Friday 18 May 2012
Mobile call rates would double in some circles if the recommendations of TRAI on spectrum pricing are accepted, telecom CEOs who met Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal warned on Tuesday.
“…there will be circles which will have more than a 100 per cent price rise (in tariffs) if they were to absorb the impact of what is being recommended,” Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor told reporters here.
“In one circle, the cost of spectrum, the reserve price is Rs 7 crore and on other end, there are metros where it is Rs 717 crore, which is a 100 times differential,” he said.
The chiefs of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Uninor and Videocon met Mr. Sibal and Department of Telecom Secretary R. Chandrashekhar to discuss the implications of TRAI recommendations.
Top officials of CDMA operators Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and CDMA body AUSPI also met the minister earlier in the day on the same issue.
Mr. Kapoor said, “The discussion was about two things — one is the TRAI recommendations made on the reserve price and auction, and basically (its saying) that the recommendations will have an impact of 2 paise on the industry, and the other was about reframing.”
TRAI has not considered the price elasticity of demand while formulating the 2 paise assumption, he said.
“As the prices rise, the consumption goes down. And it has been absolutely assumed as if the consumption will remain constant which is not correct,” Mr. Kapoor said, adding that there is a 30 paise per minute impact and not 2 paise as TRAI has assumed.
TRAI has suggested a base price of Rs 3,622 crore for one megahertz (MHz) for pan—India spectrum.
This is around 10 times higher for pan—India operations than the price at which 2G licences bundled with 4.4 MHz spectrum were allocated in 2008 under the then telecom minister A Raja.
Mr. Kapoor said TRAI has taken into consideration only 576 Mhz in the 1800 Mhz band for calculations, whereas in reality 1167.40 Mhz of spectrum is at play.
“Now the difference between what Trai has taken is three times apart because TRAI has taken Rs 93,000 crore into cognisance whereas the cost of spectrum that I just mentioned is more than Rs 2,84,000 crore,” he added.
Airtel 4G Launch March 20
Bharti AirTel, India’s largest mobile operator, is set to win the race to roll out the country’s first 4G mobile telecom network with a new service said to be launching in Kolkata on March 20.
The country’s largest private telecom company had earlier appointed Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) for building and operating its 4G network in the Maharashtra circle using TD-LTE, one of the 4G technology. However, it was not known immediately who would be the vendor for the Kolkata circle.
Sources close to the operator, which has more than 175 million subscribers, claim that CEO Sanjay Kapoor has stated that it will introduce the service in a little over a week. Initially, it is said that Airtel’s 4G service will be available in Kolkata only, before later being expanded nationwide, according to Economic Times.
The company had won spectrum for high-speed wireless broadband service (Broadband Wireless Access spectrum) in four telecom circles namely Kolkata, Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka and paid Rs 3,314.36 crore in 2010.
Rival Reliance was another successful bidder, though it has been more muted on its 4G plans, which are expected to see a mid-2012 launch. The firm was said to have trialed services from Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson and Huawei last year, but it remains to be seen if Airtel’s rumored rollout will hasten Reliance’s own 4G launch.
Telecom company Bharti Airtel is learnt to have identified vendors for rolling out its broadband wireless services in four circles it bagged in a government auction last year.
Bharti is likely to adopt a strategy to split its broadband wireless access (BWA) circles among different vendors to optimise costs and leverage relationships with existing equipment suppliers.
It used a similar strategy while awarding third generation (3G) contracts that were divided between three vendors. ET has learnt that that telco may offer the Kolkata circle to Chinese gear maker ZTE while its competitor Huawei may get the Karnataka circle. The European vendors Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks, that have had a long-term relationship with the telco, are likely to get the Punjab and Maharashtra circles respectively.
LTE is a technology platform that allows very high-speed access to data and transfer of huge amounts of data via dongles and compatible mobile phones. Bharti Airtel paid Rs 3,314.36 crore for getting airwaves that supported LTE services in four circles – Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata – in a government auction held last year.
4G will happen in India with rest of world: Airtel
Telecom major Bharti Airtel Tuesday said that the fourth generation (4G) technology for mobile communications could be launched in India alongside other countries.
“Launch of 4G services in India will be almost aligned with the rest of the world,” said Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel, at a Qualcomm event here.
However, he did not indicate when it would happen.
4G is a successor to the 3G and 2G families and is expected to be five times quicker than the 3G services in the country.
Vodafone, Idea, Airtel in pact for pan-India 3G services
In an undeclared roll-out of inter-dependency in the highly competitive telecom market, three major telecom players – Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel – have entered into agreements to provide pan-India 3G services.
The three will now use each other’s networks through intra-circle roaming arrangements where they do not have licences.
Airtel, Aircel and Reliance Communications each own 3G spectrum licence in 13 of the 22 telecom circles, while Vodafone, Idea and the Tatas each have licence in nine circles.
The communication further explained: “With this agreement, Vodafone / Airtel / Idea will bring a pan-India experience of 3G services to their customers.”
4G in India
After poor response for 3G services, Indian telecom operators are desperately working with Chinese and western telecom gear makers to upgrade the current infrastructure from 3Gto 4G.
Technically known as Long Term Evolution (LTE) in mobile broadband terminology and branded as 4G, the new infrastructure would require minimal funds for Indian telecom operators who have almost set up the 3G infrastructure. “We have a single RAN box where you can upgrade 3G to 4G or LTE to Wimax. Everything is in one box. They will need minimal funds to upgrade to 4G,” said a top official with Chinese telecom equipment provider Huawei. The Huawei official said 3G and 4G are basically download speeds.
The Huawei official said the company is in talks with some Indian telecom operators. “The 3G network is on track right now. In the last six months six to seven operators have placed faith in us,” he added. The department of telecommunications (DoT) has also decided to go by the LTE or 4G global roadmap, which is expected to be launched globally between 2011 to mid-2012.
Indian operators hope that the LTE would be a smooth transition using core infrastructure of the 2G or 3G networks. According to the vice president (networks) of Bharti Airtel, Puneet Garg, 2012 will be the year that will witness a broadband wireless revolution using LTE, which will change the way people connect to communicate.
“With mass adoption, lowest cost per bit, highest capacity, best user experience and a true global standard, the world is stepping into 4G. We expect 380 million LTE subscribers and 80 plus LTE networks by 2015,” said Sujit Bakre, Nokia Siemens Networks head of 4G business development.
The main advantages with LTE are high throughput, low latency, plug and play, an improved end-user experience and a simple architecture resulting in low operating costs. LTE will also support seamless passing to cell towers with older network technology, such as GSM, CDMAOne, UMTS and CDMA2000.
9 million users connect to 3G in 4 monthsq
Since the launch of 3G services four months ago, telcos in India have signed up as many as 9 million consumers.
The leader of the 3G pack is Bharti Airtel with 3 million subscribers followed by Tata DoCoMo with 1.5 million users.
Idea Cellular, Vodafone and BSNL have over a million 3G customers each.
Reliance Communications did not give out its numbers but sources said that it also has close to a million 3G connections.
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