What is the key technology trend in the telecom industry ? worldwide and in India?

The Indian telecom market is one of the fastest growing markets in the world with the industry adding almost 15-20 million mobile subscribers each month. Different factors are contributing to the growth, but the key driver is India?s population demographic.

To maintain the momentum, companies need to identify technologies that will resonate with the consumers? needs. The service providers, too, have to deal with multiple challenges, such as bandwidth, throughput, latency and quality of service. Currently, LTE, with its high throughput, flat IP architecture and low latency seems to be an ideal solution.

It would allow and motivate players to come up with new and more innovative technologies and business models. Video would well be the next battleground for telecoms players and it would change the way people communicate in the future. LTE addresses operators? issues regarding content management, network intelligence and optimal back haul design. It also provides scalable back bone and lowest latency, and relatively lower cost per bit. Globally, telecom operators like AT&T and Verizon (USA), BT (France) and Telecom Italia (Europe) are offering content over broadband. In the APAC region too, operators, such as NTT Docomo, Maxis and SKT are providing broadband data services.

These services will be available in India too, once the BWA licensees launch their services.

What is the business case for LTE and Wi-Max in India?

The LTE ecosystem is maturing. It is aligned with operators? timeframe for deployments.

The technologies used in LTE and WiMax devices are comparable.  LTE is the only global wireless standard ever developed (ALU actively participated in the standards definition).

  • LTE is the only 3GPP next generation solution that will inter-operate with 3G and 2G networks and provide service continuity, that is, a customer?s call (voice or data) continues when on roaming between networks
  • Wi-Max has been developed based on an IEEE based standard. This standard is not interoperable with LTE, 3G and 2G networks to provide service continuity.
  • Interoperability across wireless networks is important and required:
LTE is commercially viable to be adopted now. In addition, device eco-system partners are in place and four others are coming up. So a carrier should ideally do its planning now and start to roll out LTE with a well supported ecosystem in the next year. Though the exact time frame actually depends on many other factors like the number of base stations, the customers are keen to use it

What new opportunities do you foresee in the Indian telecom market?

Telecom markets have huge growth potential in India. The fact that India has a strong IT base also plays an important role. As networks are becoming more intelligent, applications are becoming key differentiators. India can lead the innovation in applications by leveraging its IT skills. India could be one of the most innovative application providers in the world.

What is the future of wireless and wireline broadband in India?
It is a matter of concern that broadband penetration in India is low in spite of the fact that 104 telecom service providers are providing broadband services. However, with the recent BWA auctions, the potential of growth in the sector is enormous. Availability of Broadband services at affordable tariffs, availability of low cost devices as well as network intelligence will provide access to enormous information, facilitate delivery of civic services such e-education, e-Health. All this would automatically lead to increase in the GDP, generate more employment and therefore decrease the digital divide between Bharat and India. LTE is the future of wireless broadband. Long Term Evolution (LTE) will emerge as the next generation wireless technology. Its adoption by the service providers around the world has the potential to generate economies of scale. With LTE, operators will not only have a platform to deliver truly ubiquitous mobile broadband services, but also a much improved business proposition compared to legacy technologies.

LTE brings lower cost per bit, higher capacity and a high level of flexibility. It has a significant global appeal compared to the 2G and 3G technologies. LTE also enables new applications and seamless mobility.  All these benefits are some of the key drivers behind this technology.

Wire line broadband in India, on the other hand, continues to grow at a constant pace and would need a government intervention to really reach every village in the country.

Enhancement in broadband access, coupled with IPfication of the network, enhanced bandwidth, intelligence in the network as well as smart and user driven content management would lead to a paradigm shift in user experience. As mentioned earlier, India has the opportunity to lead the way in innovation by developing API based Applications which would help operators monetize and differentiate their services.