Ringtone reality check: India cellphone story long way to go
NEW DELHI, SEPTEMBER 18: India hopes to be a telecom major by 2020 but trends indicate it is still on the dark side of the wireless divide: rural teledensity is still at 2 per cent, roughly where it was at the time of Independence, as against 40 per cent teledensity in the urban areas.
Fresh data for 2005-06 filed by telecom regulators the world over shows that mobile phones are a much bigger story elsewhere in the world, even in the neighbourhood.
Mobile phones have now reached 8 per cent of India’s 1 billion-strong population but in March 2006 Pakistan achieved a mobile teledensity of 14 per cent, clocking an impressive 170 per cent growth rate the previous year. India’s mobile teledensity is growing at 60-65 per cent a year.
Strife-torn Sri Lanka has al so done well: it crossed the 17 per cent mobile teledensity mark in early 2006 and its mobile phones are growing at 50 per cent every year. Bangladesh too has gone places: It registered a 138 per cent mobile phone growth rate in 2005 which no one expects to falter.
Nripendra Mishra, chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, says “I think changes in rural India’s teledensity will show up in the next six or eight months – the moment we announce that the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund will be given out for cellular telephony. In addition, new technologies like WiFi and WiMax will go into rural areas sooner than the land lines or mobile phone networks, and will make a serious impact for the better.”
India’s neighbours, including or excluding China, are not just distributing phones faster. They are also competing harder for investments that global telecom firms are now ready to make. In addition, mobile teledensity improves GDP, which could make India’s telecom rivals far more successful in other ways too. Analysts are beginning to caution that the only reason why India’s teledensity looks so good is because of its sheer size.
“We are not doing as well as our neighbours in expanding connectivity, be it Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Pakistan. Though we are adding many phones in urban areas, rural teledensity is still at 2 per cent, roughly where it was when we became independent. We just keep on giving new mobile phones to those in big cities who already have land lines,” says telecom analyst Mahesh Uppal. Despite the wide contrasts in per capita income and GDP, sometimes its hard to tell who’s catching up on whom between India and its neighbours.
Even Afghanistan, where the mobile networks were built afresh in 2002 after years of wars, mobile teledensity has touched 4 per cent. This is just below the global low-income average, but Afghanistan is starting from a near-zero mobility base.
India may be a minnow before telecom heavyweights China, Taiwan, US but some of its biggest rivals are right next door. India and other Asian countries like Mongolia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand launched their mobile networks in roughly the same decades but India lags behind the rest. Mongolia achieved 20 per cent mobile teledensity in 2006, though it started in 2000 with only two per cent – that’s a 100 per cent growth rate. Malaysia had 80 per cent mobile penetration in early 2006 and its people sent nine million SMS’ in 2005 which makes them the second best performers on this front, only after Singapore.
There is a reason why India has become a big telecom success story but not the biggest. For one, the rural teledensity target in India has been pending since 1995 (at 10 per cent) although urban mobile teledensity has skyrocketed to 40 per cent. Besides, Indian companies are waiting in the wings for their big chance: A government subsidy for going rural.
Changes in rural India’s teledensity is key because as we speak, Hong Kong is achieving 125 per cent mobile teledensity, South Korea 90 per cent, Australia 95 per cent and Japan 76 per cent. Weren’t these countries our real competition when we started out in 1991, not Bhutan or Nepal (both with 2 per cent)?
Source- http://www.indianexpress.com
Dialog Telecom launches 3g service in Colombo
Telekom Malaysia-owned Sri Lankan operator Dialog Telekom has launched 3G services in
Colombo, following the assignment of spectrum from the regulator on 16 August. Three other mobile operators were assigned with 3G spectrum from the TRC. Dialog paid USD 5 million for the 10MHz of FDD Duplex spectrum and 5 MHz of TDD spectrum in the UMTS band. Dialog already operated a trial network consisting of 12 base stations in the city of
Colombo, with equipment being supplied by Alcatel, Ericsson and Huawei.
Source- TP
Technorati : Alcatel, Dialog Telecom, Ericsson, Huawei, Sri Lanka
Ice Rocket : Alcatel, Dialog Telecom, Ericsson, Huawei, Sri Lanka
BSNL slashes ISD rates to Sri Lanka, West Asia
New Delhi
: The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) 5.8-crore telecom service subscribers stand to benefit as the PSU announced a 40 per cent reduction in ISD rates to
and a 20 per cent cut to West Asian countries from next month.
From October 1, a BSNL subscriber would have to pay Rs. 7.20 a minute for a 10-second pulse rate from Rs. 12 a minute, a statement from the company said. The revised rates would apply to all calls from fixed line, mobile, WLL (M) as well as PCOs and trunk calls.
For West Asian countries such as
Kuwait
,
Bahrain
, the U.A.E.,
Oman
and
Qatar
, the rates have been reduced from Rs. 12 a minute to Rs. 9.6 a minute and the pulse rate has been increased from six seconds to 7.5 seconds.
Maximum call traffic
The sector comprising
Sri Lanka
and West Asian countries has the maximum call traffic from
India
. The tariffs have been reduced to offer customers a good choice and to be ahead of competition, the company said.
Current rates
Private cellular operators currently offer ISD rates of Rs. 9.99 a minute to
West Asia
with some operators offering Rs. 8 a minute to the same destination under certain plans. But, none them offer a unified package of same rate for calls from fixed lines, mobile and WLL phones.
Price war likely
BSNL’s latest rate-cut is likely to start another round of price war in the ISD segment on this busy traffic route of
West Asia
where a sizable Indian population stays.
BSNL has about 3.8 crore fixed line subscribers and a little over two crore mobile subscribers.
Source- http://www.hindu.com
Bharti keen on ringing abroad
NEW DELHI: The Bharti group is not keen on any domestic acquisitions in the telecom sector, instead it is looking at international opportunities.Speaking to DNA Money, Bharti chairman and managing director Sunil Bharti Mittal said, “We have moved away from domestic acquisition.”
His reason: Not much is available in terms of benefits to Bharti from such acquisitions, as the company has licence, spectrum and customers across the country with a pan-India presence.
“The value that we can extract from a domestic acquisition will almost always be less than those who want to pick up a new territory or a new licence,” he said.
Even as there has been a buzz recently that Bharti may be keen on buying the BPL Mobile operation in Mumbai from Essar, Mittal denied it categorically.
“We have not even ventured into that thought. It holds no benefit for us,” he said. Hutch and Essar are entangled in a legal battle over the merger of BPL Mobile with Hutch-Essar.
When asked to react on the recent telecom sector clashes between the Tatas and the Aditya Birla group over Idea Cellular and then Hutch and Essar over BPL Mobile in Mumbai, Mittal argued that “these are not industry issues. These are partner issues.”
According to him, just the way the Idea issue got settled, even the Hutch and Essar clash would get sorted out. “You will see some settlement coming in the next one month or two (in the case of Hutch Essar clash),” he said.
Elaborating on the Bharti group’s thirst for international acquisitions, Mittal said, “We are ready for international acquisitions. As soon as we see the right opportunity, we will strike.”
But he pointed out that there wasn’t much opportunity available right now around the world.
“Most of what is available today is too far – like in
Africa or
South America. That is not of much interest to us,” he said.But, closer home, the group is looking at
Sri Lanka and even
Bhutan for telecom acquisitions. In addition, the group is exploring international opportunities in the
Chanel
Island and
Indian Ocean areas.The Bharti group already has a successful mobile telephony business in
Seychelles. It’s also about to roll out services in
Chanel
Islands.
Source- http://www.dnaindia.com
Technorati : Bharti Airtel, India, Mobile
Ice Rocket : Bharti Airtel, India, Mobile
