within DoT have voiced concern about India's "very modest 40% rural tele-density levels".

The National Telecom Policy 2012 seeks to increase India's 40% rural tele-density levels to 70% by 2017 and 100% by 2020. Accordingly, the possibility of telcos being asked to meet 80-100% of their rural tele-density targets within defined timelines as part of their contractual obligations is not being ruled out.

Trai's inputs may prove handy in designing the next round of spectrum auctions, said Mahesh Uppal, director of Com First (India) — a consultancy dealing in telecom regulatory affairs.

"Accurate and robust data will be invaluable to estimate India's rural mobile coverage. It can also be useful for designing future auctions as it will help specify realistic rollout obligations for telcos that win spectrum through those auctions," he said.

DoT is learnt to have internally estimated that there are nearly "40,000 uncovered villages" across India (excluding those in the Northeast) and the cost of provisioning 2G coverage in these regions would be upwards of Rs 11,000 crore, a departmental official said.

Source: ET

Trai open to spectrum leasing, says Khullar

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has not shut the door on spectrum leasing and is open to allowing it. However, it first wants to see how spectrum trading and sharing, for which guidelines have been issued but not yet approved by the government, is implemented and the experience arising out of them. Only then would the matter of spectrum leasing be taken up.

In an interview with FE, Trai chairman Rahul Khullar said, “I have not closed the door on spectrum leasing. But first let’s see how spectrum trading and sharing take off. Let the government first approve them so that we can see how they take off. Once the experience of their implementation and roll out is there, we would certainly look at spectrum leasing also.”
The guidelines for spectrum sharing was unveiled by Trai on Monday while those for trading were released in January. While it is still early for the department of telecommunications to decide on sharing, it has dilly-dallied on taking a decision on spectrum trading thus far. Under spectrum trading, outright transfer of spectrum is allowed, which means that the ownership of the usage right is transferred to the buyer. Once implemented, if any operator feels it has spectrum it cannot utilise properly, it can sell it to another operator after paying a marginal charge to the government. Under sharing, Trai has allowed two operators to pool together their spectrum to create greater efficiency.

However, operators feel that leasing, which has not been recommended by Trai till now, would be the best option to ease the spectrum crunch they face. Under it, the ownership would vest with the operator to whom it has been assigned but if its utilisation rate is poor, it can lease it to another operator on rental charges and take it back once it finds a need for it. This way operators whose active subscriber base is low — say 50-60% — can lease the airwaves to bigger operators with over 90% utilisation and earn revenues. It would be a win-win situation for both.

Khullar also said that operators who are upset that inter-band spectrum sharing has not been allowed — this means that operators can only share spectrum in a particular band like 800 or 1800 MHz — should wait for some more months by when the regulator would come out with the guidelines for MVNO operations.
“I could not have allowed inter-band sharing at this point of time as it would have meant allowing mobile virtual network operators, which is not allowed under the telecom policy. But a couple of months down the line we would issue recommendations on MVNO and then the matter of inter-band sharing would get addressed,” Khullar said.
MVNOs are not licensed operators but buy bulk airtime from licensed players and retail them to the consumers.

Khullar said that the caps on spectrum holding on operators could not be lifted in case of sharing or trading because the regulator cannot breach policy guidelines. However, for the purposes of calculation he has relaxed it in the case of sharing. The cap lays down that operators cannot have more than 25% of total spectrum assigned in a circle or 50% in a given band. However, Trai has said that in case operators share, only 50% of shared spectrum would be counted as additional.
On the 0.5% additional spectrum usage charge on shared spectrum, Khullar said, “I wanted to put in place a clear road map on SUC. Suggesting no additional SUC would not have been acceptable to the government and it could have levied a higher charge as was done in an earlier proposal.”
Similarly, the Trai chairman said that he did not allow intra-circle roaming for 3G services since the government has taken a policy decision for not allowing any such pacts.

Source: FE

Mobile services market in India to be $19.2 bn in 2014: Gartner

The number of mobile connections in India is expected to grow by 8 percent to touch 815 million this year, even as the market is expected to remain at almost the same level as last year - at USD 19.2 billion, research firm Gartner said.

The mobile user base is expected to grow to 815 million this year, from 755 million connections in 2013, it said.

"The mobile market in India is going through a rough patch, where voice average revenue per user (ARPU) is falling very fast, and the increase in data ARPU is not able to fully compensate for the decline," 

Gartner Senior Research Analyst Neha Gupta said in a statement.

She added that if the prevailing market conditions do not change in the Indian mobile market, India will account for 12 percent worldwide mobile connections.

However, the country will account for just 2 percent of worldwide mobile services revenue, she said.

Gartner said one of the biggest challenges faced by Indian mobile operators is the growing appetite for over-the-top (OTT) voice services, driven by the explosion in personal connected devices like smartphones and tablets.

"Mobile broadband provides a substantial revenue opportunity in India on the back of low fixed line broadband penetration. Packing and selling mobile broadband in small and affordable chunks is critical to uptake," Gupta said.

Another area of opportunity, according to Gartner, is focusing on innovative mobile apps that help increase loyalty of the consumer.

"These could go beyond the popular category of social and video apps to include utility apps like shopping apps. Apps that can provide high user-experience on low tech phones are likely to have higher traction than others," Gartner said.

Operators that engage with popular content and service brands and bundle their apps and services with their data plans will drive consumer interest in mobile broadband, it added.

As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, there were 910.16 million mobile phones, and 938.34 telecom service (including landlines) users in India at the end of May 2014.

Active wireless subscribers on the date of Peak VLR in May, 2014 were 790.52 million, it added. 

Source: Zee News

Spectrum norms to ward off CAG terror

Trai's guidelines on spectrum-sharing mark an improvement on the current state of affairs but fall far short of what is desirable. 

They impose all kinds of arbitrary restrictions that limit utilisation of spectrum far below what technology and commercial conduct permit. This is unfortunate. 

India started off by offering operators tiny slivers of spectrum that did not allow optimal network design. Operators have had to carry out excessive investment to service their growing customer base because of this scarcity of the raw material of telecom. Yet, thanks to the policy of making spectrum available with minimal upfront costs, till the auctions started, and intense competition among a large number of licensees, consumers got some of the cheapest tariffs in the world. 

The common good lies in regulation and licensing terms encouraging, not blocking, evolution of services to the latest technology platforms and business models that incorporate available technological possibilities. It is against this requirement that we have to measure the Trai regulations and government policy. And the latest sharing guidelines fall far short. Why not allow sharing among more than two operators? Why insist that an operator would not be able to share spectrum in a band that it did not possess prior to sharing? Why limit the kind of services that any operator can provide using shared spectrum? After all, the government only needs to ensure that it does not lose any revenue as a result of companies pooling their spectrum resources. 

What Trai and the department of telecom are doing is, in everyday parlance, covering their backside. Maximising the common good is far from their topmost objective. They want to guard against being accused of causing notional revenue loss. It's time they stopped fearing CAG ghosts

Source: ET

Indians spend over 3 hrs daily on smartphones: Study

Smartphone users in the country are among the biggest consumers of data globally, spending over three hours on an average on their devices, a study by telecom equipment maker Ericsson today said.

According to the study, Indian users spend three hours 18 minutes on average everyday with their smartphones, of which one-third time is spent on apps.

Also, there has been a 63 per cent increase in app usage in the past two years, the study added.

Seventy-six per cent of existing mobile broadband users (respondents) said they are willing to pay more for guaranteed better mobile data experience.

"India has higher smartphone usage compared to even the US, where the average is 132 minutes (2 hours 12 minutes). In some of the Asian countries, it ranges between 40-50 minutes," Ericsson India Vice President (Strategy and Marketing) Ajay Gupta told reporters here.

The study found respondents saying they checked their phones 77 times a day on an average, with about 26 per cent saying they do so more than 100 times a day.

"Smartphone usage is now no longer limited to just social media and chat apps. People are using mobile apps like WhatsApp and WeChat for business purposes, while many working professionals said they shop online using smartphones even while at work," he said.

The Ericsson Consumer Lab study was conducted among 4,000 smartphone users across 18 urban cities in India.Video consumption on mobile devices is on the rise, with 40 per cent respondents saying they watched videos late at night in bed, 25 per cent while commuting, 23 per cent while having dinner and 20 per cent said they watched videos while shopping.

The report also found 12 per cent of housewives saying they use smartphones as portable video players, while somebody else in the family watched television. Another 10 per cent said they watch spiritual videos at the start of their day.

"These are interesting insights that telecom operators can use to design data packages for consumers," he said. The report also found that network performance shaped smartphone behavior and satisfied users spent more time streaming videos and browsing.

About 68 per cent of all mobile minutes on the smartphone are at home, the study said adding that half of all mobile broadband issues faced by users occured while they are indoors.

"Network performance and app coverage are the critical areas of focus for mobile operators. We are focussed on bringing solutions and global experience from leading markets to operators in India to deliver optimal consumer experience in sync with the growing needs of consumers," Ericsson India VP (Engagement Practices) Nishant Batra said.

Ericsson will bring its DOT solution to India in the fourth quarter of this year (October-December) to help them deliver better indoor coverage to operators.

Source: ET

Reliance Jio Infocomm finalises vendors, partners for 4G launch

Reliance Industries said its telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm has finalized key vendors and suppliers required for launch of its telecom services.

“RJIL has finalized the key vendor and supplier partnerships that are required for the launch of our services, and is making rapid progress in building the critical infrastructure needed to launch its services,” the company said in a statement. RJIL has announced it will commercially launch 4G services in 2015 which entails investments of Rs 70,000 crore. RIL promoted RJIL holds pan-India broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum that can be used for 4G services. The company had acquired it through auction for Rs 12,847.77.

The company also acquired spectrum in 1800 Mhz band, widely known as 2G spectrum, for Rs 11,054.41 crore in February across 14 out of 22 service areas in the country. RIL said: “In addition to fixed and wireless broadband connectivity, RJIL also plans to enable end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains of national interest such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.” RJIL now has 10,000 full time employees who are working with 30,000 professionals of its vendors and partners for rolling out telecom services, it said.

“In addition, there are over one lakh people working across the country in creating the digital infrastructure backbone for this network,” RIL said. The company has entered into an agreement with various telecom companies including Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel, America Tower Company, Tower Vision and Ascend Telecom for sharing of their infrastructure for rolling out its 4G services. RJIL through various agreements now has access to about 1,92,500 mobile towers across India

Source: BGR

DoT proposes rebate in licence fee for mobile operators running towers on green energy

A telecom department (DoT) panel has recommended graded licence fee rebates of 1%, 2% and 3% for mobile operators who run 20%, 35% and 50% of their towers on green energy, according to an internal note seen by ET. 

If approved, the rebates will become effective "in the financial year subsequent to the year" of a telco meeting these "green tower conversion" targets. At present, telcos shell out 8% of their annual revenue as licence fee. 

The recommendation is among a slew of incentives that the government is considering to encourage telcos and tower firms to meet DoT's stiff go-green targets. 

The DoT panel has been mulling performance-based incentives to telecom companies that deploy renewable energy technology (RET) or 'green' solutions in running their towers, and in turn, reduce diesel consumption. More so, since it has suggested that all tower installations built post-2013-14 must ensure that the "back-up energy source to grid power is based on an RET solution and not diesel. 

The objective is to encourage green energy deployment in telecom tower installations, which currently run largely on diesel in absence of grid support. A graded licence fee rebate mechanism has been suggested to help cross-subsidise telco investments since the initial cost of harnessing green energy is huge. 

The DoT panel has also advocated "uninterrupted power consumer" status for telcos to avail of the benefits of uniform preferential tariffs, especially since telecommunications is a critical infrastructure sector contributing to economic growth. 

At recent meetings, telcos have told DoT that they can ill afford the huge expenses needed to set up capacity to generate alternate sources of energy such as solar, fuel cells or wind in order to meet the government's green targets unveiled over two years ago. 

DoT's green policy requires telecom companies to migrate 50% of all mobile towers in rural areas and 20% in urban areas to hybrid power by 2015. Hybrid power has been defined as a mix of grid supplies and renewable energy based on solar, wind, biomass or fuel cells. 

The target will get more stringent by 2020, when operators will need to run 75% of cell towers in rural and 33% in urban zones on hybrid supplies.

Source: ET

Xiaomi dialing India for new world of growth

Xiaomi Corp, a company known for its aggressive pricing strategies, on Tuesday became the latest Chinese smartphone maker to debut its products in India.

The privately owned company expects its products to be popular with customers in the fastest-growing telecom market in the Asia-Pacific region.

Xiaomi, based in Beijing, is selling its flagship phones through Flipkart, an Indian online electronics marketplace. The company did not disclose its sales target.

Hugo Barra, Xiaomi's vice-president in charge of international business, told reporters in Mumbai that the Chinese phone producer is planning to build an India-focused ecosystem rather than earning profits.

Nicole Peng, research director of market data firm Canalys China, said that Xiaomi has gained a lot of attention in the Western media during past 12 months. "This has helped Xiaomi gain greater consumer traction in overseas markets—an important first step."

Overseas markets have often proved to be a vastly different and often challenging playing field for Chinese companies, Peng said, adding that it is important for Xiaomi and other Chinese vendors to put investment "in the right places" such as channel building, patents, supply and inventory.

"We understand that Xiaomi is making progress in all these areas, but it is still too early to judge its overseas strategy," said Peng.

Xiaomi sold more than 26 million smartphones in the first half of this year, a year-on-year growth of 271 percent, the company said earlier this month. Most of the devices were sold in China, although it said it would expand into Singapore, Brazil and Mexico.

Xiaomi is scheduled to unveil its next-generation flagship smartphone on Tuesday. The gadget, likely to be named Xiaomi 4, will feature a metal case for the first time.

Chinese smartphone makers like Lenovo Group Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd entered the Indian market more than two years ago and are still striving to boost their market shares.

Samsung Electronics Co led the Indian smartphone market with more than a one-third market share in the first quarter, according to global consultancy firm IDC. Three Indian vendors—that are not known much outside the country—took a quarter of the share.

Chinese firms, however, are pinning big hopes on growth in the second-most-populous country because of the rapidly surging demand. About 17.6 million smartphones were sold in India from January to March, representing a whopping 186 percent year-on-year jump, according to IDC. The increase was the fastest across the Asia-Pacific region.

Cedar Zhang, marketing director at vivo Communication Technology Co Ltd's India arm, said that the sales channel in India is less sophisticated than that in China. "Most of the devices sold in India are not bundled with telecom carriers. This is a major reason why the Indian market is appealing to most Chinese firms."

The Guangdong-headquartered vivo is set to launch its products in India soon.

In addition, India, being an English-speaking country with an open mobile phone market, could also help Chinese companies to gain marketing and operating experience for future overseas expansion, said Zhang from vivo.

Chinese manufacturers' going global attempts are also part of their efforts to offset slowing smartphone shipments within China. Profit margins for local companies are shrinking rapidly as most of the devices they sell are in the highly competitive middle and low-end segment.

Analysts said that Chinese brands are better off in emerging markets as competition in developed markets has become intense. Telecom carriers in developed markets invest heavily in subsiding top-tier brands such as Samsung and Apple Inc, leaving limited space for smaller companies.

Source: ecns.cn

Reliance Jio's Digital Services Strategy to Spur its 4G Rollout for Entire India

A newcomer to India's telecom scene, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) which is part of the Reliance Industries, in a recent statement, unveiled its 4G Services plans for the country. Reliance Jio holds pan-India 4G license which gives it access to 1.27 billion people across India. 

Reliance Jio announced last month that it will be investing Rupees 70,000 for the rollout, which will be carried out in a few phases throughout 2015. The rollout will see multiple service offerings to subscribers in the country, including a host of digital services which span video, music, mobile payments and VoLTE. Mobile video content is one segment with high expected growth in India, given the amount of rich content produced and consumed in the country. 4G will play a significant role in influencing how rich content is accessed, with smart mobile devices increasing their share as streaming devices especially among the younger user groups.

Some of the services planned for rollout include the Jio Play which enables live TV streaming, Jio World which enables Video-on-Demand and Jio Drive which provides 100 GB free online storage. Reliance Jio also said that its customers will be able to access mobile content on their television via special appliance that will be provided to all subscribers. The rollout will start with the 5000 towns and cities and will later be expanded to the rural areas. 

4G Services in India are currently offered by leading telecom operator in India, Bharti Airtel.

Source: policychargingcontrol

Telecom Industry Looking For More Spectrum: COAI

The telecom industry is hopeful the government would release more spectrum for better growth of voice and data services in the country, industry body Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI)'s newly-elected chairman Marten Pieters said Monday.

Pieters, the Vodafone India CEO and MD, said the industry is looking forward for more spectrum as in India, the spectrum holding by the telecom service providers is really low compared to many other nations.

"In some countries the average spectrum holding is 50 to 100 Mhz, whereas in India it is 30 MHz on an average. In India we are far away from that. We need more spectrum," Pieters said in his address after being elected to head COAI, which represents six of the largest mobile service operators of the country, for 2014-15.

"We recommend early release of 2,100 MHz bands for better growth of data services in the country," he added.

Regarding release of 700 MHz, which will help in 4G LTE roll out in the country, he said: "Any spectrum is welcome. But development of handsets will take some time. It is better that the government makes more 3G spectrum available because that is where the market is."

Bharti Airtel's CEO and MD (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal has been elected as the vice chairman of COAI, . 

Regarding the future of the telecom industry, Pieters said it will depend on a few key aspects like reasonable pricing of spectrum, availability and affordability of smartphones, power and tower availability and customer attrition depending on tariffs.

About the electric and magnetic field (EMF) radiation and its side effects, he said the industry stakeholders would like equal government participation to reassure people that the radiation does not have any bad effects on health.

On the new government and the industry expectations, Pieters said the industry will forward to "development oriented policy regime" from the new government.

Source: New Indian Express

The world of mobile Internet for investors

In investing, it pays to separate the signal from the noise. At a time when the media is full of budget-related hype, it may be rewarding to look at some of the longer term trends out there. One such trend is in the mobile telephony and Internet access space. Let us look at some of the facts and try to gain some perspective from them. 

• Incumbent mobile phone companies are looking at 2G and 3G data as the next drivers for revenue generation. • Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has announced a Rs.70,000 crore investment plan for 4G Internet services. • Google Inc. has announced the launch of smartphones called Android One in partnership with manufacturers where the cost will be less than Rs.6,000.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi has plans to create a broadband highway. 

• Rajan Anandan of Google India mentioned that Flipkart sells more electronics than all the Croma stores pan-India put together.

 • A journalist with a business daily when questioned about the shrinking stock market pages in the daily replied to me, “Who checks stock prices in the newspapers anyway?”

 • IRCTC, or Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd, is the biggest e-commerce site in the Asia-Pacific region. It transacted revenue of Rs.9,498 crore in 2011-12 and the number of tickets sold that year were 1.16 billion. The numbers would have only grown since then. 

• This blog post itself will appear online. The readership of this post will depend upon whether it is interesting enough to spark sharing and comments on social media. It will not appear in print at all. 

• The Web is no longer about English. One can use a variety of Indian languages on sites and apps like Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. These facts have serious implications for investors. One has to just look at what has happened in the Western world to understand the implications. 

• Media will see dramatic changes. Newspapers may see an increasing proportion of readership coming online as compared to the print medium. • Advertising will change dramatically. Job ads could move to job portals, ditto with matrimonial ads. Classifieds could move to sites such as Olx, Quikr and others. Newspapers will have to learn to live with lower print advertising. 

• FM radio could be under threat. The new radio is an app on the phone which streams customized music, and not an FM channel. We already have plenty of these—Savnn and Hungama being examples.

 • With set-top boxes providing recording facility, live television viewing could get restricted to news and sports categories. Television serials and movies will increasingly get recorded and viewed later. A corollary is that ads will be skipped and not watched. People may also stream these programmes over the Internet rather than watch it through the cable or DTH provider. 

• The big battle between kirana and traditional shops on one end and modern, organized retailers at the other end will get more intense with the entry of a third segment, namely e-commerce players.

 • Credit and debit card usage and business volumes of logistics companies will see a huge upswing.

Source: Livemint

Gearing up for next generation of telecom reforms

The intrinsic promise in the slogan, achhe din aane wale hain, is a commitment towards higher growth, stable inflation and jobs. Services sector has to fire at higher levels to meet the government GDP growth target of 5.9%, up from less than 5% levels seen in last two financial years. 

The telecom sector has to return to its vibrant state to meet the PM’s vision of accelerated infrastructure development in both urban and rural areas. With a mere 64% overall telecom penetration, the country needs to sustain the momentum of telecom investment in rural voice telephony to tap the bottom-of-pyramid market, around 300-350 million unconnected Indians.

With the Prime Minister’s desire to build robust & high capacity ‘I-Ways’ to support the growth of high speed mobile broadband and meet the plan for rural internet and e-governance, the government in a coordination with the DoT, defence and finance ministries has to identify larger quantum of spectrum to meet country’s data capacity growth projections from current 50 Petabytes per month to 500 Petabytes per month in next three years.

The telecom sector is at present is facing financial stress. The sector would need a push from the finance minister to attract fresh investments. Mobility is no more about privileged access, but is an essential infrastructure service.

The sector is committed to participate in ensuring stable inflation and offer the world’s lowest voice & mobile data tariff. But the consumer suffers with the highest duty & levies amounting to 22-26% (including service tax, licence fees, spectrum usage charges). The industry was looking forward to announcement of lower taxes and, thus, is surprised with the introduction of additional 10% customs duty on mobile infrastructure equipment. As operators, we welcome the intent to encourage telecom equipment manufacturing in the country, but the government need to focus on technology transfer and skill development rather than raise cost of mobile investments in the country.

Source: FE

Economic Survey 2014: Need for better policy management to lower spectrum cost

The government needs better policies for managing airwaves used for mobile communication and bringing down its cost, according to the Economic Survey tabled in the Parliament Wednesday. 

"To start with, policy for better spectrum management through trading and sharing of spectrum needs to be looked into so as to bring down the cost of spectrum," the pre-Budget survey noted. While India has in-principle approved sharing and trading of airwaves, the telecom department is yet to announce final norms for carriers. The sector has been urging an early implementation of the two policies. 

While sharing allows optimum use of the scarce natural resource and possibly reduce bidding amounts in future auctions, trading allows operators to sell airwaves that they aren't utilising. 

This offers another exit route for a struggling operator apart from an M&A deal. The present base price for buying voice and data airwaves in 1800 Mhz band through auction is Rs 1,765 crore per unit, several times higher than Rs 1,658 crore for mobile permit in 2001, which came bundled with 4.4 units of start-up spectrum.

Also, the final price of Rs 37,572.60 crore received in the February auctions for the 1800 Mhz band was double the total value of spectrum put for auction at base price. 

The Economic Survey added that better spectrum management, "may also pave the way for a liberal merger and acquisition policy as has been demanded by stakeholders from time to time." M&A guidelines were issued early this year but clause in particular has been heavily panned by the industry. The clause says a buyer will have to pay the market price for administratively allocated spectrum, save the license fee of Rs 1,658 crore. 

Till date only one deal - Bharti Airtel acquiring some assets of Loop Mobile - has been inked, which awaits government approval. Apart from strengthening national fibre optic network ( NOFN) and creating nationwide mobile number portability ( MNP), the Survey called for easing entry and exit rules for which telecom networking and services must be separated.

Source: ET

RJio offers ‘foolproof’ system to segregate 4G revenues

Reliance Jio has told the Department of Telecom that it was prepared to offer a ‘foolproof’ mechanism to separate revenues from 4G services on different spectrum bands.

RJio has said that it will give a quarterly report giving details of revenues earned from 2300 MHz and 1800 MHz bands separately.

Real time info

The company said that unlike legacy telecom networks, latest 4G systems allow it to give real time flow of charging information with clear identification of spectrum used for each transaction. RJio has offered to demonstrate its capabilities to DoT to assure that there was no scope of revenue leakage.

“The revenue segregation mechanism implemented by RJIL is simple, foolproof, free from tampering by the operator and captures the detailed usage and charging information along with spectrum-wise demarcation for each service,” the company said in a letter to DoT. A technical committee of the Department of Telecom had earlier said that an audit mechanism must be set up to ensure that 4G operators such as Reliance Jio correctly segregate revenues earned from broadband spectrum (2300 MHz) and other frequency bands.

The committee said the process to separate revenue between spectrum bands could be a complex task requiring constant audit and monitoring by the Government.

The committee has also listed at least eight instances where revenues earned by operators cannot be segregated at all.

They include revenue from value-added services, unused vouchers and bundled/combo tariff plans.

Huge ramification

Even where income earned on different spectrum bands can be separated, DoT will have to put in place a tamper-proof mechanism to ensure that the operators are not taking advantage of the arbitrage, the report said.

The report has huge ramifications for operators such as Reliance Jio, which has a mix of spectrum in the 2300 MHz and 1800 MHz bands. Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have argued that it was possible to separate all revenue earned from the 2300 MHz band and other frequency bands.

This is important because broadband operators such as RJio have been allowed to pay a lower spectrum usage charge of 1 per cent of the annual revenue earned from services offered on the 2300 MHz band compared to an average of 5 per cent for other spectrum bands. The DoT panel is worried that a player may load up higher revenues on the 2300 MHz band to take advantage of the lower spectrum usage charge.

For example, if RJio offers 4G services using both 2300 MHz and the 1800 MHz bands, the DoT would want to know the exact income the company earned for each band. RJio has said since it knew that it had to segregate revenues it has deployed technology that enables it to do so. DoT had not allowed a similar plea from 3G operators in 2010 because the network then was not intelligent enough to make distinction between various spectrum bands.

Guidelines needed

Though the panel has not disallowed RJio’s case, it said that to make this separation reliable and tamper proof, DoT should come out with a clear set of guidelines specifying what needs to be done at the network level.

But the worry for RJio could be on those services where the panel has ruled out revenue separation.

Value-added services, for example, are touted to be one of the biggest revenue earners for 4G companies.

It has suggested that DoT could charge a higher revenue share on such services. RJio has, however, countered this saying that it can separate revenues even in the case of bundled tariffs.

The panel’s report will be now be considered by DoT, which will make its own set of proposals to the Telecom Commission for a final view on the matter.

Source: HBL

Reliance Jio Infocomm, Videocon Telecom sign deal for faster, affordable services

 Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed an agreement to share 500 towers of Videocon Telecom in UP(W), UP(E), Bihar and Jharkhand, as the Mukesh Ambani-owned company aims to roll out its high speed data and voice services faster and at a lower cost across India.

Videocon Telecom managing director Arvind Bali said that the telco plans to deploy 6,000 additional towers within a year for rolling out its 4G services, which may also be shared with Reliance Jio going forward. The company will also explore additional tie ups with the unit of Reliance Industries for 4G network sharing, optical fibre network sharing, internet broadband services and other mutually conducive opportunities, Bali added.

Source: ET

Rel Jio to start 4G trials by August; launch likely next year

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd will start full-fledged trials of 4G services across major cities in India from next month, before its expected launch of commercial service March-April 2015.

The telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s largest  private sector company by market capitalisation, aims to offer high-speed broadband services, estimated to be more than 30 mega bits per second (mbps).

 At a speed greater than or equal to 25 Mbps and less than 50 Mbps, a consumer download experience would be: 500-page book: 0.2 seconds; 4-minute song: 0.6 seconds and a movie DVD: 16 minutes.

An email to the Reliance spokesperson seeking details of the trials and the launch did not elicit a response till the time of going to press.

Reliance Jio had demonstrated a broadband speed of 49 Mbps at IIT Mumbai early this year. During trials, users would be able to enjoy such high speeds both on fixed and mobile broadband services.

According to an internal presentation, the company will work on an intelligent service platform with real-time analytics — one that is flexible to respond to new service models and which supports innovation.

“We have set ourselves a challenge to tap all the possible digital opportunities before the commercial launch,” a source in the company working on the roll out of trial service said.

The company is also in final stages of discussion with stakeholders to identify and tap into service opportunities for customers in areas including data, cloud, video, mobile and social and digital media.

“We believe the scale of investments being made by R-Jio makes it imperative for the company to target the entire telecom revenue base, and not just data revenues,” research agency Credit Suisse said in its latest report on telecom.

In its pilot stage, Reliance Jio will work with prospective customers, both corporate and individuals, by offering highest bandwidth speeds at the lowest cost, integration of application, devices and networks. 

The company will target everything that is “connected” — healthcare, education, agriculture, retail  and transportation among other. 

“Every imaginable vertical and industry, can be enhanced by smart devices, broadband access and the right applications,” according to the presentatiion.

 The company is confident of adapting  to new expectation of consumers and is exploring flat rate, tiered and capped bandwidth plans including time-based and advertisement based ones.

Mobility combined with affordability will make digital lifestyle real in a merged world and Reliance Jio will explore this opportunity both in urban and rural India during the field trial, besides assessing the technical performance of its network.

Source: HT

Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance says segregating revenue from different Spectrum bands is possible, opposes uniform SUC

Broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum holders like Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Aircel may soon be able to keep their spectrum Usage Charge (SUC) at one percent of the total revenue.

Reliance JIO has suggested a formula for separating revenue from data and voice services. The company has both spectrum in 2300 MHz band for data and 1800MHz band for voice services.

BWA spectrum attracts one percent SUC, while voice spectrum attract three percent.

In a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), Reliance Jio has said that it was possible to segregate revenue earned from the two spectrum bands. This can be carried in fool proof and transparent manner and it will also be in compliance with 3GPP standards.

According to Reliance JIO, call detail records can be maintained for 8 years. The CDRs captured will give full details of spectrum usages and charges and allow clear identification of spectrum use (voice, data, SMS) for each transaction.

Reliance JIO has claimed that there would be complete integration and automated data flow from the source of CDRs right up to the accounting system that would generate various statements to be submitted to DoT. Company further explained that complete process being put in place would also take care of spectrum-wise revenue segregation for bundled plans in fair, transparent and full proof manner.

If DoT accepts these suggestions by Reliance Jio it would help telecom companies to save on spectrum usage charges for next 15 years. Last year Attorney General had opines against hiking spectrum usages charges for Reliance Jio. On the basis of this EGoM had asked DoT to look into whether revenue from both spectrum could be segregated or not.

DoT has already made a committee to suggest ways to segregate revenues from different services.

Source: Telecom Tiger

Wrong call

The CAG should not extend its brief to questioning policy decisions by the Government taken transparently

By questioning the Centre’s decision allowing Reliance Jio to offer voice telephony using spectrum it had originally got for broadband services, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has probably overstepped its brief. The CAG’s primary role is to raise a red flag if irregularity in procedures followed by government departments or public sector undertakings result in any revenue loss to the exchequer. It shouldn’t grapple with policy decisions of the Government implemented in a transparent manner without discrimination between market players. In this case, the issue is a policy in 2013 that permitted internet service providers (ISP) having broadband spectrum to launch voice telephony services by paying an additional ₹1,658 crore.

True, Reliance Jio had in 2010 acquired pan-Indian airwaves in the 2300 MHz frequency band at a fraction of what operators paid for 2100 MHz or 3G spectrum. But unlike the 2100 MHz airwaves used globally for 3G services, the feasibility of the 2300 MHz band wasn’t established. For a spectrum band to be commercially viable, it needs both suitable propagation characteristics as well as an ecosystem of compatible and cheap mobile devices that can run on these radio waves. The 2300 MHz band suffered on both counts; it was at best seen only as an alternative to fixed line broadband services. The CAG’s argument that the Centre may have received higher bids if it had made clear that voice telephony would be allowed on 2300 MHz prior to the 2010 auctions, therefore, falls flat. The fact is Reliance Jio hasn’t been able to roll out any services on this band till date, which has to do with its poor propagation characteristics. That’s also what forced the company to pay over ₹11,000 crore for bagging additional 1800 MHz spectrum in the most recent auctions – four years after shelling out ₹13,000 crore for airwaves in the 2300 MHz band.

As regards the permission granted for ISP licencees to offer voice telephony by paying a one-time fee of ₹1,658 crore, this was part of a migration policy to a unified access services licence regime. Under it, operators were allowed to use spectrum purchased through auctions for offering any type of service — including voice, data or mobile entertainment. Now, just as all auctions held between 2010 and 2014 were open to all players, the migration policy was applicable to all without discrimination. Having bought spectrum through open auctions both in 2010 and 2014, Reliance Jio cannot really be accused of receiving any favour. But more than anything else, interventions by constitutional bodies such as the CAG on policy matters undermine the Government’s ability to take decisions in a dynamic economic environment and in industries where technology is fast-moving. In the Reliance Jio case, the CAG has made a wrong call even with the luxury of hindsight.

Source: HBL