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.
Telecom NZ, Vodafone to provide rural broadband service
The New Zealand government has announced that New Zealand’s top two telecommunications companies have been chosen for negotiation with the New Zealand government to provide fast internet services to rural areas.
Telecom and Vodafone proposed in November a joint venture to build a new, open access network for broadband in rural areas.
According to Communications and Information Technology Minister Steven Joyce, Telecom is New Zealand’s major full service Telecommunications Company, while Vodafone is the country’s biggest mobile provider, and the government is confident the solution proposed can be deployed.
Joyce added that the government specifically asked for parties to consider collaborating on joint bids to reduce construction costs – and this bid does just that.
The government wants the new network to provide fast internet fibre connections to 97% of rural schools and 80% of rural households within six years.
The companies have stated that the fibre and wireless services will be open to all providers.
Telecom will build fibre to schools and hospitals, cell sites and rural exchanges and cabinets, and Vodafone will design and build infrastructure the two companies use to co-locate their mobile services on.
No immediate plans to increase stake in Uninor: Telenor (Norway, India)
Norwegian telecom firm Telenor has revealed that it has no immediate plans to increase its stake in Indian joint venture Uninor, but indicated the company will continue to make investments for increasing mobile penetration in the country.
According to Telenor Group CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas, the company doesn’t have immediate plans to increase stake in the Indian venture. However, it will continue investing in India to increase the mobile penetration here.
Telenor holds a 67.3% stake in the joint venture with Unitech Ltd, an Indian real estate company.
As per Baksaas, the India venture added 2.5 million new mobile subscribers in October. The telecom venture offer services under the brand Uninor and has operations in 13 of India’s 22 telecom service areas. He added that the company sees great potential in the Indian market, where mobile phone usage is growing at the fastest pace in the world. He feels that real penetration of mobile services is very low in the country, especially in rural areas. The rural market will be a key focus area for Uninor’s growth.
BBC to finance super-fast broadband in Rural areas
The BBC license fee over the next seven years has complied up to £830 million to help finance the expensive task of building superfast broadband networks in rural areas.
George Osborne, chancellor, announced in his complete spending review the location of four pilot projects that ministers hope will serve as models for how the public and private sectors should collaborate to build high-speed broadband networks in rural Britain.
The projects will be in the Highlands and Islands, North Yorkshire, Cumbria and Herefordshire. Broadband infrastructure is extensively seen as an important driver of competitiveness and innovation, and according to Mr Osborne, the government’s plans should help nurture creative industries such as advertising and media.
Ministers are particularly anxious to evade superfast broadband networks being confined to towns and cities, and are hoping that companies including BT can be persuaded to expand their high-speed infrastructure to rural areas by tapping public money.
BT, the UK’s leading fixed-line phone company, has constantly insisted that it cannot cover the cost of extending its urban-focused high-speed network to rural areas without some public funds. The government, after rejecting the former Labor administration’s plans for a telephone tax to fund superfast broadband, has instead chosen to take money from the BBC license fee.
According to Mr Osborne, the BBC would contribute £530 million from its license fee to superfast broadband by 2015, but the total could rise to £830 million by 2017.
BT welcomed the government’s pledge, and according to BT, the £530 million outlined by Mr Osborne would undoubtedly play a part in extending high-speed networks based on optical fibre.
Mr Osborne announced that BT and Virgin Media, the cable television operator, are both interested in participating in the four pilot projects.
BT is spending £2.5 billion on a high-speed network that should cover 4 million of the UK’s 26 million homes by the end of this year. The infrastructure should reach 17 million homes by 2015.Virgin Media’s superfast network covers 12.7 million homes, mainly in towns and cities. It is interested in expanding the infrastructure into rural areas, partly by tapping public funds.
According to Virgin, there’s a real opportunity to look at each area and ensure any public money is used to help find the best possible solution to benefit the local community.
The government’s plans are partly planned to ensure that all homes have broadband speeds of about 2 MB/ second by 2015, which is sufficient to watch video over the internet, such as the BBC iPlayer. An estimated 2 million homes do not have basic broadband of 2 MB/s.
The government also announced plans to sell a large chunk of radio spectrum currently used by Whitehall departments including the Ministry of Defense over the next decade. Some of the 500 megahertz of spectrum could be suitable for enabling web surfing on smartphones and laptops.
Vodafone to invest US $1.3 billion in Italy network
Vodafone Group PLC is planning to invest more than US$1.3 billion in Italy in order to complete its coverage of the country for wireless broadband services.
According to Paolo Bertoluzzo, head of Vodafone’s Italian operations, the mobile phone giant wants to reach in three to four years an estimated 12% of the population that still don’t have adequate Internet access. It aims to offer speeds of at least two Mbps using the mobile technology HSPA+. This population,of about seven million people, lives in remote or rural areas, adding that those living in about 1,800 towns don’t have broadband at all.
Italy falls back the rest of Europe in broadband diffusion, Vodafone and other operators have been debating with the government over how to help the country catch up, such as building a fiber-optic network.
According to Bertoluzzo, Vodafone’s latest project was separate from its plans to help build this network. The company confirms the commitment. Vodafone will continue to discuss the rules and follow this course (toward an eventual agreement to build a fiber-optic network).
Earlier this year, Vodafone joined other alternative operators to plan a fiber-optic network of their own.
According to Vodafone spokeswoman, the operator would announce a deal with China’s Huawei Technologies Co. to set up a research center in Milan. The deal will be announced when Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao meets the Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi.
With 30 million users, Vodafone is one of the biggest of the four mobile phone operators in the country.
PORTAZ extents SIM registration dates
After much a do the Postal and Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) has extended the deadline for all mobile phone users to register their details to 28 February 2011.
According to POTRAZ board chairman, Charles Sibanda, the extension is aimed at giving all people, especially those in rural areas, ample time to register their lines. After 28 February, all unregistered subscribers will be disconnected without further notice.
Call and SMS restriction measures will be instituted from 1 January 2011 on all unregistered subscribers including call banning during peak periods.
