Motorola anticipates huge growth for digital radio in India

A senior Motorola executive has stated that India’s public safety system and network expansion is set to double every three years, especially, with the arming of police with digital radio sets.

According to Balbir Singh, Vice President, Sales and Operations at Motorola Solutions Asia Pacific, they are experiencing strong demand for radio-based systems from Indian police force as well as private sectors such as oil and gas industries, coal mines and industrial production centres. The growth is driven by rising security concern across the country.

As per him, these radio sets are more effective in allowing communication between various locations and command centres, helping the police manage any emergency. On the private sector, Coal India has recently selected Motorola systems to manage its mine operations. Moreover, Indian enterprises are very fast in adopting technologies and they believe the Indian market will leapfrog in taking on the best digital systems, leaving analogs aside. They have been leading the radio-based communication market in India for four decades and have now established a working relationship in supplying handsets to police. They also provide training to the police on the effective use of handsets.

Singh further stated that besides the radios, Motorola has a wide range of communication sets in India, a market being served for more than 40 years.

Going forward, Singh sees Indian Postal Services and Courier Services using computers for deliveries in rural areas.

He pointed out that rural India is a huge market where the postman will be using mobile computers to serve the people.

According to Singh, Motorola’s Indian operations were fully supported by India’s software engineers who are involved in designing the software and setting up network for the radio sets. Motorola also operates its biggest research and development centre in Bangalore, software programmes from which are used for its systems globally. Besides the domestic consumer market, the country eventually would emerge as a major exporter with corporate India collaborating and merging local and international technologies in products for the global markets.

Huawei to invest $2 billion in India over 5 years

Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei Telecommunication has announced an investment of $2 billion in India over the next five years to set up local manufacturing base, an R&D centre and other activities.

According to Max Yang, CEO, Huawei India, as an integral part of Indian telecom industry development and an active player serving all telecom service providers, Huawei India strives to be the long-term partner for the development of India’s telecom and IT industry and inclusive growth. The new R&D campus would be set up in Bangalore.

In last two years, Huawei has emerged as a leading vendor in the country. It has bagged orders from almost all the private players for setting up GSM and 3G networks.

Alcatel-Lucent in discussion with India over new telecom code permission

Franco-U.S. telecommunications equipment provider Alcatel-Lucent is in discussion with Indian government about the new rules for equipment makers and suppliers, which were in reports due to security concerns.

According to Vivek Mohan, president, services business, the company is discussing with the government about what Alcatel-Lucent thinks is appropriate–which satisfies their needs and also works for the company.

Alcatel-Lucent is the newest global equipment company to talk about its concern over the new rules in the fast-growing mobile telecom market.

India’s department of telecommunications in late July had asked the equipment makers to submit software and hardware codes, used in their equipment, into an escrow account amid local security agencies’ fears that imported equipment could be embedded with spyware.

According to Nokia Siemens Networks earlier statements, the new policy isn’t feasible to implement, and competitor L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co. pulled out of a bid for state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. equipment order.

As per Vivek Mohan in a press confrence, the company will find an amicable solution to this. The office will manage the company’s local and overseas clients’ networks.

Separately, Mohan claimed the company is still interested in forming joint ventures at three manufacturing plants of Bangalore-based ITI Ltd., for which the state-run telecom equipment maker is seeking investors.

ITI, which has six manufacturing plants across the country, has so far failed to find any partners despite extending the bid deadline several times.

According to the government’s earlier statement, it planned to give stakes of 51% to 74% in three of ITI’s factories to Indian or international companies that would be interested in operating them as joint ventures.

Launch of MNP again delayed in India

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The launch of the mobile number portability in India has again been delayed by the government from March 31 to June 30, 2010. Earlier the implementation was scheduled to take place in December 31, 2009 in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai as well as in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

According to the government, operators are yet to test if their networks are ready to launch mobile number portability, or MNP, services and the government has set a deadline of May 15 to complete the tests and on the basis of the successful completion of the action taken (tests)…, the DoT will finally decide the dates for MNP implementation.

The launch has already been delayed twice despite the fact that the government decided to launch MNP by the first week of May, with initial launches in the southern cities of Bangalore and Chennai.

BSNL’s 3G service launched in Mangalore (India)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Continuing 3G launching spree across the country, BSNL has launched its 3G services in the coastal town of Mangalore. The services have already been launched in Kerala, Bangalore and some cities of Andhra Pradesh not long ago and after that in a few cities of Andhra Pradesh.

BSNL has planned the expansion of its services in across 32 towns in Karnataka and in the next two months, it has planned to make all district headquarters in the state, 3G enabled.

Increase in the number of towers has also been planned by BSNL to support its 3G services which might increase the number of towers from 3,000 to 6,000 soon.

BSNL launches 3G service in Andhra Pradesh (India)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Indian city of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh has welcomed the arrival of 3G services along with other major cities across the state. The launch has taken place barely after its arrival in Bangalore, Karnataka.

The tariff offered by the company includes- STD calls for 50 paise per minute while the local calls are priced at 30 paise per minute. The charges are offered when the user is on 3G network. While not using 3G network, 70 paise for STD and 60 paise (both per minute) for local calls will be charged.

Local SMS will be charged at 40 paise per SMS, national SMS for 60 paise and international SMS for Rs. 3. The data transfer charges is 1 paisa per 10KB data transfer. Rs. 59 is the subscription charges for the 3G network. New 3G consumers have the option to recharge for Rs. 120.

A promotional offer has also been announced by BSNL in which users will get 50 minutes of free talk time on STD or local calls (video calls) and 25MB of free data transfer.

50 paise and 70 paise for 3G and a non 3G local call respectively will have to be paid by existing BSNL consumers and 60 paise using 3G and 80 paise on 2G will have to be paid for STD calls.

Bangalore & Chennai to start MNP (India)

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Bangalore and Chennai would become the first Indian city to avail the facility of mobile number portability this May under which the users change the service providers in spite of changing their number.

According to A Raja, minister of communications and information technology, the telecom sector is also seeing healthy competition with the entry of a number of service providers, besides, the tariffs are also decreasing and prices are rising in all commodities, with an exception of the telecom sector.

Indian telco BSNL launches 3G service in Bangalore circle

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: While the private telecom operators in India are waiting patiently for the 3G auction to take place in the country, state-owned telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) is spreading its ground by launching its 3G mobile services in the Bangalore-Karnataka telecom circle.

The commercial 3G service will be available to BSNL postpaid and prepaid subscribers from February 20 across the city. The new 3G prepaid connections of BSNL comes at just Rs.59 and this starter pack contents U-SIM (3G Sim card).

High-speed Internet with speed up to 7.2Mbps and video calls on mobile phones as well as mobile TV facility could be offered by the telco through these 3G services. 3G Mobile Service of BSNL has already been launched in about 240 cities.

BSNL launches wireless CDMA mobile network

BANGALORE: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Tuesday commissioned a state-of-the-art wireless mobile switching centre-based Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) mobile network system for the city, with 35 towers. It allows subscribers to exchange SMS and connect to the internet at 144 kbps even while on the move.

It would be expanded in six months with additional towers to extend the coverage and meet additional demand. At present, the network with equipment from M/s ZTE Corporation, provided coverage for the entire urban area of Bangalore Telecom District, BSNL Chief General Manager, Karnataka Circle, S. Ramaganapathy said at the launch of the network here on Tuesday.

With this, BSNL could provide new connections and effect shifts without much delay in any part of the city, he said.

To improve rural tele-density, a CDMA main switching centre was also commissioned in Mangalore. This is the third CDMA main exchange in the State after Bangalore and Dharwad. With this, an extra capacity of 37,500 WLL (Wireless in Local Loop) lines had been generated in the State, he said.

Mr. Ramaganapathy commissioned three additional CDMA main switches with a capacity of 1.8 lakh lines and 240 additional CDMA towers. Supply of these equipment was expected by January 2007, he said.

To reduce the cable length of the existing telephone connections in the city, a part of the exchange could be removed and taken to a distant place and connected by optical fibre. Such Remote Switching Units (RSU) helped in improving the quality of performance by reducing the length of copper cable used, he said. Last year, 10 remote exchanges were opened with a total capacity of 20,000 lines at Kalasipalya, Shobha Apartments, Astra Zeneca, ABB, Basavanagudi DTO, RMZ, Rajajinagar 6th block, Malleswaram DTO, Thanisandra and Sultanpet.

Fifteen more RMUs were to be introduced in the Bangalore network during the current financial year and 50 more in the next, he said. Mr. Ramaganapathy said that BSNL proposed to introduce more RSUs and lay polythene insulated jelly-filled cable to eliminate fault-prone paper insulated copper cable from the Bangalore network. The improved network would enable provision of two lakh more broadband connections in the city, he said.

Source- http://www.hindu.com

Technorati : , , ,
Ice Rocket : , , ,