India Telecom Thread II

[dopekhor]

does any indian network provide? umts or hsdpa?

[drwho]

Originally Posted by dopekhor

does any indian network provide? umts or hsdpa?

Nope not yet.

[drwho]

AFX News Limited
India's Bharti Airtel joins consortium to build 300 mln usd Asia-US cable link
02.26.08, 12:55 PM ET


http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/...fx4698667.html


More fiber optics to the people!

[IndiansUnite]

Virgin Mobile enters India through pact with Tata Tele
Initial launch in 50 cities; offering SIM card-based CDMA service

Sir Richard Branson on Sunday launched the Virgin Mobile brand in India through a franchise arrangement with Tata Teleservices.

TTSL, which is the second largest CDMA operator with 22 million customers, will sell the youth-based mobile service under the brand name of Virgin Mobile.



The financial arrangements between the two companies were not disclosed, but an official said TTSL would be paying Virgin what would be in the nature of a royalty fee.

Virgin will not be entering India as a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), as feared by some of the existing telecom operators, said Mr Anil Kumar Sardanah, Managing Director, TTSL, at a news conference here.

An MVNO is an operator that does not own infrastructure, network or spectrum but leases these to offer services. Virgin operates as an MVNO in all its global markets. At the news of Virgin launching in India, the Cellular Operators Association of India had written a letter of complaint to the telecom authorities.

This is Virgin’s seventh launch globally and its largest investment to date in India, said Sir Richard, noting that the Indian market was very attractive, growing like none other in the world.


Sir Richard Branson, Chairman and Founder, Virgin Group, and Mr Anil Sardanah, Managing Director, Tata Teleservices Ltd, at a the launch of ‘Virgin Mobile’ in Mumbai on Sunday.

The Virgin group and TTSL have also jointly established a company ‘Virgin Mobile India Ltd’ to develop the new branded service. The investment details of this company were not disclosed either.

The Virgin youth service aims to acquire 5 million subscribers over the next three years, during which period it will become profitable too, Sir Richard said.

Mr Jamie Heywood, Deputy CEO, Virgin Mobile India, said there were 215 million Indians aged 14-25 and over the next three years there would be 50 million additionally. In all, revenues from this segment then would be over Rs 35,000 crore, he said.

To begin with, Virgin Mobile will be launched in 50 cities, and in a year’s time in over 1,000 cities. Specially designed handsets in the Rs 2,000-5,000 range would be offered by TTSL, but customers are free to buy CDMA handsets separately, since Virgin would be offering a SIM-card based CDMA service, the first such offer in India, said Mr Heywood.

[SarafIndian]

http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-e...4032008-1.html

Tata Communications Rolls Out World's Largest Commercial WiMAX Network with Telsima


SUNNYVALE, Calif., March 4 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Tata Communications, a leading global provider of a new world of communications, has selected Telsima Corporation, a global player in WiMAX systems to provide WiMAX solutions for Tata Communications broadband wireless network in India. Tata Communications is the first to launch broadband services on the WiMAX platform on a large scale for retail consumers in India.

-- Over 5000 Enterprise and Retail customers already up in ten cities;
Aggressive plans to capture 200,000 customers in retail segment alone
in FY 2009
-- Bangalore unwired for Retail customers; over 600 base station sectors
deployed and radiating
-- Plans to roll out WiMAX in 110 cities for Enterprise and 15 Cities for
Retail Segment by 2008
-- Telsima WiMAX solutions selected for the largest deployment; 3000 base
station sectors being deployed
-- Telsima WiMAX solutions selected based on advanced wireless
technologies; Largest WiMAX STC/MRC network ever deployed

In the initial phase, Tata Communications' WiMAX network will offer Broadband Internet access and content services to enterprise and residential customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin, Chandigarh, and Kolkata. By the end of 2008 Tata Communications plans to have enabled WiMAX retail broadband service in about 15 cities.

"Tata Communications' seeks to enrich life by enabling reliable and affordable communication anytime, anywhere", said Shankar Prasad, President, Tata Communications' Retail Business Unit. "To that end Tata Communications has selected Telsima to provide WiMAX infrastructure and subscriber equipment solutions to deploy our commercial WiMAX network, with 3000 base station sectors already getting deployed. This enables our customers to access video, education, music and business services. Telsima's focus on meeting the needs of the Indian market and their commitment to deploy state-of-the-art WiMAX solutions for a competitive market such as ours prompted us to select them amongst various other solution providers. Telsima's solution equipped with STC/MRC technology allows us to increase base station capacity thereby improving our ability to serve large number of customers with high quality and high speed broadband."

"WiMAX enables broadband services in a cost effective, decentralized manner in India where a majority of the country is not covered by wired infrastructure. The Indian broadband market, which today serves only 3.1 million customers in a nation with a population of over 1.2 billion, is forecast to grow significantly. The scale of unmet demand coupled with the emphasis on connectivity for education and the increasing ability to purchase Internet services will ensure that WiMAX broadband networks will thrive in this market," Shankar Prasad further added.

"Inflection points create new winners", said Alok Sharma, Telsima's CEO. "WiMAX combines disruptions in Radio Frequency and Internet Protocol technologies to support new cost structures that enable the proliferation of wireless broadband telecommunications services into new markets. Telsima has capitalized upon this opportunity and delivered the largest and most advanced WiMAX deployments in the world."

"Given the pent up demand for broadband Internet access, this extensive WiMAX network deployment by Tata Communications and Telsima has the potential to dramatically accelerate the adoption of true broadband services by thousands of businesses and millions of consumers in a short period of time throughout India", said Berge Ayvazian, Chief Strategy Officer of Yankee Group. This wireless broadband network deployment will have an even more profound impact on the country's educational and economic development, and could rapidly enhance worker productivity, facilitate electronic commerce and improve the quality of health care services."

In support of Tata Communications' broadband wireless network, Telsima provided a comprehensive WiMAX solution including base station and subscriber station systems, customer provisioning system and Network Management System (NMS).

About Telsima

Telsima Corporation is the leading provider of Mobile WiMAX and WiMAX Certified Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) solutions. Telsima's award-winning, innovative technologies offer service providers economic advantages, new business models and more capital efficient network investment profiles. The Company has supplied the largest WiMAX Certified deployments in the world, with over 10,000 base station sectors and 100,000 modems sold to Tier 1 operators in India, Eastern Europe, Russia and Africa in 2007. Telsima has been an active Principle Member of the WiMAX Forum since 2004. The Company is backed by leading Silicon Valley investors including NewPath Ventures, CMEA Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, JAFCO Asia, Intel Capital and other strategic investors. Telsima is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with development, sales and customer support offices in Bangalore, New Delhi, Mumbai and Ljubljana, Slovenia. For more information, please visit, http://www.telsima.com .

About Tata Communications

Tata Communications Limited along with its global subsidiaries (Tata Communications) is a leading global provider of the new world of communications. The company leverages its Tata Global Network, vertical intelligence and leadership in emerging markets, to deliver value-driven, globally managed solutions to the Fortune 1000 and mid-sized enterprises, service providers and consumers.

The Tata Communications portfolio includes transmission, IP, converged voice, mobility, managed network connectivity, hosted data center, communications solutions and business transformation services to global and Indian enterprises & service providers as well as, broadband and content services to Indian consumers. The Tata Global Network encompasses one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network, connectivity to more than 200 countries across 300 PoPs and more than one million square feet data center space. Tata Communications serves its customers from its offices in 80 cities in 40 countries worldwide. Tata Communications has a strategic investment in South African operator Neotel, providing the company with a strong anchor to build an African footprint.

The number one global international wholesale voice operator and number one provider of International Long Distance, Enterprise Data and Internet Services in India, the company was named "Best Wholesale Carrier" at the World Communications Awards in 2006 and was named the "Best Pan-Asian Wholesale Provider" at the 2007 Capacity Magazine Global Wholesale Telecommunications Awards for the second consecutive year.

Becoming the leading integrated provider to drive and deliver a new world of communications, Tata Communications became the unified global brand for VSNL, VSNL International, Teleglobe, Tata Indicom Enterprise Business Unit and CIPRIS on February 13, 2008.

Tata Communications Ltd. is a part of the $29 billion Tata Group; it is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India and its ADRs are listed on the New York Stock Exchange NYSE: TCL. For more information, please visit, http://www.tatacommunications.com .

Forward-looking and cautionary statements

Certain words and statements in this release concerning Tata Communications and its prospects, and other statements including those relating to Tata Communications' expected financial position, business strategy, the future development of Tata Communications' operations and the general economy in India, are forward-looking statements. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including financial, regulatory and environmental, as well as those relating to industry growth and trend projections, which may cause actual results, performance or achievements of Tata Communications, or industry results, to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements include, among others, failure to increase the volume of traffic on Tata Communications' network, failure to develop new products and services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins, failure to successfully complete commercial testing of new technology and information systems to support new products and services, including voice transmission services, failure to stabilize or reduce the rate of price compression on certain of the company's communications services, failure to integrate strategic acquisitions and changes in government policies or regulations of India and, in particular, changes relating to the administration of Tata Communications' industry, and, in general, the economic, business and credit conditions in India. Additional factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from such forward-looking statements, many of which are not in Tata Communications' control, include, but are not limited to, those risk factors discussed in Tata Communications' various filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at http://www.sec.gov . Tata Communications is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements.

Media Contacts:

Telsima:

USA:
Wolfgang Mack
Telsima Corp.
Tel: +1-408-480-8630
Email: wolfgang.mack@telsima.com

Asia:
Sangeeta Iyer
Telsima Communications Pvt Ltd
Tel: +91-98-1828-8376
Email: sangeeta.iyer@telsima.com

Tata Communications:
S Ravindran
Tel: +91-92-2330-6610
Email: Ravindran.s@tatacommunications.com

Website: http://www.telsima.com/
Website: http://www.tatacommunications.com/

[qwertyasd]

good lets hope wimax takes off like cell phones did!

[qwertyasd]

http://www.rediff.com/money/2008/mar/25wire.htm

India is set to become the world's second largest wireless network, ousting US to the third slot, by April.

China tops the global ranks with over 540 million wireless customers in February 2008, followed by the US with 260.50 million and India with 250.93 million.

However, monthly additions are likely to change that order. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) the US is adding 2 to 3 million subscribers a month, half China's 6 to 7 million, both of which are considerably lower than India's monthly addition of 8 to 9 million.

[phaedrus]

India to be 2nd largest in mobile subscribers

India has crossed the 250 million mark with the addition of 8.53 million mobile subscribers in February. With this, India is set to become the second largest wireless network in the world after China in the first half of April 2008. The ToI was the first to report this on February 16.

According to telecom regulator Trai, a total of 8.49 million telephone connections were added during February 2008 (landline connections went down) as compared to 8.74 million connections in January 2008.

The total number of telephone connections hit 290.11 million at the end of February 2008 as compared to 281.62 million in January 2008, taking the overall teledensity to 25.31% at the end of February 2008 as against 24.63% in January 2008.

source timesofindia.com

[phaedrus]

Videocon offers to buy out Motorola’s handset biz

CONSUMER durables heavyweight Videocon is likely to put in a bid to acquire the loss-making handset business of Motorola as part of an attempt to shore up its planned wireless services business in India, one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile markets. Videocon’s bid has stunned industry watchers at a time when other top probable candidates like LG, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have declined to show similar interest.
While speaking to ET, Videocon Industries chairman Venugopal Dhoot confirmed his interest in bidding for the mobile devices business of Motorola. “We are interested, but as of now, there is no finality. We are waiting for them to revert,” Mr Dhoot said.
Motorola, the world’s third-largest handset maker, had announced on March 26 its intention to hive off the mobile devices business into a separate company in the wake of sustained pressure from billionaire investor Carl Icahn.
Motorola officials couldn’t be reached for comment. Bloomberg reported that the company’s Hong Kong-based spokeswoman, Mary Lamb, had said she won’t comment on speculation. Motorola has a handset unit in Chennai that makes both CDMA and GSM mobile phones.
Media reports said Merrill Lynch estimates Motorola’s handset business at $3.8 billion. Analysts are concerned about the viability of acquiring the business at a steep price in a market where profit margins are razor-thin. Also, raising funds for the deal would be a challenge for Videocon in a depressed credit market.
Industry estimates place Motorola’s market share in India at 14% in December 2006, which has now slipped to 6.5%. Its world-wide market share has also dropped from 22% to 12%. Videocon eyes 25 m mobile users in 3 years
VIDEOCON’Stelecom subsidiary Datacom has already received licences to offer mobile services throughout India and is awaiting allotment of spectrum to launch commercial operations. “The handset business is growing rapidly in India as the demand for mobile services is scorching. Videocon already has a strong distribution network that will help the company in garnering a good share of the market in a short time,” an industry analyst said.
India is adding over 8 million subscribers every month. With a tele-density of 25% in a country of 113 crore people, there remains immense room for growth. The acquisition, if it comes through, will give a boost to Videocon’s plans to become a pan-India player.
Videocon has already announced an initial investment of Rs 6,000 crore for its telecom operations in 23 circles of the country. They are eyeing 25 million customers in the next three years and handset business will be an added advantage as the company can bundle attractive offers with mobiles.

source economictimes epaper

[IndiansUnite]

GSM firms add 7.3 mln users in March

NEW DELHI: Riding on cheap tariffs and extended network coverage in small towns and rural India, India’s GSM players — Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, BSNL, MTNL, Spice, BPL and others — have added 7.6 million mobile customers in March. This is the highest subscriber addition on this technology platform since the inception of mobile services in the country. With CDMA players yet to declare their numbers, the world’s fastest growing mobile market may well see the number of new users cross the 10-million-mark in March, establishing a global record.

According to the latest data compiled by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI), the industry association representing all GSM operators, the GSM subscriber base has touched 192.3 million in March 2008, up 4% from 185 million in February 2008. The growth in March was led by Bharti Airtel, which added 2.3 million new users taking its subscriber base to just under 62 million.

The 9 million mark will be breached fo sure when the CDMA firms announce their numbers.

___

India surpasses US as second largest wireless market

[phaedrus]

India targets 500 mn subscribers by 2010

Given the explosive growth in mobile communications, India through its use of variety of wireless technologies is aiming to reach 500 million subscribers by 2010.

Its current level of 240 million will be doubled within less than two years thanks to the policies being implemented by the Union Government especially universal access in rural and suburban areas, B K Syngal, Former Chairman, Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO) told a conference on 'Connecting Rural communities Asia forum 2008' here.

'India is well on its way to becoming the largest telecom market after China.However, we cannot be complacent,' he said. ABout 70 per cent of the Indian population was in semiurban and rural areas and 60 per cent of the Indian population was employed in agriculture.

'We are growing at the rate of seven to eight million consumers a month. The appetite for cellular connection is going up not down', he said.

source economictimes.com

[Euromast]

Finally, iPhones coming to India!

Zeenews Bureau

Mumbai, April 18: Those in India waiting to lay their hands on the hottest product of 2007 A.K.A ‘iPhone’ have a reason to cheer. Apple, which of late was tight-lipped about its plans of launching iPhones in India, may go ahead and launch it later this year.

The Indian iPhone is expected to be priced in the range of 27,200-28,000 and Vodafone is supposed to be the service provider of this 8GB phone, which is expected to be launched in the first week of September this year. The following year may see a 16 GB version in the Indian market.

"The carrier deal for India is being worked out with Vodafone," said an Apple source. "Vodafone could also become the carrier for the Australian market once iPhone is launched there, though more than one carrier is likely for Australia."

Meanwhile, Vodafone has denied the reports.

Until now the iPhones are available in the Grey market in India which are of poor quality and have other drawbacks too.

[kmartin]

sorry to ask this, but can someone give me number of mobile subscribers in india now? and broadband users now?

[IndiansUnite]

Originally Posted by kmartin

sorry to ask this, but can someone give me number of mobile subscribers in india now?

We just passed US to become the 2nd largest mobile market. According to Sn1101's post above, we have around 240mn connections.

Originally Posted by kmartin

and broadband users now

3.4 mn connections according to this

[phaedrus]

cross posting from 'India - Merger & Acquisition News' thread


RCom buys UK WiMAX operator eWave World

Reliance Communications (RCom) has acquired UK-based eWave World, which offers wireless telephony services using WiMAX technology, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition was made through RCom’s subsidiary for global operations, Reliance Globalcom . It will be funded through internal accruals, Reliance Globalcom CEO Punit Garg told reporters in Mumbai on Thursday.
“We have taken a gigantic step in the broadband direction and looked at 4G WiMAX to be the next step in our global aspirations,” he said. WiMAX refers to high-speed internet access over a wireless connection. It is often called a fourth generation (4G) technology, an improvement over the third generation (3G) services. The main thrust of 4G technologies is to provide high-speed, high-bandwidth, packetised data communications.
Reliance Globalcom would invest about $500 million (Rs 2,000 crore) over the next few years to build and acquire WiMAX networks in emerging markets in different continents. The networks would be capable of offering fully mobile voice and data services with download speeds as high as 2 MB.
eWave holds WiMAX licences and has received spectrum to commence services in several countries. The acquisition will help RCom gain access to airwaves and licences to operate the WiMAX services in several countries, including China, he said.
“4G WiMAX networks in 50 countries would enable us to offer services to over 75% of global population in combination with Reliance Globalcom’s 1,15,000 km IP (internet protocol) enabled network spread across six continents,” Mr Garg said.
The commercial launch of the WiMAX services would begin by this year-end and by 2009-end, the company aims to roll out its network in close to 20 countries.
This is the second overseas investment by Reliance ADA Group in WiMAX technology. Reliance Technology Ventures (RTVL), a subsidiary of RCom, picked up a stake in French WiMAX chip maker Sequans late last year.
eWave World also has a JV in China, under which the company co-owns and operates 36,000 km of optic fibre across top 30 cities in China. This JV firm has applied for a nationwide broadband licence in China.

source economictimes epaper

[phaedrus]

BSNL gains Rs1,200 cr with license fee removal

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will get financial benefit of about Rs1,200 crore annually with the exemption of license fee on fixed line telephony.
BSNL has annual revenue of about Rs15,000 crore annually from its fixed line operations and the PSU pays on an average 8-9% of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) as license fee to the government.
“In fact, BSNL has contributed much more in the Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund instead of getting subsidy from the government for the fixed line operations,” BSNL CMD Kuldip Goyal told PTI.
Now things are getting corrected. “I am really happy with the announcement of our minister A Raja. Exempting fixed line services from the AGR’s purview, our rural expansion plans and also in other parts of the country would get a major boost,” Goyal said.
BSNL’s financial viability had taken a major hit after the removal of subsidy in terms of Access Deficit Charge (ADC), a levy paid by private players to the PSU to carry out rural operations.
The PSU was getting the ADC to the tune of Rs5,000 crore annually till about two years ago from private players but now it has been completely waived with effect from April this year.
BSNL is fulfilling various social obligations of the government and has to operate in loss making rural areas, the officials said adding the PSU received only Rs4,650 crore from the USO fund during 2002-06, while it contributed Rs8,031 crore towards it.
This was a distortion in the policy and has been corrected with the minister’s decision to exempt fixed line telephony from license fee.

source livemint.com

[IndiansUnite]

Unitech group has been alloted spectrum in TN to start their wireless services (GSM based)

Unitech gets start-up spectrum for Tamil Nadu

NEW DELHI: Real estate major Unitech, which has a pan-Indian telecom license, today said it has received the start-up spectrum to roll out services in Tamil Nadu. Department of Telecom (DoT) has alloted 4.4 Mhz of spectrum in 1800Mhz band in Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, the company said in a notice to BSE.

Their website is u/c right now --> http://www.unitechwireless.com/

[IndiansUnite]

The CDMA numbers for March came out last week and bhailog we've breached the 10mn new mobile connections/month mark.

India adds record 10.2 mln mobile users in March

NEW DELHI, April 25 (Reuters) - Indian telecoms firms added a record 10.16 million wireless subscribers in March, data showed on Friday, propelling India past the United States to become the second-largest market in the world, trailing only China.

In February, operators had added 8.53 million wireless subscribers in the world's fastest-growing wireless market.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) said there were 261.1 million wireless users in India at end-March, up 58 percent from a year earlier.

[zhiemi]

Wow, 10 million! And I thought 7-8 million a month is stupendous!

[kronik]

Reliance Com planning GSM-based MVNO services in 57 nations

MUMBAI: Reliance Communications (RCom) is planning to offer GSM-based mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services across 57 countries in a bid to shore up revenues from international operations. RCom is the first Indian telecom operator looking at entering the MVNO segment outside the country. MVNO operations are currently not allowed in India.

“An in-house team of traffic analysts at RCom is working on various models to enter into bulk airtime offtake agreements at suitable time and terms,” industry sources told ET. MVNOs refer to operators who do not own spectrum and infrastructure. They buy bulk airtime from mobile operators and sell packaged plans under their own brands. Using these virtual networks, MVNOs can have their own SIM cards and can offer voice as well as data applications.

RCom is looking at buying airtime after analysing network capacity utilisation patterns of networks across target countries. The company is learnt to have tied up with operators across Europe, Middle East, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. These include Etisalat in the Middle East and Vodafone in New Zealand besides others.