Voice traffic will continue to shift to mobile in India: Gartner
According to Gartner, users in India will continue to surrender their fixed line connections, even as operators increasingly bundle broadband and IPTV to retain fixed line consumers.
The research firm says that such users will begin to opt for fixed line broadband services to access the internet. Gartner estimates that revenue from fixed line services, including landline connected telephones, broadband and internet access is expected to increase by 2 per cent from Rs 235 billion in 2011 to Rs 240 billion in 2012.
However, revenue from landlines will decrease by 7 per cent and stand at Rs 148 billion in 2012. This revenue will further decline by 25 per cent by 2016.
The research firm notes that the revenue from broadband and internet access will be about Rs 92 billion in 2012. Currently, DSL connections make up for 87 per cent of all the broadband connections in the country. They are expected to grow at 18 per cent in 2012. At the end of 2011, the dial-up connections accounted for 42 per cent of all the broadband connections in the country. Going forward, dial-up connections will be used extensively in non-metro areas.
Also, the research firm says that the slow growth of fixed broadband services can be attributed to the slow roll out of fixed broadband infrastructure in the country. In this scenario, Gartner expects wireless broadband services to bridge the demand and supply gap to some extent, especially in markets that are not covered by copper telephone lines.
