Telecom Policy lags practice

Economic Times , Sep 7, 2011, 01.16am IST, Editorial Page

 

By: Vsridhar & G Krishna Kumar

The DoT panel looking at various issues for the forthcoming New Telecom Policy has recommended that the country be considered as a single region — instead of the current 22 circles — a move that will spare customers roaming fee while travelling.

Roaming fees for voice calls have dropped considerably in recent years thanks to intense competition. So, the proposal may not have a significant effect.
However, what is the effect of one-nation-one-market policy on 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) services? In the case of voice roaming, the Trai regulation implemented in 2007 ensured no rental or surcharges can be levied by operators.
Trai has also regulated the maximum permissible per-minute charges for roaming calls, irrespective of terminating network and tariff plan. Moreover, multi-SIM mobiles have reduced the relevance of roaming. A user who often roams typically has two SIMs, one from an operator in the home circle and another from an operator in the roaming circle to reduce roaming charges.
With no operator holding a pan-India licence for 3G and only one operator for BWA — and assuming that the operators had a rationale and business models for picking up circles of their choice and paying the huge spectrum fee for the same in last year's auction — combining the circles for data roaming could be tricky.
A recent report says that the country has over 25 million data subscribers and about 49% of Internet users use only mobile phone for accessing the Internet.
In the initial stages, it will be the high-Arpu, post-paid subscribers in metros and category-A circles who will be the innovator segment to adopt 3G/BWA, and it is likely that the subscribers will use data roaming to a large extent.
Without a regulatory oversight, the larger operators are likely to have better bargaining power in the roaming negotiations and, hence, the smaller operators might be disadvantaged, both for originating and terminating roaming data calls.
In BWA, it is worse. The smaller Internet service providers that got the BWA spectrum are at the receiving end of pan-India unified access service providers who can leverage on the scale of their operations. As of now, data roaming charges are not regulated across the world.
EU has drawn up a three-year plan for reducing roaming tariff for data. As per the new regulation, subscribers will have to pay a maximum of 90 cents per MB of data by July 2012. The charges will go down substantially to 50 cents by July 2014.
EU has also defined ceiling charges for wholesale rates, between two operators. Some mobile operators have launched 3G services in circles without having won the spectrum for the same in the auction. Though not likely, the operator could have refarmed the existing 2G spectrum in the 900 and 1,800 MHz to offer 3G services.

This is being practised by some CDMA operators to provide high-speed data services in the 800 MHz they received for 2G services. There is consensus that the industry needs to move towards spectrum allocation independent of technology, thereby bringing in efficiency of spectrum usage. For example, earlier this year, UK's regulator Ofcom allowed refarming of existing 2G spectrum for 3G service.
Though the unified access service licence allows the operator to use any technology to provide any service including data and multimedia, legacy indicates that spectrum is associated with a type of service: 2G or 3G. Spectrum refarming explicitly disassociates spectrum from technology or service.
Another possibility is cooperative sharing of spectrum between the operators who have spectrum and those who do not. If so, even though there is no policy on spectrum-sharing between network operators, it indicates the birth of secondary spectrum market in India.
This type of sharing can occur between two spectrum holders within the same circles too. The operator that does not have the radio access infrastructure in specific geographical areas within a circle can possibly use the spectrum and the associated infrastructure of an existing operator to provide coverage that again will lead to optimal utilisation of spectrum.
These arrangements can also be construed as roaming, though not precisely. What is notable in both the above cases is that the ministry of communications and IT is yet to take a policy decision on refarming and spectrum-sharing, though it is apparently in the works at DoT to be included in the New Telecom Policy.
Though credit shall be given to the operators for taking these initiatives, without policy directives, the user is not adequately informed and even misinformed.
It is time that the much-hyped telecom policy is announced soon, with the above incorporated.

 

Take charge & go-ahead! It is your career

 

Deccan Herald,  7th Sep 2011, DH Aveneue

 

G Krishna Kumar

Polish up
It is not a perfect world where everyone gets an opportunity that matches aspirations

Requirements management, User experience, Build and release Management, Triage management are some of the roles that were never heard in the Indian software Industry say 10 to 15 years back. However, over the past few years, these niche roles have emerged in the Indian Software landscape among both the services and product companies.

These, together with the standard roles in development, testing and project management, provide engineers with several options to pursue a career in the IT Industry. The myriad of options, often adds to the confusion especially among engineers in the less than 10 years experience range.

While there are a few engineers who are aware of the value they deliver currently and how they would enhance it in the future, a vast majority of them are not sure. Salary increase appears to be the sole parameter to measure growth.

Most IT organisations have developed career paths on technical and project Management ladders to help their employees. It is to be noted that the work content in software product and services companies is similar to a great extent and there is no dearth of opportunities in both technical and managerial ladders.

In general, managerial roles are more acceptable in the Indian society. However, technical skills are always at a premium, in high demand and provide immense potential to realise value both for the individual as well as for the organisation.

Although career plan is strictly a personal initiative, there is a popular perception that it is owned by the organisation as an HR initiative. How can we expect an organisation to own the career plan for each and every employee?

It is important to understand assuming that an individual has a fair idea on the future goals, let us look at the practical aspects in realising the goals.

Spend disciplined effort
It is not a perfect world where everyone gets an opportunity that matches both the individual’s aspiration as well as business needs. In reality, it is highly likely that the current job may cater to say 50 per cent of an individual’s aspirations. This means, the rest needs to be “earned”, by spending additional disciplined effort to strengthen the areas not covered by the present job.

For example, let’s take an individual aspiring to be a Software Test Architect, while the current job is that of a manual tester. The Individual could learn/enhance programming, scripting, creating Test benches etc. Another example could be that of a developer involved in maintenance of a software product.

It is very likely that the scope of work will be limited to a few modules. However, normally, the engineer would have access to a lot of product resources that could help the engineer in gaining deeper product knowledge. In general, understanding the overall purpose of the project and seeing the big picture always help engineers appreciate their current work.

The next logical question is to find out if this knowledge can be put to good use. It is safe to assume that opportunities are aplenty in any organisation. It is a matter of interest and commitment from an individual that would open newer opportunities.

Focus on Fundamentals
Over the past few years, the Indian engineers have learnt the need for soaking into a domain in order to gain expertise. All the Domains like Wireless Telecom, Finance, Health care etc offer hundreds of sub domains that can be specialised over many years. For example, a wireless telecom engineer can be an expert in a niche sub-domain like a layer in LTE protocol stack or multimedia framework etc.

An individual could identify and gain expertise on multiple sub-domains. Each of these domains is evolving and this, not only provide an opportunity for the individuals to be abreast with the latest changes in the domain, but also, potentially contribute to the standards.

The next important area for an individual to focus on is, programming language or scripting language as the case maybe. Best programmers are always in scarcity and are equally desirable for a pure software Development project or a maintenance project. Programming languages, akin to sub-domains are an evolving area and a new programming language emerges into the arena every few years.

Importance of Mentor
It is important that the engineers are fundamentally strong in programming and design so that they can seamlessly move into new programming languages without much effort. While parents and close relatives play an extremely important role during education and early part of the job career, it is important to identify a mentor who could either be from the current organisation or from any other organisation.

The mentor can guide the individual in taking key career decisions and could even guide the individual in handling inter-personnel challenges. It is important to realise that the mentor is not the decision maker. Softer aspect like communication skill is very critical and is often ignored. It is extremely important to be clear and articulate while communicating with stake holders including customers, immediate managers and other team members.

Thinking of a solution for a complex problem is just one part, clearly articulating and obtaining buy-in from the stake holders is immensely important. It is also important not to get into an “I-know-it-all” mindset, to remain humble and be a good team player. One more important factor is the longevity of the individual in any organisation. It is fairly established that, in a growing organisation, a good performer will always have plenty of opportunity to grow rapidly.

To sum up, it is the Individual’s career which is at stake and hence more than anyone, the Individual needs to “own” the career plan. Organisations can play a supportive role with framework and policies and a personal mentor can help in key decision making.

It is imperative that the individual focuses on enhancing technical skills and there-by adding value to self as well as the organisation. Sticking to an organisation longer certainly helps. Amidst all these, it is vital to focus on softer aspects and be a genuine team player to experience true career growth.

(The writer is Director and Head of Mobile Devices Delivery, Teleca software solutions India)
 

Will mobile apps sing new tune?

Hindu Business Line,  25th July 2011, eWorld

G Krishna Kumar

Not too far in the future, HTML5 could share platform space in the mobile apps market.

Remember the frenzy created by the mobile phone game “Angry Birds”, which was first launched on Apple's mobile operating system, iOS? Not only is the game available on leading mobile platforms now, thanks to its popularity, but also, the usage of words “Angry” or “Birds” in other application names has increased manifold over the past one year, states Distimo, a company that studies the mobile applications market.

In general, every time ‘a cool application' is available on Apple's application store, the immediate response from a non-Apple smartphone or tablet user is to check whether the same application is available with the Android Market Place, OVI store or Windows Market Place.

Wouldn't it be great to see an application on all platforms at once? But before we look for answers, let's first take a quick look at the global business opportunity for mobile applications.

Is the market Big enough?

According to Gartner, globally, mobile application store revenue is projected to surpass $15.1 billion in 2011, both from end-users buying applications, and applications themselves generating advertising revenue for their developers. By 2014, the revenue is expected to touch over $58 billion.

Worldwide, mobile application store downloads are forecast to reach 17.7 billion downloads in 2011 and by the end of 2014, Gartner forecasts that over 185 billion applications will have been downloaded from mobile application stores. Free downloads are forecast to account for 81 per cent of total mobile application store downloads in 2011.

A study by Zokem, provider of mobile analytics, reveals that in smartphones, the share of application usage is overwhelming — it achieves almost six times more face time than web browsing.

In tablets, however, the difference is not so significant with 39 per cent of face time allocated to web browser and 61 per cent to applications. Studies have revealed that two-thirds of smartphone usage go into non-voice call-related activities.

With tablets gaining momentum and device users willing to pay for high-quality applications, the applications market will remain upbeat over the foreseeable future. Due to the opportunity size, developers and application stores are under pressure to create the best user experience and to provide quickest time-to-market.

Native Applications route

As of now, the traditional approach to application development for smartphones and tablet devices is to use the native Application Development route. This means applications are developed separately for iPhone, or on Google's Android platform.

Such custom-built applications utilise all the functionalities and capabilities of the device and provide excellent user experience. However, the biggest drawback is the cost involved due to extremely low reusability of software code.

Just imagine trying to develop the same application from scratch for four different platforms.

Zokem's March 2011 report indicates that email, gaming and music content are consumed more using native applications.

There are quite a few cloud-based application builders or application-creators that enable developers to create applications on multiple platforms/devices at once.

However, these app-creators don't exploit the platform-specific functionalities and are unable to match the rich user experience as compared with the native applications.

The app creator/builder market is nascent with many more trying to tap this space. This generic ‘create-once and run anywhere' is not hugely successful as yet. Is this going to change dramatically with the advent of HTML5?

HTML5

HTML5 is the fifth generation of Hyper Text Markup Language, the popular web standard. Technology industry leaders such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, and hardware manufacturers support it. There is expectation that HTML5 will be the “true” multi-platform application development technology.

HTML5 would enable browser-based applications and also stand-alone applications, including off-line applications. It supports multimedia content through video and audio tag, location-based information using Geo Location APIs (application program interface) and can also access the native platform.

With browser being the core of HTML5, applications can work on “any” platform or device, including PC, smartphone or tablet, with minimal device-specific changes for stand-alone applications. That would mean a huge cost saving, compared with the native applications.

Currently, Flash is the undisputed leader for multimedia support on browsers. However, the HTML5 ecosystem is gaining momentum.

For example, WebM, an open source project, has been created to provide rich multimedia user experience on the Web. YouTube supports WebM in addition to its existing formats as part of its HTML5 experiment. Among other aspects, WebM is aimed at supporting low computational footprint to enable playback on hand-held devices.

HTML5 would be welcomed by publishing companies. Financial Times, for instance, recently announced an HTML5-based application to attract digital subscribers.

Though, there are not many mobile applications based on it as yet, HTML5 is an evolving technology. McKinsey estimates that more than 50 per cent of all mobile applications will switch to HTML5 within three to five years.

HTML5 would be a clear winner in the web/cloud intensive mobile application space, while native applications would lead the computation-intensive contexts. Essentially, HTML5 and native applications are poised to co-exist over the foreseeable future!

The author is Director – Engineering, Teleca Software Solutions India. Views are personal.

Mobile commerce awaits a rural destiny in India

Deccan Herald , 20th Jul 2011, Cyber Space

 

G Krishna Kumar

How do you like the idea of paying bus fare by just flashing your mobile phone before the Conductor? The mobile phone, using a technology called Near field communication (NFC), communicates with a device in the bus and the amount is debited from your bank account.

NFC is gaining popularity across the world and is set to revolutionise mobile commerce. Though NFC is in nascent stages in India, it may hold the key to make mobile commerce popular in the country.

Early this year Bharti Airtel launched prepaid cash cards in India, the Airtel Money service. The service, which allows customers to use their mobile phones to make payments, is now available in Gurgaon and Airtel plans to launch it across the country.

Mobile commerce is quite popular in the West and research shows that 91 per cent of UK consumers use it. But in India it is yet to take off. Debit cards, which the mobile money can potentially replace, are easier to carry and help you draw cash. Mobile money providers typically charge transaction and subscription fee and face the challenging task of ensuring universal acceptability of their ‘money’. The law also limits the amount of money which can be transacted through mobiles.

A recent Forrester report expects global m-commerce to reach $31 billion by 2016. For that to happen rural areas may have to step in, in a big way.
Approximately 72 per cent of the world’s population is estimated to be “unbanked”. The mobile phone, which is becoming ubiquitous even in the developing countries, offers an excellent platform to take banking to them. Studies suggest that an increase in the banked population has a direct correlation to increased GDP and reduced poverty.

Kenya has emerged as a leader in mobile banking system with M-PESA, which was launched in 2007 by Safaricom, a mobile Operator. M-PESA is an SMS based, branch-less system that allows individuals to deposit, send and withdraw money using their mobile phone. M-PESA has over 14 Million customers, representing 60 per cent of the adult population.

Pakistan’s Easy Paisa, Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank’s Mobile money are among other initiatives trying to replicate M-PESA’s success.

In India, regulators like RBI and TRAI, several banks, mobile service providers and phone makers are joining hands to take m-commerce to the “unbanked” population.

Eko, a mobile banking technology provider, has tied up with SBI and ICICI banks. It helps people create a bank account and perform basic transactions at local Kirana shops.

Idea Cellular has a similar partnership with Axis Bank. Subscribers would be able to open ‘No-frills savings bank accounts’ at Idea’s retail outlets and avail basic banking services such as cash deposit, withdrawal and transfer. Idea is currently offering the remittance facility in the Dharavi-Allahabad corridor. There have been similar initiatives from Vodafone and Bharti Airtel as well.

Fifty-two per cent of India’s adult population does not have access to any form of formal financial services. With the rising tele-density there is good potential for business.

According to the latest BCG report, the projected fee-based revenue from mobile commerce could exceed $4.5 billion by 2015 in India. This revenue would be shared by banks, mobile service providers and device manufacturers.

A major bottle-neck in mobile commerce in rural areas lies in meeting the Know-your-customer (KYC) norms. Kenya’s National ID system, eliminated the need for KYC norms and played a key role in M-PESA’s success. That is precisely the role India’s Aadhar project is planning to play. If it succeeds, mobile commerce would get a big boost. But to really make it happen banks and telcos have to build awareness among people by promoting it aggressively.

(The writer is Director-Engineering at Teleca Software Solutions India.
Views expressed are personal)

Indian IT : Salary cost Vs Billing rate

Hindu Business Line, 31st May 2011, eWorld

Krishna Kumar

One factor that has perhaps not changed over the past 15 years is the excitement among fresh engineering graduates when they land a software job. And, why not? The Indian IT industry has had an unprecedented influence on Indian society, despite representing about 0.55 per cent of India's overall workforce and about 6 per cent of the organised sector.

The IT Industry has matured over three significant inflection points — the 1997/99 Y2K euphoria, followed by the dotcom bubble in 2001/02 and the global recession in 2008.

The sector being extremely people-dependent, industry salary cost accounts for over 50 per cent of the cost in any IT company. In spite of the fact that salaries were moderated post the dotcom era and the 2008 recession, salaries have gone up significantly over the past 15 years, but the billing rates have remained quite subdued in comparison.

Salary

From an employee perspective, the Indian IT/Software market has provided huge growth potential, both in terms of job opportunities as well as salary. The average salary of a fresh engineering graduate during 1996-98 was in the range of Rs 70,000-90,000 per annum. The fresh engineer salary jumped three-four times by 2005/06 and continues to remain at an average Rs 3-3.6 lakh per annum.

As one gains experience, the salary should ideally be linked to the “role” a person plays and just not to the years of experience. However, due to the lack of a credible alternative, years of experience (YOE) plays a critical role in deciding salaries.

The salary per year of experience was roughly Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 way back in 1996/97 and now this has jumped to anywhere between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 2.5 lakh depending on the individual's skill level, performance and company. For example, a mid-size IT services company will have to pay a premium of 10-20 per cent as against a well-branded large company.

In the Indian context, the salary leaps by five to eight times within 10 years of experience. Compare this with Europe, where the salary, at best, goes up by 50-60 per cent at the end of 10 years. Such a phenomenal increase in India is possible thanks to the ever expanding market place where the demand/supply is still heavily tilted towards demand. Due to the uncertainty involved in perks such as ESOPs, potential employees look at salary as the single most important parameter.

Due to this rising salary market, the average cost of compensation (ACC) or salary cost from an employer perspective has gone up 2.5-3.5 times over the last 15 years. The ACC was around $300-400 per month during 1996/97. Add to this the cost of recruitment, which has also gone up quite significantly. A recent report from Aon Hewitt indicates a 12 per cent salary increase for the IT industry in 2011. Maintaining the ACC at current levels will be a huge challenge for the IT companies.

Billing rates and Revenue

In the case of small and mid-size companies involved in niche areas such as Telecom R&D outsourcing, the average billing rates have more or less remained stagnant or have gone down over the past 15 years. The average billing rate continues to remain roughly around $15 to $25 per hour depending on complexity. However, among both the mid-size and large-scale generic IT services companies, the billing rates have gone up from about $12-14 during 1996-97 to about $18-20 during 2010-11.

While over 80 per cent of the projects were T&M (time and material)-based projects until the late nineties, over the past few years, the number of fixed-price projects has increased and is about 50 per cent in the large IT companies.

While fixed-price projects carry more delivery risk and penalty clauses, they provide a great opportunity to continuously improve productivity and manage profitability by creating the right resource pyramid (the mix of engineers in the lowest band and higher bands). For example, a 500-member software maintenance project would typically be staffed with over 50 per cent of the engineers in less than three-years-experience range. Fresh engineers with appropriate training would form a large chunk of the junior engineers. The large IT services companies are adding 15,000- 20,000 fresh engineers on an average in 2011.

Large IT companies have witnessed over 50 times growth in revenue over the past 14-15 years. Also, almost all large IT companies have achieved Net margin at over 15 per cent during the past 15 years. However, the mid-segment IT companies have seen decline in profitability and were most affected during the recession period. This is primarily because the mid-segment companies were unable to leverage the resource mix and larger IT companies maintained over 50 per cent offshoring.

What next?

With the increasing salary costs in India and billing rates certainly not going up proportionally, coupled with effective tax rate going up, uncertainty over currency fluctuation, strong competition from low-cost eastern European countries and China, IT companies will be under tremendous pressure to maintain profit margins. Indian IT companies need new and innovative approaches in order to sustain profitability.

The “high value” Consulting Business could be a potential growth opportunity. Consulting business contributes to 3-5 per cent revenue of the large Indian IT companies. For Accenture, a global leader in Consulting, over 60 per cent revenue comes from the consulting business with an average billing rate at least 4 to 5 times higher than the current average billing rates among large Indian IT companies. Although consulting is a high revenue generating business, the key challenge is to get the right skilled resources. The consultants are subject matter experts who possess deep domain expertise.

To sum up, over the past 15 years, the impact of salary cost increase vis-à-vis billing rate and thus on profitability has been quite significant among mid-size IT companies, while larger IT companies have been able to handle the impact through effective pyramid management.

India's IT revenue is expected to grow three-fold by 2020 and thus demand for Indian IT professionals would be high. However, it looks increasingly likely that the Indian IT Industry will move towards single-digit net margin levels over the next decade.

The author is Director, Engineering, Teleca Software Systems India. Views are personal.

Can we get an Indian Huawei?

Financial Express

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: May 26 2011, 03:03 IST

Eight of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies of 2011 are in the ICT domain, reports a US based magazine Fast Company. Not surprisingly, all of these are product companies. While India is the largest exporter of ICT services, generating revenue of $76 billion from the IT sector, but products contribute to less than 2%. India’s contribution to technology innovation is negligible.
The product companies witness non-linear growth (not proportionate to the head count)—the revenue per employee or profit per employee of Google or Microsoft is over 20 times that of India’s top services companies. Also, these technology giants serve as a beacon and are the undisputed trendsetters on the world technology road map.
Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE are the world’s leading telecom equipment providers. A report states that 45 of the world’s top 50 telecom companies use Huawei products. What more recognition is needed? These companies have full backing from the Chinese government and the government also supports R&D initiatives—for example, the TD-SCDMA technology that competes with the global wireless 3G standards. Is there an Indian company that can compete with Huawei/ZTE? India has lagged behind China and Taiwan in the capital-intensive electronics hardware manufacturing industry also. But the recent policy push from the department of IT to encourage semiconductor wafer fabrication, electronics and telecom product manufacturing is a welcome move. Also, Trai recently made a recommendation for promoting domestic manufacturing of telecom products.
The loss-making PSU Indian Telephone Industries, once the flagship telecom switch and telephone maker in the country, failed miserably during the telecom boom due to lack of vision from the government. But the case is different with ISRO, whose success could be attributed to the autonomy it enjoys. Another example of a tech-savvy initiative is the UID programme Aadhar, which, though far from fully implemented, has proved that India can implement large-scale technological projects.
Although the domestic demand for IT products is increasing, most Indian product companies are yet to penetrate the market. The only exception is the banking software industry where India has emerged as a leader in core banking solutions offered by Infosys and Oracle-India. Yet Infosys’s products business generates only about 5% of the overall revenue. In general, Indian companies are risk averse and prefer to enjoy the safety of services business, hence have not been able to succeed in creating product offerings.
But some Indian IT companies are successful in the outsourced product development (OPD) model, a pseudo ownership model, wherein the independent software vendors (ISVs) are involved in end-to-end product development for the customer but the ISV does not ‘own’ the product. Cloud computing can be a cost-effective and disruptive technology for further growth in OPD and pure-play product development companies. Nasscom indicates that delivery model innovations such as SaaS and innovative revenue models could fuel IT product adoption in future.
BERD (business expenditure on R&D) and patents/IP management are key indicators of a country’s technology innovation capability. An EU commission report on ICT 2011 indicates that India lags behind China and other emerging economies in terms of BERD/GDP. While China has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of patent applications over the past decade, India’s contribution is insignificant. Generating IPs and protecting them is just one part of the story. Realising value from the IP is a different ball game. Appropriateness of the solution is the key.
It must be said that Indian education system lacks an environment that fosters active partnerships between industry and universities. In the advanced countries, research in universities is given high priority and is supported by industry in the form of grants. As per the recent Anil Kakodkar Committee report, India lags way behind China in terms of university research in engineering and technology. The report also emphasises the need for improvement needed in research infrastructure. An OECD report indicates that India has less than one researcher per thousand employed, much below the global average.
Availability of risk capital is a key constraint for product companies to flourish but Nasscom sees an improving trend. Venture capital/angel investor ecosystem has improved significantly. There are 38 incubation centres across the country aimed at encouraging product development initiatives. India has seen 30% CAGR in start-ups over the past 10 years. The product market in India is expected to touch over $15 billion by 2015. The government’s plan to invest R25,000 crore for setting up semiconductor fabs will provide an impetus for hardware-oriented product development.
The government can play a key role in helping start-ups and other companies engaged in software or hardware product development. There are many examples of how government intervention has yielded good results. Tax benefits for software export revolutionised IT industry in India. Israel supported companies working on networking technologies that helped Israel take a leading position in security. Taiwan supported electronic hardware that resulted in the emergence of the original design manufacturer market.
India has been a ‘follower’ in the ICT space and its product development capability has been patchy. It needs to move towards full-fledged product development in order to be a dominant player in the ICT arena. India’s domestic market by itself will offer sizeable opportunities. However, for made-in-India to be a reality, it is imperative that the government aggressively drives a clear road map for technology innovation, encourages product initiatives, supports hardware and semiconductor industry and, most importantly, inculcates ‘product culture’ right at the universities.

The author is director, engineering,
Teleca Software Solutions India.
These are his personal views

LTE route to 4G Migration

Hindu Business Line ,  24th March 2011, eWorld

G. Krishna Kumar

It is quite incredible that the 2G journey in India started 16 years ago and continues strong even today! While India has just started 3G launch, 4G is the buzz word in other parts of the world. India's regulatory authority TRAI is expected to come up with 4G recommendations later this year.

Where is the “True” 4G?

4G is perhaps the most misused term in the Wireless Industry. Basically, any technology that provides enhanced performance and capabilities compared with 3G is generally called 4G. In fact ITU (The International Telecommunication Union) recognises the lack of clarity in the term 4G and has determined LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced or WiMax 2 as “True” 4G. 4G technologies are expected to provide between 100Mbps and 1Gbps in stationary state. More action on 4G is expected over the next couple of years.

The popular LTE (Long term Evolution) and WiMax are way ahead of 3G in terms of data rates and would fit in as a 3.9G Technology. LTE, or more specifically LTE(FD), is a natural progression from 2G-GSM and 3G-WCDA and hence sure to be more popular compared with TD-LTE although TD-LTE is better in terms of spectral efficiency. TD-LTE is recognised by the ITU and is supported by China as an extension to its TDS-CDMA 3G technology.

Global LTE trends

The powerful GSMA (GSM Association), with over 800 telecom companies world-wide, is firmly backing LTE as the next major Mobile Broadband technology. LTE was first deployed by TeliaSonera in Sweden. There are 18 live LTE networks now including Verizon, NTT DoCoMo and further 184 deployments in the pipeline. Wireless Intelligence, a research firm, predicts that LTE, currently with over 3,50,000 connections, will cross 300 million connections world-wide by 2015. The Asia-Pacific region (excluding India) is expected to be leader in LTE connections with 24 per cent by 2015.

Global mobile trends indicate that minutes of usage for Internet access are twice as much as the talk time. A survey conducted by Comptel indicates that majority of mobile broadband users are willing to pay for a higher QoE (Quality of Experience). LTE is seen as an enabler of Mobile Cloud Computing (Cloud can be accessed by any Web-enabled device). Examples such as RCS (Rich Communication suite), multimedia streaming services such as TV, real-time high-resolution video conferencing can be achieved using LTE. LTE also supports inter-operability across 2G and 3G networks.

Voice over LTE (VoLTE), expected to hit the advanced countries some time in 2012, is an IP-based solution that ensures high-quality voice and video communication. US-based Verizon wireless successfully demonstrated a VoLTE call last month.

While LTE provides quite a few benefits, the deployment is heavily dependent on the availability of spectrum and regulatory framework. There are three possible spectrum scenarios for LTE deployment - 2.5 to 2.6GHz, the digital dividend spectrum in the 700Mhz and re-farming of existing spectrum. In fact, due to the spectral efficiency, LTE can pack in 1.5 to 5 times more subscribers compared with 3G in a cell for voice calls.

India's next generation Broadband options

Since 4G is far away right now, the only migration path for India is to take the LTE route. A recent McKinsey report states that only 1 per cent of India's subscribers are mobile-Internet users compared with 18 per cent in China. However, considering the demand for digital content, India's Internet users will increase fivefold by 2015 and more than 75 per cent of them will choose mobile access. Airtel adding over 5 lakh 3G subscribers in less than a month is certainly good news for 3G-based broadband access. However BWA WiMax uptake is still not clear.

BWA's guideline being technology-agnostic has helped Reliance-Infotel, which won pan-India licence to consider TD-LTE instead of the traditional WiMax route. This will intensify competition among the BWA providers in India.

But TD-LTE may take a couple of years to mature. With enormous support for TD-LTE from China, it is very likely that we could see TD-LTE based devices such as mobile phones, tablets, etc, rather than just data cards and USB dongles. Further, availability of dual-mode devices, TD-LTE and LTE/3G, would be key. TD-LTE could pose a threat to WiMax (BWA) and 3G.

For mobile broadband to pick up significantly, telecom companies/BWA operators need to come up with innovative pricing schemes to attract subscribers instead of the widely popular “sachet” pricing used for voice. Bundled devices with attractive contract terms through which the pre-paid segment can potentially be converted into post-paid.

The key challenge in India continues to be availability of a mobile-literate population that can make meaningful use of the Internet. It is not clear how the Government will handle the 700Mhz digital dividend spectrum, which is currently owned by Doordarshan. Interestingly, both I&B ministry and Telecom ministry are vying for this spectrum for Mobile TV and LTE, respectively. It is established that the 700MHz spectrum provides huge cost benefits compared with the 2.3 -2.5 GHz spectrum.

Among the Incumbent operators, whether it is allocation of new spectrum or re-farming of 2G spectrum, the Government should give preference to operators who, at a minimum, are a) efficient in their spectrum usage, b) provided over 90 per cent 3G/BWA coverage in all their operative circles and, most importantly, have demonstrated excellent quality of service to subscribers.

As we've seen, 4G certainly looks distant. However, India should rapidly increase mobile broadband customers using the current technologies in order to enable smooth transition to LTE over the next couple of years.

As pointed out, the key challenge is availability of affordable devices, relevant content, attractive data plans and mobile data “aware” population. It is imperative that the Government involves all the stake holders in propelling India's next generation mobile broadband journey.

The author is Director – Engineering, Teleca Software Solutions India. Views are personal