Interview with Robindhra Mangtani, Senior Director, GSMA
In an interview with tele.net.in, Robindhra Mangtani, Senior Director, GSMA, spoke about the opportunities offered by the Indian telecom market and future foreign investments. Excerpts?
What is the GSM Association?s role in India?
We have come to India to promote technology harmonisation and encourage the adoption of international best practices in technology.
To give an example of international harmonisation and its benefits for India, let us consider the 700 MHz spectrum band. This band is being used for various purposes by different countries and in India, it is held by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Doordarshan is using the lower part of the band, which is between 470 MHz up to about 550 MHz.
The rest of the spectrum is unused. So, in India, one has the opportunity to use the 700 Mhz band to promote indigenous manufacturing. This implies that Indian telecom equipment manufacturers can provide both infrastructure and devices. So, companies like Micromaxx, Spice, Videocon, etc, can manufacture low cost devices which use the 700 Mhz band for rural broadband connectivity.
If this is done at a rapid clip, India can attain an advantage over other countries in Region 3, as it will have the first mover advantage. In short, international technology harmonisation implies that devices and communications infrastructure can be provided at low prices.
In your opinion, what kind of investments can the Indian telecom sector expect, going forward?
According to estimates made by ComScore, currently, there are 100 million active internet connections in India. This number is expected to touch 300 million in the next three years. In this scenario, I feel that mobile broadband will be the most widely used medium of connectivity. When we look at the objectives of the National Broadband Plan, i.e. 160 million subscribers by 2015, it is evident that the only way this number will be reached is via mobile broadband.
For this purpose, spectrum in either the 700 GHz or the 3.6 GHz band is required. This, in turn, would require investments in networks and infrastructure by parties outside of India. So we are hoping that a wider ecosystem will mean that there will be investments not only by Indian operators and Indian owned companies but also by foreign companies, especially with regard to infrastructure and networks.
What trends do you foresee in the telecom sector?
Deployment of LTE in India is certainly inevitable. We have already seen this in the 2.3GHz band with TDD-LTE but we also see FDD-LTE being deployed in the 700 Mhz and 2.6 GHz bands. Basically, convergence around LTE, both for voice and data, will be an important trend.
What technology trends have been witnessed worldwide?
FDD-LTE is certainly being used worldwide. Besides, IPTV, video streaming, growth of video and web 2.0 and web 3.0 are also gaining traction.
What, in your opinion, will be the growth drivers for broadband in India? Please highlight likely future growth projections.
In India, clearly, a broadband penetration rate of 1.7 per cent is very low, especially since the National Broadband Plan envisages a 12.5 per cent penetration rate by 2015. We believe that mobile broadband will help achieve these targets.
