TRAI guidelines

TRAI has asked The Department of IT to take steps for Interconnection of all the four nodes of NIXI (National Internet eXchange of India) with each other and to restructure the board. The Interconnection of the nodes will boost the internet speeds in India because it will help India's Internet traffic to remain in India rather than moving all over the world to reach another destination in India.

BSNL moves to TDSAT

Once again BSNL has moved to TDSAT against The TRAI. This move was due to an order of TRAI in which the regulator ordered to reduce carriage charges from 65 paise to 20 paise a minute ir-respective of distance. BSNL will be facing major losses if the new rates are inforced.

Telcos support subscriber linked spectrum criteria

The majority of telecom operators had supported the subscriber based criteria for allotment of spectrum at a CII meeting held for discussing spectrum related issues. However, Tata Teleservices Ltd still opposed the criteria, the was supported by the CDMA poineer Qualcomm. While the other operators said that they have support of Nokia, Ericsson and Simens who were in the meeting too.
All the other operators said that proper importance should be given to securing more spectrum as their networks are getting choked due to lack of spectrum. The operators supporting subscriber linked-criteria said that it was not a GSM Vs CDMA issue as, Reliance Infocomm Ltd has fully supported them.
A draft spectrum paper is to be circulated to the members that would likely to take into account all the views presented at the meeting. Based on their inputs, the National Council of CII would discuss and deliberate on the draft paper and submit it to the government as recommendations of CII.

Get ready for IPTV

R.S.P Sinha, CMD, MTNL said in a interview that Delhi & Mumbai users of MTNL will be able to use IPTV by June. He said that they were targeting to provide Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) using the customer premise equipment (CPE), which is the phone. He said that the service will be bundled with a 256 Kbps broadband connetion. He further added that MTNL will also give thrust to the virtual private network (VPN) services and next generation (NGN) services.

PSUs say No to unbundling

BSNL and MTNL the telecom PSUs have firmly opposed unbundling of their networks last mile to private operators for broadband services. At the very first meeting of a PMO appointed panel on the opening of PSU network for increasing broadband penetration, BSNL said that there networks were copper network were very old and only seven million out of the total 42 million fixed lines can be used for providing broadband.

Qualcomm joins the Spectrum war

QUALCOMM Incorporated, the poineer of CDMA digital wireless technology, joined the fight on behalf of its major users in India namely Reliance Infocomm Ltd and Tata Teleservices Ltd for allocation of spectrum based on equality. The company is convinced that the criteria adopted by the government to allocate additional spectrum is based on incorrect method and there are needs to correct it. India government is currently planning to give spectrum to GSM operators on the base of number of subscriber.
Kamwalinder Singh, President, Qualcomm India and SAARC, said, "The method of calculating only the net adds of subscribers to seek additional spectrum adopted by GSM operators leads to skewed figure of subscriber numbers. The correct and scientific method is to calculate it along with the existing cumulative subscriber numbers."
He added, "If subscriber based spectrum allocation is the basis then the criterion should be the same for CDMA and GSM operators."
He further said, "Economies of scale are reflected by handset additions which is always more than net subscriber addition."
The US technology major also said that GSM evolution to WCDMA is inevitable, since this would enable GSM operators to achive simmilar spectrum efficiency and revenue generating services as CDMA operaors. Hence, there should be equal spectrum charges for equal spectrum allocation. Singh also said, "Operators should be given flexibility to decide on a particular band to deploy a particular service in their allocated spectrum."
It must be noted that after intial allocation, the incremental spectrum alocation for CDMA has also been set half the amount allocated to GSM operators. This unequal allocation stifles competition and introduction and expansion of value-added services. Singh said that, it also created a disincentive for GSM operators to adopt technologies that could make their networks as efficient as CDMS ones.
He said that any criterion that goverment decided to adopt to allocate spectrum should take into account the technology and effciency it provides.

FLAG can now access VSNL

FLAG telecom, one of International wholesale bandwidth provider, and a fully owned subsidiary of Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd (RCOVL), has at last got permission to access the cable landing station of VSNL situated in Mumbai. Reliance was trying for more than a year to get the access rights to the station. An award announced by the International Court of Arbitration of International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) on Friday, FLAG now will have access to the landing station of the FLAG-Europe-Asia (FEA) cable system for installation, inspection, testing, training and other functions.
The above rights will free up more bandwidth on the India-Europe route, increasing capacity and reducing prices significantly. Sources close to RCOVL indicated that the bandwidth available on FEA may increase from 10 Gbps to about 80 Gbps once order takes effect. And it will take a maximum of three months as the order has to be implemented within three months.
The order will definetly benifit the industry by bringing bandwidth prices closer to international prices which are 1/8th of our prices currently. This reduction in prices will benift ISPs and BPO compaines and further will benifit end users too.

STD rates set to fall further

As we know that MTNL has lowered its fixed line call rates between Delhi & Mumbai. Now get ready for many more great news as STD rates for both fixed and mobile locations in rest of the country to fall significantly as the company received bids at much lower rates for carrying its STD traffic. Three private operators - Bharti, Reliance and Tata-owned VSNL - had bid for carrying MTNL's STD traffic throughout the country. Rates less than 20 paise and 65 paise, depending upon the distance slab, has been received by the Telco. According to industry sources, Reliance bids could emerge as lowest for various lucrative locations.
Anita Soni, director (finance), MTNL told PTI "we have received bids at less than ceiling rates." Soni, however, declined to give details.
Three private telecom operators - Bharti, Reliance Infocomm and VSNL - had bid for MTNL's Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million) tender for carrying and delivery of outgoing STD calls across the nation. BSNL, which was till now the preferred carrier being a PSU, has skipped participating in the bidding process.
BSNL CMD A K Sinha had said, "We have not sent our bid... but we will take a call on it later on. We will see what rates are being offered and then take a decision." The PSU, which received a STD licence earlier this month, is hopeful of getting much better and competitive rates compared to paid by them now to BSNL, sources said. Sources in the industry indicated that the bid could go slow as to 20 paise for certain locations. However, MTNL officials said bids received would be evaluated in next few days before choosing a preferred carrier for different locations.

TRAI to reassess 3G spectrum issue

TRAI has been asked by the government to give fresh recommendations on requirement and pricing of spectrum for the next generation (3G) mobile services.
"We have requested TRAI to look into the spectrum for 3G services... besides Department of Telecom (DoT) has already taken up the matter with Ministry of Defence and we hope to get 45 Mhz of frequency from defence services by the year end," Telecom Minister, Dayanidhi Maran, told reporters.
The spectrum the Defence is expected to release is in the IMT 2000 band and 1800-1900 Mhz band which is the band used for providing high bandwidth 3G services.
A coordination committee has been set up with members from both the ministries to get the spectrum, he said adding a project worth Rs 1000 crore has already been launched for this purpose.
On the functioning of the Group of Ministers (GoM) under Defence Minister Pranab Mukharjee, the minister clarified that the GoM was formed "only for the purpose of vacating spectrum from defence services and how to fund it."
"GoM was not for framing the spectrum policy," Maran said.

Now AT&T in India

US telecom major AT&T Inc has returend to India. AT&T is going to invest a sum of Rs. 18.50 cr in India. AT&T is one of the companies which will bid for NLD, ILD and ISP licences. The telecom major will bid for the licences in a Joint-venture with an Indian company.

Telecom tariff set to drop

The telecom tariffs are set to drop further as government has decided to cut the annual licence fee for access servicesto six percent of adjusted gross revenue(AGR). A final decision is yet to be taken on the matter but it is likely that soon Telecom commission and Finance Ministry and Planning Commission will discuss the matter this month and a final decision will be made. The draft note proposing to reduce the licence fee for access services and also for Internet protocl virtual private network(IP-VPN) services has been approved by the DoT. Currently operators are bound to pay licence fee at the rate of 10% (category A circle), 8% (category B circle) and 6% (category C circle) of AGR.
Private operators like Bharti and others have always asked govt. to reduce licence fee and spectrum charges. Sunil Bharti Mittal, of BTVL have already promised that if government reduces the licence fees then the whole profit will be passed to the customers. The meeting of Telecom commission held recently has observed that mobile services had been growing at a rate of 64 percent per year. And this rate will facilitate the govt. to reduce the revenue sharing licence fee by 50% annualy without affecting the revenue of government.
The draft note also highlights that COAI and AUSPI has pointed out that in India the levies and duties on Indian Telecom Sector were one of the highest in the world at more than 25 percent of revenue.

Now Delhi & Mumbai are local

In a major breakthrough MTNL today announced 40p calls per minute between Delhi and Mumbai down from earlier Rs. 1.90 per minute. This announcment had came just after launching its NLD services between the cities. MTNL has got its NLD carrier licence after opening up of NLD/ILD regime. The above reduced tarrif will come in effect from 1st of June. Now MTNL subscribers of Delhi & Mumbai will be able to make calls at Rs. 1.20 per three minutes, earlier they were a paying Rs. 5.70 per min. for the same call. MTNL has made a deal with VSNL in which VSNL will lease a line to MTNL to provide NLD calls between the cities. VSNL has offered MTNL 3p as carrier charge for calls.Earlier MTNL was paying hefty charges of 65p for carrier line to BSNL for calls between the cities. Currently MTNL has got no NLD infrastructure of its own and it uses BSNL's network for the same. However, MTNL will soon build its own network between cities but in phased manner.
Mr Maran, Communications and Information Technology Minister, lauded the initiative of MTNL and expressed confidence that more and more competition will lead to further lowering of bandwidth prices, which will make IT and ITeS industry more competitive.
This kind of a plan will definetly make other operators to offer lower tarrif calls between major cities. And in the end all these will benefit us, the users.

Spectrum WAR

The war is not yet over. Cellular Mobile Operators Association of India(COAI) is in combat mode with Tata, over the oppositision of the allocation of additional spectrum based services on subscriber growth bt Ratan Tata.
The apex body representing the GSM operators, COAI has said that that Tatas had the same level playing field to add more subscribers when the government converted the licence into a Universal Access Service Licence(UASL).
T.V Ramachandran, Director General COAI, said, "It is an absurd allegation that operators are fudging their subscriber figures. Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd, Bharti Televentrues Ltd, and Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd are listed companies. Can they afford to fudge?
Further, they also report to Department of Telecommunication(DoT) on a quaterly basis about subsciber numbers as a part of their licence obligation."
Ramachandran also Ramchandran further added that if the subscribers figures were fudged, then then the revenue growth would have exposed it.
The operators were toiling to get revenue by investing in additional infrastructure, and RCVL and BTVL had invested heavily in their infrastructure expansion since USAL licence was given to them, he said.
"With falling tariffs and lower average revenue per user(ARPU), there is no reason in no reason for them to fudge subscriber figures. Tatas had the same opportunity as others to ramp up their subscriber base and infrastructure.
They had the same spectrum as others that was allotted by government," said Ramachandran.
Ramachandran said that government's spectrum allotment criterion was not discriminatory as it laid down a clear and transparent roadmap based on which operators were eligible for additional spectrum once they reached a pre-defined subscriber milestone.
Ramachandran said that this criteria was finalised by a Techniacal Committee after Telecom Engineering Centre had conducted an in-depth study for seven months on utilisation of bandwidth by operators, the network design, the traffic handing capacity in different areas.

Access Networks in rural areas

To enhance the broadband penetration in rural areas, the Department of Telecomnications (DoT) has been asked to make concrete efforts to establish access networks using appropriate and latest technologies.

Access network is a wireless or wireline network that provides a direct connectivity to a corporate building ao for a end user's home from the service provider's system. It provides a direct link to any part of the country through the backbone network of the operator.

A sub-group headed by Rajiv Ratan Shah, member secretary, Planning Commission, has said in meeting with senior DoT officials that the major reason behind non-availability of voice, Internet and broadband based services in rural areas is the complete absence of access networks in the areas. The sub-group has also asked DoT to deploy latest technologies like High bit rate digital subscriber line(HDSL), Asymetric digital subscriber line(ADSL) and Worldwide interoperatability for microwave access(WiMAX). It has also been asked by the group to co-ordinate and submit schedule at the earliest.
It was also obeserved by the group that BSNL most fvourably palced with 25,000 rural exchanges(point-of-persence PoP) with optical fiber connectivity. The sub-group has suggested that these PoPs could be used for spreading wireless bandwidth to connect villages.

Buildings with Broadband

In a far-reaching move to make buildings broadband ready, government may soon direct developing cites like Gurgaon, Greater Noida and others to provide high capacity bandwidth.
Pudong in Shanghai has lately followed such a model with success, which resulted in rapid expansion of broadband in homes and offices.
Now in India too, all commercial buildings, offices and houses where commercial buisness, including IT, should be given clear directions on the need of high quality bandwidth in the building

AB OUTGOING BHI FREE

Tata Indicom one of the CDMA based mobile service provider has come up with a uinque plan when lifetime validity plans are getting popular. Tata Indicom has started a plan offering outgoing call for free for 2 years to all Tata mobiles/fixed phones. The plan is known as "Don't Stop mobile". This plans offers 2 years of free outgoing to Tata phones within your circle for 3600 minutes and free incoming too. There will be no need to recharge for making calls, However you need to recharge for making calls to other networks. You can recharge with TruePaid recharge cards and can get 100 percent talktime which can be used over the entire validity time.
Tata has started this paln because the govt. is thinking of releasing more spectrum to the operators who have a higher customer base and on this front Tata is the much behind the other major operators. And surely this plan will help Tata a little. Ok whatever the reason such a plan will definetly benifit the customers. And very soon other Operators will be catching up Tata with such a plan.

India adds 3.9 million mobile users in April

India the fastest growing wireless market, added a total of 3.9 million users in the month of April. Which looks great but it was substantialy less than the last month's addition which was 5.14 million. These addition casused the total mobile user base soar to 94.44 million, more than the total of combined population of Germany and Greece. The Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India said five CDMA networks added 974,360 users in April. While the Cellular Operators Association, which represents eight GSM carriers, said 2.93 million users signed up in the same month. This month top seated firm was Bharti's Airtel getting a total of 1.1 million GSM users. Which was followed by Reliance Communications Ventures Ltd., which offers both CDMA and GSM services added 502,250 new users. The third and fourth ranked firms were BSNL and Hutch adding a total of 430,000 and 700,000 new users respectively.
This whole growth is being fueled due to a no. of reasons. One of them is that we are offering the cheapest call rates in the world. Moreover falling handset rates, lifetime packages are luring more and more customers. One more thing which should be mentioned is that we will be soon seeing plans from all the major operators offering free call to ther own network without recharging. Tatas had already started such a plan offering outgoing calls to its own network for 2 years for free. And soon other opeartors will come up with their plans too. These plans will definetly boost the no. of connections in coming months.
But still we are lagging, still less than 10 percent of India's population has access to mobile services as networks are still concentrated in cities. However Operators are now thinking of reaching to the huge untapped rural market where more than two-third of population live.

At last no DataCaps

Broadband is spreading day by day in India these days but one hinder in the way today is the Data Caps imposed by ISPs. But at last the biggest ISP providing bradband in India had got a plan which has got rid of this irritating Datacap. I am talking about the govt. owned BSNL. BSNL anounced a new plan on 1-5-2006 providing huge relif to its user base. The new plans are "Home Plan UL 900 Plus" & "Home Plan UL 900". There is a little difference in the plans as of internet is concerned. Both the plans have a fixed monthly rentals of 900 for broadband and provide a download speed of 256 kbps and upload of 64 kbps(Only grim with BSNL now). The catch in the new plans is The PLUS plan. This plan offers no voice rentals for the plone and you get the One India subscribed without paying a paisa for it. The OneIndia plan has got a rental of Rs. 300 hence this plan gives u broadband at a effective rent of 600 only. However u need o shell out Rs.100 per month for the modem or u can buy it and save money.
I must say that BSNL is not only the company offering such a Plan. Private operators like Bharti and Sify had also got such plans. But there is a importance of BSNL rolling out such a plan because it is the only provider to offer Broadband in most of the cities in India.

Telco Updates

I will try to update this bog regularly with latest news from the Indian telecom world. Plz visit the blog for the latest. Thanks