3G Roll out in Mahrashtra in Six months
BSNL and MTNL have been given 3G spectrum ahead of the auction of the radio waves for 3G services but they would have to pay the same charges for the spectrum as would be determined by the auctions expected in December this year.
Tweet-- Starting with Pune in December, 50 other cities in Maharashtra would get Third Generation mobile phone services that BSNL plans to roll out, Mr. Aloke Kaul, the Chief General Manger, Maharashtra, of the public sector telecom service provider announced at 5th 3G India 2009 Conference, held in Mumbai today.
BSNL and MTNL have been given 3G spectrum ahead of the auction of the radio waves for 3G services but they would have to pay the same charges for the spectrum as would be determined by the auctions expected in December this year.
Mr. J. Gopal, MTNL Executive Director, Mumbai, said, “the customers in the metropolitan area should make use of this opportunity as the PSU has offered a very competitive rate for the high frequency 3G services that enables video and other streaming download on their mobiles including films, music, video games, and several other facilities. The greatest benefit to customers of 3G services would be mobile TV and mobile Internet. “3G is not luxury but a necessity” Mr. Gopal said. Mr. Kaul and Mr. Gopal and other telecom industry leaders and experts were addressing the “3G India 2009-5th international conference” here today.
Across different city types, there was high interest for Mobile broadband that 3G enables on your handset, said P. Balaji, Vice President, Marketing and Strategy, Ericsson India, leading global manufacturer of telecom equipment. Quoting studies on customer responses and expectations on 3G, Mr. Balaji said that two out of five Internet users in India were interested in mobile broadband. As over 35 per cent of fixed Internet users were experiencing problems with their current net connectivity, wireless Internet that 3G promises has raised great expectations among the networking community, especially the young.
With the telecom service industry going tough competition and falling monthly ARPU(average revenue per user), for the operators the ability to provide 3G services once the spectrum was allocated, would help boost their revenue and also retain high end consumers, Mr. Balaji pointed out. The customers would also be glad to have a one stop solution for a variety of their communication needs. By bundling mobile broadband package with end devices such as netbooks, the operators would gain a competitive edge, added Mr. Balaji.
Quoting from the Gramjyoti experiment that Ericsson conducted in south India with BSNL, Mr. Balaji listed the benefits even the rural users obtained from 3G. the variety of benefits included job creation, socio-economic development, security systems, improved healthcare, positive impact on environment, increased efficiencies, improved education and entertainment. Over 1700 devices were already available for 3G end users and many devices had embedded facility to operate with 3G. Some applications were already available but 3G was expected to create surge in new applications, especially customised applications, Mr. Balaji pointed out.
The problem in the telecom industry was the sharp rise in mobile customer base but precipitate fall in revenue per customer. While the customer base had gone up above 400 million, the average revenue per month per user had gone down from 1.6 cents to 1.3 cents over the last seven quarters, pointed out Abhay Savargaonkar, Senior Vice President, 3G and network quality, Bharti Airtel, in his presentation. Broadband connections were still far behind the 20 million by 2010 projected by the government. Quoting from international experience in 3G usage, the Mr. Savargaonkar said 3G data revenue was growing upto 240 per cent in two years in countries like Brazil. For 2G operators facing falling ARPU, 3G offered great hope of providing richer services and better revenues. World 3G subscriber revenues were growing by 30 per cent CAGR, he said. He also quoted from various global studies to explain how 3G handset and data card prices were falling making the service affordable and accessible to lower strata of customers.
Third Generation mobile services would create a ‘revolution within the mobile industry” predicted Mallikarjuna Rao, Chief, Network & Engineering Operations, Aircel Ltd. The experience the world over was that with 3G mobile search users went up by 50 times, music listeners by 12 times and mobile TV watchers by7 times. However, spectrum and its cost of acquiring held the key to the success of the 3G exercise. He advocated a common highway approach in setting up the backhaul, create multi-lingual local content and provide affordable end ser handheld and USB modems. Cautioning over the continued delay in introducing the service he said this was the right time to get the service on line as the eco system for its implementation was already maturing. To intending 3G wireless operators, Mr. Rao advised that they should offer “compelling, differentiated applications”.
Anil Tandan, Chief Technology Officer, Idea Cellular Ltd., also cautioned that delayed 3G might even put India back by a whole technology backward step as new technologies in wireless broadband like 4G and LTE were emerging. These offered bandwidth as high as 140 Mbps and even more.
Bharat Exhibitions Managing Director Shashi Dharan, the organizer of 5th 3G India 2009, appealed to the operators to provide a single digit helpline for mobile users to meet emergencies like kidnapping, medical emergency, car hold ups, etc so that mobile users could within a second convey their situation to the authorities and obtain help. The one day conference organised by Bharat Exhibitions had an array of telecom experts exploring benefits of 3G and problems of its implementation.