Change is good

Change is good - this was Vodafone's catch line when they rebranded themselves from Hutch.

I thought it was beautiful. And I guess it is. But how often is it that you are the one whose life goes through changes and you still think "change is good"

If only change was good why would there be a big hog wash over the spectrum. Dept. of Telecommunications wants to make a change by increasing the spectrum fee or auctioning the spectrum at an awfully high price and there are so many court notices by everyone to everyone - TRAI, Relience, Airtel, COAI, AUSPI.

So is change good?

Life & Marriage vis-a-vie Telecomm India

I work mostly around telecom and during the day today a friend of mine sends me the following:

Life and Marriage
Life before marriage is like AIRTEL : 'Aisi Azadi Aur Kahan'
Life during engagement is like RELIANCE : 'Kar Lo Duniya Muthi Mein'
Life during Honeymoon is like IDEA : 'A wife can change your life'
Life after one year of marriage is like HUTCH : 'Whereever you go your wife follows'
Life after 10 years of marriage is like MTNL/BSNL - 'The subscriber is not reachable'

I could so relate to it. These are the catch lines of the different mobile service ads.
Full credits to the owner of the analogy.

Its been all great ... but until when?

More than 7 million users a month - July 07, I think. Reasons being - lower price due to high competition, lack of fixed line connection and improved lifestyle for all.

Have you ever seen a regular Hindi movie? Its all good and good and then the boooom .... something goes wrong - villain appears, someone has an accident or an old boyfriend shows up unexpectedly. The theme changes - its now a sad story.

Same will be the story with Indian Telecom! I think the good part is almost finished. The bad guys have made their appearance. The main issue ... Spectrum. Who has it ... Defence Dept. Telecom Ministry has requested, then asked, then ordered that the spectrum be released. But why should they? They have had it for free for as long as they can remember. Now suddenly someone orders the Defence Dept. of the country. Irrelevant is what they have and they need to give. But they are the defenders of the nation and how dare somebody orders them! And given that Defence Dept releases the spectrum, the Telecom Dept does not know how, to whom, when and at what price to sell/auction the spectrum.

Operators are willing to pay for the spectrum needed. They have seen the value. They have made the money and are willing to risk more money.

Who suffers? As always the people - you, me and us. And this case, may be the nation as well. Cell phones have changed the lifestyles of so many from roadside vegetable vendors to freelance cooks to on-the-move CEOs. Connectivity has reached to far off villages who thought talking to anyone in the city meant walking for days to first see then talk. Definitions changed. Talk could happen with small devices, the so called "mobile". Airtel was everywhere. Reliance brought the tariff down. Anyone and everyone could afford a "mobile".

Will operators suffer - Not at all. They invested. Their ROI (return on investment) has been spectacular - way more than what they had anticipated. With no new spectrum, they will squeeze as many users as possible in the given spectrum. They will increase tariff. Hutch and Airtel has already increased SMS prices. Thenafter they will move on. End of the day, they are entrepreneurs who knows how to see the opportunity and make money. They have made enough to finance their next venture. If not telecom, they will do petroleum, steel, retail ... whatever will make them money.

Government - they come and they go. Need I say more?

So, with the lack of spectrum resulting in low voice quality and many dropped calls ... the bad guy has definitely made an impact. Now we got to wait and see if the "hero" - Telecomm India will be able to come up victorious or will it just be great growth story we will tell our kids and grandkids.

Number portability

When will number portability start? I am sick of Airtel - they charge you for so much more than you use. And to see your complete call lists you need to pay Rs. 75. So what if they charge Rs.1 per call ... they know of ways to make money.

If there was number portability - I would definitely not be AIRTEL today. May be HUTCH? May be MTNL? May be even Reliance ... even if I would have to buy a CDMA handset.

Have you had any bad experience with your operator? Want to tell me before I make another mistake .... ?!?!?

Telecom Operators in India

I use Airtel. And I know about Hutch because of its $20billion deal. Reliance is a CDMA operator. But I wanted to know who else are big players in the telecom field. And this is what I found ...

I did not know about BPLmobile. I think Aircel is big in South India and is also venturing into WiMax. Dolphin - not heard about this. And ... I see that TataIndicom is missing in the logo collection above. Any guesses as to where I might have found the logo collection? Think think ... its a big well known website!

cricket world cup 2007

Sms is big in India. Contests, polls, live updates, ringtones ... many things happen with sms. And when it is the World Cup Cricket going on, SMS can't be quiet. True that almost everyone is either watching or listening to it somewhere in the radio. So the question is who is using the SMS to get the updates and live scores. But in a country with more than 150million cell phone subscribers, sms cricket update is ALSO big. So next time there is a big match and you are not too keen to be in front of the TV or radio - which is very likely given the way India is playing with Srilanka - I am watching while writing- 255 to win and 112/6 @ 28overs - Yuvraj Singh just got run out! 5th wicket run out! Unbelivable DHONI out on the 1st ball ... I hope I saw it wrong ... phew --- Dravid can't believe it! Neither can I ... I think - I am almost sure - you will need the following SMS numbers to get your cricket update. How interested can you be to watch all the way now that India is out of Super 8!!!!!

Yahoo India Mobile
Sms: cri to 8243 : Recent score of all international teams.
Sms: cri country to 8243: Recent score of a particular team.
Sms: cri sch to 8243:: Schedule for the next week.

Sify
Sms: cri to 4545: Latest live scores.

Indiatimes
Sms:CRI to 8888 : Ball by ball updates for Indian matches.
Sms:MAT to 8888 : Live score updates on cricket matches from across the world on your mobile through SMS.
Sms:CRI SCH to 8888: Match schedules.

Happy SMSing.

Ombudsman

Facing flak over increasing consumer complaints, telecom service providers on Monday announced the setting up an Office of Ombudsman for telephone users.
Consumers will be able to directly take their complaints to the Ombudsman and the decision taken would be binding on operators. If you are not satisfied by their decision, you are free to take their grievance to any other forum like the consumer courts.
So bother with the Ombudsman when there is consumer court - because consumer court deals with all problems and not just telecom related; might take while for your case to be addressed.

What is Ombudsman?
According to dictionary.com ombudsman is -
1. a government official who hears and investigates complaints by private citizens against other officials or government agencies.
2. a person who investigates and attempts to resolve complaints and problems, as between employees and an employer or between students and a university.

Top 10 advertisers

I was reading the Tele.net January 2007 and came across a lot of statistics on Telecomm India. Subscriber growth, ARPU, market share ... many of these were given. What got my attention was the top 10 advertisers (January - November 2006). Here is the list

Television
------------------------%share
Bharti Airtel -------------- 25
Reliance Communications - 23
Hutch --------------------- 21
Tata Teleservices --------- 13
Idea Cellular -------------- 11
Spice Communications ----- 2
MTNL --------------------- 2
Matrix Cellular ------------ 1
Aircel --------------------- 0.8
BSNL --------------------- 0.5


Print
--------------------------- %share
Reliance Communications -- 35
Bharti Airtel --------------- 13
Tata Teleservices ---------- 12
Hutch ---------------------- 11
Idea Cellular --------------- 9
BSNL ---------------------- 9
Aircel ---------------------- 5
BPL Cellular --------------- 2
MTNL --------------------- 2
Spice Communications ----- 2

I believe this statistic does not include the cell phone manufaturers like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson!

IEEE 802

Last week I was at the 802 meeting. This time it was in Florida. Beautiful place. Lots of technical discussions. Different companies trying to find a spot for their proposals in the standards.
The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee develops Local Area Network standards and Metropolitan Area Network standards. The most widely used standards are for the Ethernet family, Token Ring, Wireless LAN, Bridging and Virtual Bridged LANs. It consists of many Working Groups. An individual Working Group provides the focus for each area. Well known groups are the 802.11 and 802.16 groups.

Representatives from different well known companies like Nokia, Motorola, Samgsung, LG, Intel, Qualcomm, Netgrear, NextNet, Panasonic, Fujitsu, France Telecom, ... and from different geography participate. However, it was surprizing to see that there was noone from India. Of course there were many Indians; but not actually from India.

Then, I started thinking does it even matter what gets standardized and what doesn't. India has become a big telecom market; but it definitely is not the decider. Tried out and tested systems come to India. It is a very cost sensitive market - cheaper is better anywhere in the world but cheaper is the only way in India. Yes, Rs50000 phone gets sold in India. But the point is what gets sold more - its the Rs1000-Rs2000 phone. For a full time enigneer out of college the salary is in the range of Rs5000-Rs10000.

So, ya the conclusion I drew was ... what gets standardized does not bother/depend on India. But if a standardized system becomes big in India, then the companies with their IPR (intellectual property right) in the standard do make a lot of money.

Holi hai

I am in India on Holi after 7 years. Last I remember was 1999, the year I went to Japan. Holi for me was always a colour festival with lots of water. Now you must be thinking why am I talking about holi in a telecom blog. I was trying to see has telecom changed anything? And I decided to think aloud. So there is telephone.... its been there for long. But we have mobile or the so called cell phone these days which was not there few years back. So has mobiles changed anything? SMS! True I did get a few sms-s on holi. Other than that, I do not think there was any change. I actually thought that it was one festival where people forgot their cell phones. This I think is mainly due to fear of the phone getting spoiled due to water, gular (the coloured powder) and the real pukka color. But yes, people were carefree and enjoyed some water and colour time.
Bottomline - mobiles have changed our lives in many ways. But still for occasions like holi, people do forget their mobiles.

Budget `disappoints' telecom industry?

The first post in the month of March had to be about the BUDGET. What changes? What positive? Tax reduction? Any exemptions? Rural India? Infrastructure?

I thought I would write a good summary - impact of the budget 2007 on the telecom sector. But then, I really am not a financial analyst. And budget is all about money! So me too wanted to know what did the finance minister P Chidambaram have to say about the telecomm sector that has made a big bold presence all over India.

I found a good summary in Yahoo Finance.

Do let me know if the link stops working.

So what is WiMAX?

WiMAX - World Interoperability for Microwave Access

So what is WiMAX and why is WiMAX such a big issue? We hear about WiMAX as much as we hear about 3G and sometimes even more. So I have seen many people ask - so what is it? Is it next generation of WiFi? What is it going to provide? So let me tackle a few of these questions.

Recommended WiFi before continuing.

WiMAX is also a way of providing wireless connectivity - in a larger area - it is a wireless MAN (metropolitan area network). There are two main applications of WiMAX today: fixed WiMAX applications are point-to-multipoint enabling broadband access to homes and businesses, whereas mobile WiMAX offers the full mobility of cellular networks at true broadband speeds.

Fixed WiMAX allows
1. connecting Wi-Fi hotspots with each other and to other parts of the Internet.
2 providing a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access (i.e., from the nearest high capacity cable like optic fibre termination to your home/office).

So what is needed in these to be able to use the Internet -
1. when two WiFi hotspots are connected; the user is not at all influenced. He/she uses WiFi with their WiFi card in the WiFi hotspot. Once outside the WiFi hotspot, there is no connection to the network.
2. last mile - A WiMAX CPE (customer premise equipment) at your home/office to connect to your computer. The CPE connects to the WiMAX access point place where the nearest high speed cable ends.

The standard used for this wireless connection between the two WiMAX devices is 802.16. WiMAX is a name of a forum promoting 802.16 standard. (Extra info - Genereally speaking WiMAX means 802.16 standard. In the techical IEEE 802 discussions, they are not the same. WiMAX certified product is not necessarily a 802.16 standard compliant product. WiMAX is a forum independent of IEEE802. IEEE802 standardizes the 802.16 protocol, whereas WiMAX promotes the 802.16 protocol.) Now the mobile WiMAX ...

Mobile WiMAX allows
- mobile connectivity.

This is sort of a big big WiFi. Wherever you be, you can connect to the WiMAX. You need a WiMAX card with you and a WiMAX access point and you are good to go. WiMAX access points are installed throughout by service providers. They are like base stations of the cellular system. Here we are talking about the 2G, 3G, GSM, CDMA kind of systems. They have base stations distributed throughout; the cell phone connects to these base stations and you can make calls, send sms, download music, check emails or browse Internet with your cell phone. Similarly, WiMAX service provider will have access points thought their coverage area and a WiMAX card in the laptop will access it for connection to the Internet. So you have access to the network while on the move. So how is it different from the data communication card given by Airtel and others. The speed! WiMAX is very high speed. Can go upto hundreds of MegaBytes. It is, as they say, broadband connection.

So mobile WiMAX can be seen in two ways -
1. big WiFi hotspot. you are always in the hotspot.
2. a cellular system that provides broadband connection.

That is why WiMAX is so big. They are better than WiFi and 3G.

So will it replace WiFi and 3G? My personal opinion - it might.
Data communications on the move is good. But we cannot forget voice. Can we talk using WiMAX? My answer - if we can talk using skype, then we can definitely talk with WiMAX. you can log on to your skype when you have WiMAX giving you internet connection. That is what is wireless VOIP. Many manufacturers are coming up with WiMAX phone so that you do not need a laptop to log in to your skype like application.
Also read my 3G or 4G?

Intel has a good pictorial presentation with voice explanations.

So what do you say? Do you know a bit about WiMAX now? Do write your comments.

WiFi ... Hotspot ...

What is WiFi? WiFi is a way to wirelessly connect terminals to the Internet in a small area. A wireless router or modem is needed in addition to the wireless cards in your computer/smart phones/pdas. These days most of these cards are inbuilt in laptops and a few very smart phones and pda say – WiFi connectivity – this means they have the card inbuilt.

So all you need is a wireless router connected to the dsl modem -- and your house is WiFi enabled. Of course you need the laptop with WiFi card built into it or you need to buy a WiFi card as well.

WiFi is actually a common name for the 802.11 standard. Dot 11 - rings any bells? Dot 11a, Dot11b and Dot11g are the WiFi standards. These standards define the protocol that defines how the wireless card in your terminal (laptop, computer, phone) communicates with the wireless router.

So what can WiFi do?
- Provide wireless connectivity in a small area (local area)
- if you are too far from the wireless router, you get no signal and hence you are not connected to any network including the Internet.
- to be wirelessly connected in a larger area using WiFi - there needs to be many routers so that your terminal is in the range of one of the routers at all times.

What is a hot spot?
A hotspot is an area which provides you connectivity. Most hotspots use WiFi. They have one or many wireless routers installed in their premises. And a user connects to the internet using their router. Many hotspots charge you some fee. Some are free hotspots.

Google, headquartered in Mountain View, is trying to make Mountain View a big hotspot. They have partnered with the city government to install wireless routers on street lights to provide wireless connectivity anywhere in the city.

Now comes the question - so what is WiMax? [Coming up ...]

Did Vodafone overpay?

Vodafone valued Hutchison Essar at US$19 and is willing to buy out the Essar holding after being declared the winner in the bid for the Hutchison race.
From Hutchison expressing its desire to be sold to Vodafone winning the bid - there was a lot of speculation as to what is the right price?
Some facts:
1. Hutch is the 3rd largest mobile operator - subscriber base of about 22million
2. Hutch is a GSM operator - Indians seem to favour GSM [Reliance, a CDMA operator, is showing interest in GSM - even bid for the Hutchison 67%]
3. Indian telecom penetration is less than 16% [huge market potential]
4. Subscriber growth in India - 6million users a month - ain't that worth trying?
5. Vodafone already had 10% in Bharti Airtel - the leading cell phone operator.
6. India currently has the 2.5G systems. 3G deployment stalled due to regularization issues for frequency and spectrum by TRAI.
7. Huge initial investment for 3G spectrum in Europe lead to the 3G not being such a big success as expected.
8. 3G issues will be sorted soon. Huge Capital investment needs to be made for the 3G infrastructure.
9. In India, broadband is speed above 256kbps - the Internet is very very slow. 3G is a system more for faster data applications. Voice and sms sees no difference.
10. Will 3G be as successful as 2G and 2.5G in a cost conscious Indian market?

So, Vodafone took a top player seat in an emerging market with huge market potential and ready to step on to 3G. But did Vodafone overpay?

US$19 billion for an Indian telecomm operator

Vodafone made the winning bid for Hutch - decided Sunday in Hongkong. I thought this would be the biggest Monday morning news all over the world. I thought they overpaid. But did they? What do experts say? I thought all top news reporters like cnn and bbc will be reporting about this deal. And of course the Indian newspaper gurus like times of India and Economic times will have a lot to say about them.

I opened cnn.com - Chicks claim 5 Grammys!!!
Where is Vodafone? Where is Hutch? Not a mention in the top stories. Not a mention in the Technology. Not a mention in the Business.
Bcc - Vodafone is a UK company. It has to be the big news all over UK - thinks me. "Democrats wary over Iran claims". That was the big news.
Ok, those are not India focused news. I opened timesofindia.com, once again very confident that Hutch or Vodafone or $19 billion would be definitely the big black eye catcher. Guess what I read ..... think .... yes! cricket!!!!! Sehwag gets World Cup lifeline; Sourav, Pathan in too. Hutch news was somewhere in the main page but definitely not the prime focus.
By now, I was already wondering if $19 billion was a big enough amount to gain top spot in the news. Well, for me $19 seems a not bad amount. More than 6 Starbucks! Just once again to prove myself wrong I forced myself to type economictimes.com and guess what I got - FOR VODAFONE INDIA IS NO LONGER A THIRD WORLD. Was I happy - Oh Yes! So Hutch deal/Vodafone win was purely a economic news. And that was news for me.

Coming up next - Did Vodafone overpay for Hutch?

What is Smartphone?

Many have tried to describe smartphones as phones with PDA-like functionality. Now, while it is true that smartphones offer PDA-like functionality, the converse is not true: not all phones with PDA-like functionality are smartphones. Regular or basic phones may also come with a set of features, such as a task manager, calendar, alarm, notes etc., but this doesn't make them all smartphones. Similarly, smartphones have also been associated with touch-screen phones. This is because a lot of Windows Mobile phones like the i-mate and O2 offerings had/have touch-screens. But not all touch-screen phones are smartphones, and not all smartphones are touch-screen capable. In the simplest manner, a smartphone is a phone that let's you install applications on it to extend the functionality of the phone.
Smartphones also allow multitasking, for eg. letting the web browser load a page in the background while you compose an SMS or an email. New multimedia phones have added this feature to the music player application, which can be pushed to the background while playing music to let you access other phone features, but this is limited to just that application. Regular phones may also offer a rudimentary form of multitasking where the application stays active in the background during an incoming phone call.
Smartphones run an operating system. Normal phones all use their own simpler, proprietary user interfaces. Nokia uses Series 40 (used in phones like the 6610 and 6270), Motorola uses the ageing P2K UI and others like Sony Ericsson and Samsung also have their own interfaces that are either the same or similar across their range of phones. Smartphones use more powerful operating systems such as Nokia's Series 60 UI based on the Symbian OS platform, used in devices such as the 6600, 6630, Nseries and Eseries phones. Sony Ericsson uses Symbian OS UIQ, used in the P and M series phones and also the new W950i Walkman. i-mate, O2, HP, HTC/Qtek/Dopod etc. all use Windows Mobile.
Palm and BlackBerry devices have their own proprietory operating systems similar to non-smartphones, namely Palm OS and BlackBerry OS, but these are both open systems that third-party developers can create applications for. In contrast, you cannot create low-level, natively executable applications for non-smartphones such as the 6610, RAZR V3i, K750i or the X820.
Apple's recently announced iPhone runs OS X and has almost all the features of a smartphone, but it isn't a true smartphone because third-party developers cannot create applications for it. The iPhone will only be capable of installing and running applications released by Apple, making it the iPhone version of OS X more of a proprietary UI than an open operating system. As Engadget said it, the iPhone is not a smartphone.

Hope you got some idea of what a smartphone is. Read more @ tech2

3G or 4G?

Spectrum allocation and management is the most contentious issue dogging the Indian telecom. Heated debate over the past two years has failed to resolve the issue and this has considerably delayed the launch of 3G services in India. The question is not "whether 3G can be ushered in without adequate allocation of spectrum", but also "how", "how much" and "to whom"? These were the kind of discussions in 3G India summit in Sept. 2006.

While Indian telecomm regulators and 2G service providers are fighting and debating over the whos and hows of 3G, there are players like Aircel who have launched WiMax services.

In the wireless world, voice providers are trying their best to also provide data services viz: Internet via a cell phone. On the other hand, wireless data technologies like Wifi/WiMax are on their way to provide voice with the VOIP technology with something like skype phones. Now there actually is almost no difference to the end user how he gets voice - through a cellular (GSM or CDMA or 3G) network or a data communications network (Wifi, WiMax...)

So, isn't India a little too late in launching the 3G services? Shouldn't they concentrate on what is beyond 3G. Ya, 4G is beyond 3G. But it is still not well defined as to what is 4G. I think India have a very good chance of actually defining 4G. If India adopts a certain technology, every operator, equipment manufacturer, technology provider will shift their attention to the India adopted technology and that is what would become 4G.

Telecom News

I always end up googling to look for news on Telecomm India. Thought it would be good to have one site that lists interesting sites talking about Telecomm India.

Check out the links on the right!

Suggest if you know more.

Telecom. vs. Telecomm.

Both refer to Telecommunications. But which one is correct? Dictionary.com has an entry for Telecom that gives a link to Telecommunications whereas oed.com [Oxford English Dictionary] says Telecomm is the abbreviation for Telecommunications. So, I guess telecom is American slang and telecomm is British slang!

Now an interesting question is which one is more commonly used in India? Indian Telecomm or Indian Telecom or Indian Telecommunications?

A Google with Telecom India or Indian Telecom gives more relevant sites like the Dept. of Telecommunications, India. Indian Telecommunications also gives some sites. But Telecomm India gives more links to exhibitions and events like Telecomm India 2007. What can be concluded is Telecom is more commonly or freely used by government authorities. Google suggests telecom if you search with telecomm. Hey, it wasn't a spelling mistake!

What do you think should be more commonly used?

Indian Teledensity 15.41

Today, the TRAI (Telecomm Regulatory Authority of India) released a press release on the quarterly performance indicators of Telecomm services. Had most of the Indian telecomm statistics. And what could be a better start for my Telecomm India.

Some statistics:
The teledensity in the year ending Sept. 2006 was 15.41 registering a growth of 48.75% as compared to Sept. 2005. The gross subscriber base (fixed and wireless) reached 170.02 million with 129.54 million wireless subscribers. Number of PCOs are 5.15 million and VPTs are 0.55 million covering 86% of the 0.61 million villages in India.

The all India blended ARPU per month for GSM (CDMA) services has declined to Rs. 337 (Rs. 215). The all India average subscriber outgo per minute (rental+airtime revenue) for GSM is Rs. 1.45 and that for CDMA is Rs. 1.05.

Internet subscriber registered an annual growth of 31.64% and stood at 8.08 Million. 1.82 million users are the so called broadband users (>256 kbps). The average minute of use per user per month for dial up Internet is 185 minutes (down 5minutes from the previous quarter). Revenue per user per month for dial up was Rs. 220.

Read the full press release at the TRAI website.
http://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/PressReleases/422/pr17jan07no9.pdf

Its all happening in India!

"Indian Telecom market is booming." These are not my words. But I do not remember whoall have said this. Be it a new engineer, a veteran in the field or an investor - everyone wants to benefit from the Indian Telecom boom. The boom that is happening now. Today. Newspapers have a lot to say. People have a lot to say. Internet has a lot to say. New regulations. New laws. New subscribers. India today is one of the few markets where the subscriber growth is tremendous. Most of Europe, North America and even Asian markets like Japan and South Korea are saturated. India is growing. Mobile - the general term used for a mobile terminal or a cell phone - is still a status symbol for some who can afford to buy the latest smart phones. Mobile is a means of communications for many low income people like drivers, sweepers, and even sabjiwalas (vegetable vendors who walk around in residential areas with a small cart with veges - basically a mobile vegetable store). When you hire a new driver, you do not ask if he has a phone (he doesn't!) but you ask, "Do you have a mobile?" and 90% chances are that he does. Government is thinking of giving connectivity to the rural India with some form of wireless technology. Various telcos (telecommunications companys) from all over the world are increasing their presence in India. They want to be noticed. They want to get a piece of the Indian telecom pie. Startups are emerging. Inverstors are investing. Its all happening in India!

I am an engineer with a phd in wireless communications from Japan. I worked in the Silicon Valley [San Jose, USA] for some time for a telco! And these days I am in India. I have a fair understanding of the telecommunications technologies. I know the who and what behind words like GSM, CDMA, 3G, .11, IEEE802, WiMax .... So, I decided to blog about Telecommunications in India.

I know a few things. But I do not know many things. Please give your comments to help me improve. If there is anything specific that you want to read about or know about, do let me know and I will do my best to find answers. You can reach me at telecommindia at gmail dot com.

Happy reading!