The 3G India International Conference kicked off with the speakers and the chairperson lighting the Diya to mark a sanctum start. The first session was based upon the road ahead for telecom landscape in India from the service providers’ point of view majorly highlighting the opportunities for 3G in India.
P. Balaji, Ericsson’s Vice President for marketing and strategy in India spoke at the Conference, during which he shared some persepectives revolving around the need for 3G in India. Beginning with, the survey conducted by Ericsson in metros and Tier I and Tier II cities showed results that most of the 3G subscribers across each segment use it mainly for music and imagery.
Some points that he raised -
Why mobile broadband?
- Since a user faces problems with his/her internet connection,
- 2 out of 5 were interested in 3G getting rolled out, after the survey results.
- Mobile Broadband has a strong pull from the consumer perspective.
The early adopters of 3G in India -
- Youth
- Metros
For a mass market, 3G has multiple services like
- E-governance
- Education,
- Agriculture-related information, etc.
Agenda for the industry -
3G Networks need to be in-place initially with the auction coming up. (soon?) Secondly, there are 1700 devices already available with applications content for the ecosystem.
Abhay Savargaonkar – Sr. Vice President – 3G & Network Quality, Bharti Airtel Limited was the chairperson at the panel. He discussed some of the core initiatives taken by the telecom industry to make 3G as a service more effective so that it penetrates well in the already diversified mobile market.
The landscape scenario today -
- Urban tele-density – 95% (saturated)
- Rural – 16%
- Broadband – 0.54% (6.62 million)
- Internet subscriptions – 14 million
- Wireless – 126 million
- VAS output set – 9%
Data points -
- In a landscape scenario the data points show that growth rate is tapering. We are tending towards that path which is S-curve triggered.
- Gross revenues in the telecom industry has fallen quarter by quarter.
- Telecom industry has shrunk tremendously.
- Decline in Urban market while healthy rise in the rural market.
- Y-o-Y decline in internet ARPU numbers, but dial-up ARPU is growing significantly.
- data revenues have grown but that doesn’t help in pipes.
- Growth in HSPA with Asia Pacific leading the growh story for 3G.
The pundits predict that the next 3 to 5 years would be exciting for the growth in HSPA subscribers. Browsing, reading and sending mails is the main reason why users subscribe to the internet. People are hungry for the internet.
The easiest strategy for the implementation of 3G is 3G voice, rural India could do well. The delay in the 3G auction is a silver lining.
The biggest ecosystem requirement is data card and handset prices which are affordable. China Unicorn has launched HSPA 3G network in India which will help penetration in the early stage.
Mr. Mallikarjuna Rao, Chief Network & Engineering Operations, Aircel Limited spoke next in the panel highlighting Aircel’s views on the current scenario. In his opinion unlimited duration calls will drive the industry. It will be the the operators’ core responsibility to drive the 3G market.
One innovation can change the game. 2010 will be a great acid test!
As of now no one is doing video calls, only 1% are. Although no great deal of money in Mobile TV, Maxis mobile has more than 20 channels for their users.
The issues and challenges to implement 3G in India.
- Spectrum cost
- Local content – multi-lingual
- Affordable end users
- USB Modems
- Backhaul – common highway approach required.
Mr. Anil Tandan, Chief Technology Officer, Idea Cellular Limited, Shri J Gopal, Executive Director – Mumbai, MTNL and Shri Aloke Kaul, Chief General Manager – Maharashtra, BSNL were some of the other speakers who also presented their case of 3G drivers in India with increasing competition and hence decreasing revenue. Moreover the difference between 3G and 2G services are minimal. As small as just video calling which is not such a great deal of additional feature as of now to a subscriber’s mobile. There have to be handsets available at affordable costs plus getting access to adequate sites would be the key. The big question asked by Mr Tandon was – Can we skip 3G?
Well, not for the urban hype still awaiting the arrival of 3G in India, there’s hardly any need for luxurious services that they promise to offer. Aloke Kaul pointed out another scenario where 3G will take time to become popular among users. He answered one of the questions asked by the audience of how long BSNL was going to take to introduce their services in Goa and Pune. Kaul answered saying that in the next 6months they would be covering 50 cities including Goa and Pune.
Delegates from various sectors were present at the conference starting with Citi Finacial Services to someone from MIT. Yeah, of course not from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which I thought it would be. But that was Mr Pangrikar from the Maharashtra Institute of Technology, which I didn’t know about. We also met Ruwei, Senior Manager – Marketing, Huawei – Singapore who was really media-shy and just left saying that he was Chinese! Don’t know how can they manage to disappear by just saying that they’re Chinese, but he did.
Nevertheless, there were delegates all around making their respective marketing pitch at the networking sessions and of course networking too. All in all it was a terrific atmosphere at the Taj Land’s End with the likes of Shekhar Kapur, Dino Morea and the entire Australian Team sauntering in the lobby. Shekar was one of the most overenthusiastic people there, who wanted to know when would 3G come in the picture? Didn’t know what to answer, so I just asked him to wait and watch!
