ravi_patent

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/what-not-to-expect-from-3g/676891/0 Few people want to read more about 3G in India. It has been such a long undulating path of hope, expectation and despair over the last 4 years that 3G has become something of a mirage for waiting consumers. We can also be reasonably sure that our average mobile consumer does not know what exactly to expect from 3G. Will it really transform his currently aggravating user experience of trying to complete a voice call without any drops or allow him to find a mobile game, which he likes without repeatedly initiating the download and getting billed for it each time? Will he really be able to make those video calls being promoted by nubile celebrities, will that new mobile health application really help him get rid of the years of excess, or will he be able to watch that YouTube clip on his mobile browser? It’s widely accepted that unless telcos really work on developing an ecosystem around 3G services, just having access to spectrum will not change much in the lives of an average mobile consumer or in the topline of telcos. The key reason for this market structure is the difference between 3G and the earlier generations of communication technologies. When GSM and CDMA technologies were introduced, their value proposition of mobility over a fixed line connection was crystal clear, and as soon as the price points came down, the market hit the tipping point. However, from 2G to 3G, the key difference is the ability of the newer technologies to support higher data speeds, which on its own is a clear use case for only a niche section of the population. The first beneficiary of the higher data speed will be the mobile broadband market (dongles, embedded devices and modems). CDMA operators have had a real first mover advantage in this market, with their launch of EVDO dongles and they are already adding about 2 million subscribers per annum. This market can grow for EVDO operators, but for 3G (HSPA) operators, the amount of allocated spectrum (5 MHz) very quickly starts becoming a bottleneck. One way for the 3G operators to address this issue is to increase the contention ratio (number of simultaneous users), but then the end user experience starts mimicking its current experience with 2G and the additional $3.64 billion paid for pan-India 3G spectrum starts going down the drain. The other challenge is the limited growth in PC sales among residential users. Unlike some of the developed markets like the US where telcos are subsidising embedded 3G netbooks, in India the telcos are not going to assume inventory risk. This means the customers should not expect fancy netbooks at Rs 4,000 with the launch of 3G, as the credit risk is very high and there is a constraint on the 3G data cards that can be supported in the limited spectrum. We expect this market to grow to about 17.3 million data cards by 2014. The other use of better access speed is in enhancing the user experience in browsing and content download. This is where device vendors, content companies and the ecosystem starts becoming very important. Unlike in dongles, where the ecosystem has limited differentiators that it can offer (e.g., mobile TV services bundled with a 3G dongle), in handset-based browsing, the entire user experience and hence revenue upside is dependent on seamless content consumption, hence requiring strong device-service integration. The reason why 50% of global mobile Internet data over smartphones goes through Apple devices, although they account for only 14.4% of the total smartphone base, is Apple’s control over the end-to-end content consumption value chain. It may not be advisable for Indian telcos to try to replicate the Apple model, but all the ecosystem elements have to be in place to enhance end user experience and drive value out of 3G. In the current scenario of telcos with stretched balance sheets, mobile device subsidy by telcos can also be ruled out. With the not-so-subtle and repeated hints coming from major telcos about 3G being a premium service, the content and monthly data plans may also be at a premium, at least in the initial year of 3G’s introduction. If an average user cannot afford a mobile device that supports the actual 3G experience, cannot afford the monthly data plan charges and does not have the flexibility to experiment with content to find what he likes due to premium pricing, then the user base will be limited to a few early adopters and the current bunch of premium users. The average user may then have to wait for that elusive enhanced 3G experience, at least for the coming one year. We expect that the mass market will begin to come into the 3G fold with dropping device and service prices by some time in 2012, and the total 3G user base (excluding dongles) will reach about 77 million users by 2014. However, the wait for 3G will be worth it, at least for the 6-8% premium customers in India who will have a greater choice of devices, content, applications and services, and a step change in user experience. To make sure this finally happens, telcos will need a lot more focus on partnerships, product and service innovation, pricing and device service integration than ever before. —The author is associate director in the New Delhi office of Analysys Mason, a global telecom, media and technology consultancy

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/09/04/stories/2010090452040700.htm The Department of Telecom is formulating a policy to address issues arising out of convergence between telecom, IT and broadcasting sectors. The policy, once drafted, will be sent to the Cabinet for approval. Though the contours of the policy are not yet clear, Government sources said with mobile operators wanting to offer TV services on handsets and broadcasters wanting to offer broadband, the lines between the sectors are blurring. “The policy is aimed at addressing various issues such as disparity in FDI, technology, access device,” sources said. The Cabinet Secretariat has asked DoT to specify a time line for finalising the policy. “The DoT has proposed approval of policy for convergence of IT, broadcasting and telecom. However, no target dates have been indicated. It is requested that the DoT may indicate the same,” said a draft note for the Cabinet Committee on Infrastructure (CCI). This is the second attempt by the Government to work out laws for convergence. It had earlier floated a Communications Convergence Bill. Targets The CCI is in the process of approving targets for the telecom sector for 2010-11. Targets being set include finalising 2G spectrum allocation policy. DoT has informed that it will finalise the policy three months after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India submits its revised recommendations on the issue. On the issue of addressing security concerns with respect to spyware in telecom networks and cyber warfare, the DoT has set a target of December 2010. The Government is preparing an elaborate blueprint for undertaking counter cyber warfare on unfriendly countries. According to a proposal being considered by the National Security Council, Indian agencies may be told to enhance capabilities to exploit weaknesses in the information systems of other countries and also collect online intelligence of key military activities. The proposal includes setting up laboratories in research institutions to simulate cyber attacks with the help of ethical hackers. These laboratories would be used for training intelligence agencies for offensive and defensive cyber warfare techniques. Personnel working in this area may be given legal immunity for carrying out these activities. Other targets for the current financial year include policy on mobile virtual network operators, permitting Voice over Internet Protocol, setting up a consumer grievance redressal mechanism and migrating from Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to IPv6. Targets for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd have also been spelt out, including adding 22 million GSM connections this year. Cabinet Secretariat has sought specific time lines from the DoT for finalising these initiatives before the plan is submitted for CCI's approval.

we have been seeing upward tariff revision by rcom .probable the news item below is giving reasons for the same http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/6443456.cms?prtpage=1 India's two largest private telcos — Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications (RCOM) — claim that “virtual” consolidation is underway in the country’s crowded telecom market, with new entrants scaling down their rollout plans and shying away from reducing tariffs further. “Although 14-15 telcos continue to exist, consolidation has already begun in the virtual sense,” says Mahesh Prasad, president for wireless services at RCOM. “In most circles, only about six operators continue to sustain market momentum. The intensity of competition has come down,” says Mr Prasad. Some of the new entrants in the telecom market have not rolled out networks in many geographies despite being granted spectrum. Many new entrants did not bid for 3G and broadband spectrum. All these are tell-tale signs that consolidation has started in the minds of companies, says Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive of the country’s largest telco by both customers and revenues, Bharti Airtel. “Consolidation has also started in the minds of customers,” says Mr Kapoor. “Even in this crowded market, six operators now account for almost the entire revenue market share, indicating that customers have learnt to recognise bigger, stronger and better brands,” he says, adding that this along with the increase in minutes of usage for larger mobile companies are proof that only certain players are present in the minds of consumers. Bharti’s average monthly minutes per customer has jumped 3% this quarter to 480 minutes, compared with the figures for the previous three months. Idea Cellular and Vodafone Essar have reported 13% and 10% growth, respectively, in minutes of usage during the period. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, Norway’s Telenor and Russia’s Sistema set off a savage tariff war last year when they entered the Indian market. This resulted in a fall in profits and revenues of all operators . But the rate of growth posted by these companies slowed substantially in the last quarter . Uninor, STel, Loop, Etisalat DB, Videocon and Sistema together added less than 12% of the 18 million customer additions in June, according to the data released by Trai. This is in sharp contrast to last year’s numbers when Uninor added a million users within 30 days of its launch . STel managed to clock one million subscribers in 90 days from three small circles. While Videocon added 1.39 million users in May, it could add only a third of that in June. The new entrants together account for less than 3% of India’s 600 million mobile users. KPMG’s telecom head Romal Shetty said new entrants failed to come up with innovative offerings to sustain the initial blitz that accompanied their launch. “The top six players have an unique advantage , as they have a larger and longer brand recall . The new entrants did bet heavily on mobile number portability to get customers, but this facility has been delayed,” adds Mr Shetty. Even Uninor, the best performer among the new entrants, has been struggling to make a dent in the market, while also fighting an uphill battle to get second-generation spectrum, the airwaves on which all mobile services are currently offered. Recently, the company announced the resignation of Stein-Erik Vellan as India MD amidst reports that the parent company was not happy with his performance. Uninor has also brought in its head for the Asian region, Sigve Brekke, to add momentum to its Indian operations. The rollout of the new companies has been slower than expected. All new entrants — with the exception of Sistema — are under probe by both the Central Vigilance Commission as well as the Prime Minister’s Office for delaying the rollout of their operations. While it has been close to three years since these firms bagged licences , Etisalat DB is yet to launch commercial services. Loop Mobile has started services only in Mumbai, while Videocon has launched services only in five of the 22 circles. Even Uninor and STel, the other new entrants, have failed to meet all their rollout obligations. Analysts say the older established players are pulling ahead. “Bharti and Idea have outpaced industry revenue growth and gained revenue market share. Bharti and Idea’s aggregate gross revenues grew 5.5% and 6.1%, respectively QoQ. This reconfirms the view that Bharti and Idea have recaptured minutes from the competition . Aircel continues to gain revenue market share which increased to 4.9% in Q1FY11 against 3.6% in Q1FY10. RCOM’s AGR grew by 13.1% QoQ,” research analysts at India Bulls Institutional Equities, Piyush Choudhary and Vivekanand Subbaraman, said in a note. Data released by Trai also reveals that incumbents , with the exception of RCOM and BSNL, have regained their revenue market share, which they had lost to new entrants between July 2009 and January 10 this year. Bharti Airtel’s revenue market share, which stood at 33.7% as of June 2009, dipped to 32.7% in December 2009, but has recovered since to touch 33.3% for the quarter ended June. Vodafone Essar’s share, which had fallen to 20% as of September 2009, has seen it go up to 20.5% in the June quarter. The telco commanded a similar share of sales in the same period last year. Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices have also recorded significant jump in their revenue market share over the past 12 months. For instance , Idea’s market share jumped to 13% in June ’10, when compared to 12.5% a year ago, while for the Tatas, the company now commands 8.4% of the total sales in the sector when compared to 7% for the quarter ended June ’09.

DOT studying merger policy http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/New-telcos-may-exit-set-off-consolidation/articleshow/6458989.cms

the biggies will fix merger policy...in thr rush for cheap tariffs,the ensuing exodus will create massive overloads on operators...

@kesav what is the link between the 2

@raccoon i was expecting comments from you for sure ,with which i fully agree.. herd mentality /unflinched brand loyalty are greater than anything else..

SSTL is planning to launch EVDO enabled smart phones in the Indian market within a few weeks. “We are talking to almost all the big brands to bring in variety in handsets,” Rozanov said. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/--Russia-govt-funds-for-Sistema-likely-to-be-finalised-by-Sept--/634310/

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/08/25/stories/2010082551460900.htm We moved from 32 cities to 65 within nine months and by December that number will change. Reliance Communications has selected Chinese equipment vendors Huawei and ZTE, to upgrade its mobile network for third generation (3G) services. The two vendors are already supplying GSM network gear to RCom. Speaking to Business Line, Mr Mahesh Prasad, President, Marketing-Wireless Business, Reliance Communications, said, “We are almost on the verge of closing our 3G network plans. We have selected Huawei and ZTE to upgrade our networks. We had already factored in 3G upgrade last year since our network is only one-year old. “When we deployed 2G network, we anticipated 3G to happen so lot of ground work has already happened.” This is the second 3G equipment deal after Tata Teleservices announced an agreement with Nokia Siemens. 3G investments Mr Prasad said the investments for 3G are still being worked out. RCom had earlier announced a capital expenditure of Rs 3,000 crore this fiscal for network roll out. RCom won 3G spectrum in 13 circles for Rs 8,585 crore. He said the price for spectrum was higher than expected and the impact on pricing of services is yet to be seen. On the possibility of bundling 3G devices along with the connection, he said the company will look at the possibility if it made sense to consumers. “We certainly have the competency and we know how to deal with handsets ecosystems. We are comfortable with handset procuring, branding and bundling, so we will certainly look at it if it makes sense for our customers,” he said. CDMA On the CDMA front, RCom is looking to expand its EVDO-based 3G services. “We moved from 32 cities to 65 within nine months and by December that number will change. We have always looked at data and VAS as a huge potential market,” Mr Prasad said. RCom has launched EVDO-based data services on handsets also apart from USB dongles. Asked if RCom was eyeing the number one spot in the Indian mobile segment, Mr Prasad said, “Being a subscriber market leader is good. Achieving second spot, by a company which is lot younger than most incumbent is commendable. But rules have changed; subscriber growth alone is not enough. Now, we are looking at improving quality of users, improving portfolio of services and improving revenues.” RCom currently has 111 million subscribers and is at the second spot, behind Bharti Airtel.

@vinayak very usefull info reg myservices.relianceada.com 1 to you

http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2010/08/Technology-India-Sure-Bet-WiMAX/ When Reliance Industries paid $1 billion for control of Indian broadband company Infotel hours after it became the only company to win a slice of 4G spectrum covering the entire country, shock waves ran through the industry – and not just because of the improbability of the deal. Reliance announced it was going with LTE in a country many believed would be dominated by WiMAX. Nearly two months later, the state of 4G deployments in India has become murkier, not clearer. Unconfirmed reports surfaced that Reliance was leaning toward WiMAX, not LTE, and had even begun trials because technology was mature enough for immediate deployment. But several companies working directly with Indian operators to land deals for their wireless broadband deployments told Wireless Week on condition of anonymity that several key carriers, including Reliance, were leaning toward LTE, refuting earlier reports about the company's flirtation with WiMAX. Operators are keeping their thoughts on the subject under wraps, and depending on who you ask, the country is either leaning entirely toward WiMAX, LTE or a combination of both. Current Analysis researcher Peter Jarich says it's impossible to tell which way Indian operators will swing without insider knowledge, but he says that the decision of Reliance Industries, the only private company with pan-India BWA spectrum, will be hugely influential for other operators. "If Reliance moves in one direction, there may be an incentive for other operators to follow," he says. Reliance did not reply to requests for comment on the issue but there are few reasons its motivation for picking one technology over another would be substantially different from other carriers. Just like every other Indian company with BWA spectrum, Reliance must choose between the head-start advantage of WiMAX and the immense global scale LTE will have in the years ahead. "Reliance could go with LTE for the sheer fact that it comes down to scale for devices and roaming," Jarich says. "There's this expectation of scale, which means cost benefits and more [variety] in devices. I think that's what is really pushing people toward LTE." Altair Semiconductor co-founder Eran Eshed, who has participated in talks with Indian BWA spectrum holders about their 4G deployment plans, says the recent momentum of TD-LTE has shaken their conviction about WiMAX. "Some are trying to figure out how the world changed in a few months," Eshed says. "They were in the comfort zone with WiMAX, assuming that TD-LTE was far behind." Eshed is currently in India, brokering meetings between OEMs and Indian operators with 4G spectrum. Though he declined to have the pending decisions of specific companies published on the record, Eshed says he is "confident" that Tier 1 operators in India will go with LTE. Like Jarich, Eshed believes the scale advantage of LTE will trump the time-to-market advantage of WiMAX. "You don't make a 10-year decision based on a six-month tactical advantage," he says. "These are huge strategic decisions that have major implications beyond CPE [customer premise equipment] costs." WiMAX has seen its influence weaken significantly in recent months despite new deployments and the launch of Sprint's first 4G handset, the HTC Evo. Alvarion, a key player in the development of the standard and a long-time pure-play WiMAX equipment vendor, recently said it was adding TD-LTE to its portfolio. Russian operator Yota decided to build out the rest of its 4G network with TD-LTE instead of WiMAX. Clearwire announced it was testing LTE and Cisco decided to stop making WiMAX base stations. "In three years, when devices are generally in volume parity, my prediction is we won't have too many more greenfield WiMAX customers," says Fred Gabbard, vice president of product management for Motorola Networks. "LTE is going to drive volume that WiMAX can't compete with." Between a Rock and a Hard Place The difficulties of choosing between the head start offered by WiMAX and the growing global support for the LTE ecosystem has resulted in a proliferation of theories about potential 4G deployment scenarios in India, but most of these theories have major logistical problems. One popular theory espoused by analysts and industry players alike is that India may adopt WiMAX as an interim measure to LTE. On the face of it, it sounds simple: Deploy WiMAX now and switch to TD-LTE at a later date. The two technologies are so similar that some infrastructure companies say the switch is as easy as a software upgrade. But Eshed and others believe transitioning from WiMAX to TD-LTE is far from trivial, despite the similarities between the two technologies. Motorola estimates that up to 80 percent of the hardware in a WiMAX network can be reused for a transition to LTE. That's all well and good, but there's a catch: Switching from one technology to another renders all of the legacy devices running on the network ineffective. "The issue is not whether I can do a software upgrade from WiMAX to LTE, but that I break all the devices underneath that footprint the night I switch over," Gabbard says. "Until we have devices that can do both LTE and WiMAX, there's no way to not disrupt the customer base." Gabbard, who is working with Indian companies as they weigh the pros and cons of WiMAX and LTE, says the near-term importance of a quick deployment with WiMAX and the long-term implications of the scale of LTE presents a conundrum for the Indian market. "They're really struggling because they're weighing the headache of a migration against an early start," he says. Indian operators could also choose to deploy WiMAX in key markets and then overlay it with LTE, as Yota planned to do before Russian regulators put a kibosh on the plan. Clearwire has also hinted it may pursue such a strategy depending on how its tests in Phoenix, Ariz., pan out. An overlay deployment could work in India if more BWA spectrum opened up, but current spectrum allocations aren't generous enough to make such a strategy viable, says Kunal Bajaj, Analysys Mason's director for the Indian market. "In BWA we don't have 20 MHz of spectrum, so unless they are willing to run two 10 MHz networks separately, it's not practical," he says. From a logistical standpoint, deploying one technology and sticking with it could prove the easiest way forward. Bajaj believes that if the ecosystem can meet certain deadlines and price points, it will be the best choice for Indian operators, specifically Reliance. The variety of LTE that could be used in India's unpaired BWA spectrum band, TD-LTE, is somewhat behind its more common FDD brethren, which is itself behind WiMAX. The lag might not be as severe as it sounds, however. A commercial TD-LTE network deployed by Motorola has been operating since spring at the Shanghai Expo, chipsets for the technology are already available and some of the industry's biggest infrastructure players are touting their TD-LTE solutions. Ken Wirth, president of LTE/4G solutions for Alcatel-Lucent, says Indian operators have substantial reservations about the lag time between WiMAX and LTE. Wirth, who recently met with seven "key customers" in India, says he had to dispel a number of rumors about LTE in India. "There was a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt cast about the lead WiMAX has over LTE," he says. "The preconceived notion was that LTE was two to three years away from commercial. I told them we're commercial now in preparation for Verizon's launch, and that platform does FDD as well as TDD... A couple customers were thinking of going with WiMAX and now they're reconsidering." Wirth says the time-division variety of LTE that will be used in India is between three and six months from commercial viability. Alcatel-Lucent is working with four OEMs to develop devices for the TD-LTE standard and will have another four coming on board by the end of this year, he says. By the end of his discussions with Indian operators, Wirth felt more optimistic about TD-LTE's chances in India. "I was really surprised at the receptivity of the Indian carriers once they understood the facts around the specific deliverables from our LTE program," he says. As it stands now, Qualcomm is the only company with BWA spectrum with concrete plans to deploy TD-LTE. Reliance has been silent on the subject since voicing its support for the technology in June. Reliance's decision could have an influence on some of the other BWA spectrum winners, although state-owned operators BSNL and MTNL are sure bets for WiMAX, Bajaj says. The Ripple Effect of India's Choice India is not just any market. It presents a massive growth opportunity to not only infrastructure vendors, OEMs and operators, but to the technology standards as well. India's population is almost as large as China's despite the disparity between the countries' land mass. The most recent estimates from the World Bank put India's population at 1.14 billion and China's population at 1.32 billion. India has just 635.5 million mobile subscribers and the country's government has a comparatively friendly attitude toward foreign companies, presenting a prime opportunity for investment and growth. India is to the wireless industry what veal is to top chefs, and its decision either way on LTE or WiMAX could have a major influence on the future of each technology, especially the single-band variety of LTE. TD-LTE's major backer is China Mobile. Despite the carrier's enthusiastic support for the technology – significant because China Mobile is the largest operator in the world based on subscribers, with 554 million of them – it's essentially ham-strung by the Chinese government when it comes to its 4G deployment plans. It's not something the industry likes to admit, but nobody really knows when China Mobile will be able to move ahead with its 4G plans. The ambiguity over the timing of China Mobile's mobile broadband deployments makes India the most likely country to have a game-changing effect for the time division variety of LTE. Still, deployment plans in India aren't much clearer than the timing of 4G in China. Mobile broadband deployments in India could have a major effect on the near-term success of TD-LTE. Of course, India isn't the only market likely to deploy TD-LTE. Key operators in countries such as Germany, Denmark and Russia all own unpaired spectrum they could use to deploy LTE, though their plans are far from concrete. The size and scale of the Indian market is second only to China, however, making its importance to the future of both WiMAX and LTE undeniable

even 3g sevices cannot be launched by anyone unless they are MNP complaint http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Telecom//articleshow/6296537.cms

@kesav Broadcasters are planning for court room rather than our drawing rooms (media reports i have read make me belive so)

http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/idea-issues-3640-connections-to-one-person/403737/ Telecom service provider Idea Cellular has issued a whopping 3,640 connections to one person and the company he owns, Limco Sales Corporation. “Idea Cellular had issued 3,640 post-paid connections to a single person and his company Limco Sales Corporation in Delhi and as per the report of the Department of Telecom, the bulk connections have been rented out to other customers,” Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha. “The practice of providing mobile connections to an individual without maintaining his identity particulars has security implications and operational activities of security agencies are hampered due to non-availability of identity of a suspected target,” Pilot said. According to licence conditions, vigilance should be exercised in providing bulk telephone connections for a single user as well as for a single location. Provision of 10 or more connections may be taken as bulk for this purpose, he said. The home ministry has said security agencies are facing problems in establishing identity of actual users in cases where bulk connections have been activated in the name of a single user, location or an organisation and the numbers have been further distributed or rented out for use.

MoneyControl Monday, July 12, 2010 There is something about technology companies that makes them want to dominate the world. Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Google and even Apple all want the world to veer around to their point of view and therefore their products. Maybe it is something to with the transient nature of technology advantage. Those who manage to be dominant, even for a short-while, are seen as visionaries. And then there are those who are almost in that camp but not quite. For much of its life Qualcomm has been in the latter camp — the almost-Microsoft. It was founded in 1985 by MIT professor-turned-entrepreneur, Irwin Jacobs, together with six of his friends. They had invented a proprietary technology that became the seed for the wireless standard CDMA, a technique that allows large amounts of information to be transmitted over limited wireless spectrum by using complex matching algorithms. CDMA began to be adopted by the world’s mobile operators from the mid-90s after years of relentless hard-selling by Jacobs, backed up by equally relentless patenting by his engineers in the R&D department. Globally, this strategy has been very successful. Today, the company founded by Jacobs is led by his son Paul, and sits on a pile of over USD 18 billion in cash while generating another USD 2-3 billion in free cash flows every year! While this is brilliant in itself, India had eluded Qualcomm’s grasp. It has not made too much money here because its business model has just not worked here. However, things might be on the cusp of a change for Qualcomm because of a change in market dynamics and some canny risk-taking by the company to adapt its business model to fit this changed scenario. A win here will not only get it success in India, but also sink the ambition armada of its longtime foe, Intel, and with it, spell the endgame for the rival wireless standard backed by it — WiMAX. Qualcomm’s model as it exists is simple. Be inventive, file as many patents as possible in wireless communication, and then build products around those or wait for people to queue up to use those patents and pay a nice royalty to the company. Qualcomm’s patents are critical to almost all major wireless standards on the GSM, CDMA and even LTE (Long Term Evolution) sides, helping it squeeze a royalty out of quite literally anyone and everyone. An army of its lawyers and patent experts go after any company that dares touch its wireless IP without paying for it. The Way It Works People tried to design around Qualcomm’s 3G patents but it was very tough because all patents are usually inter-related,” says Shiv Putcha, an analyst with telecom consulting firm Ovum. “Most patents can be traced back to original innovations and patents that were at the root. You simply can’t get around it,” he says. Nokia and Samsung both found this out the hard way. In 2008, after a three-year legal battle over the use of its technologies in Nokia’s phones, Qualcomm won USD 2.3 billion from the world’s largest phone maker and an assured stream of annual royalties over the next 15 years. In 2009 it won USD 1.3 billion from Samsung plus additional royalties over 15 years. The biggest chunk of Qualcomm’s revenue, over 60% of roughly USD 10 billion annually, comes from selling its own proprietary chipsets to mobile phone, notebook or data card makers. It is the world’s largest “fabless” chip maker, meaning it designs its chips but outsources their manufacturing to others. Another 30% — and this is the interesting part, one which gives it a profit margin of nearly 85-90% — comes from licensing its formidable IP (intellectual property) around wireless communication (over 12,000 US and over 50,000 international patents) to chip makers like Texas Instruments or Infineon, mobile phone makers like Nokia or Samsung and equipment makers like Huawei or Alcatel-Lucent. For instance, it takes between 4-5% of the wholesale price of any CDMA or 3G phone made or sold anywhere in the world. Don’t Say Hip, Say Cheap In India, however, CDMA phones — the essence of Qualcomm’s business — never took off, though CDMA’s entry into the Indian market in 2000 was one of the most disruptive events in Indian telecom history. That’s because Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications (RCOM) used CDMA technology as a Trojan horse into Indian mobile telephony, passing it off (wrongly) as a cross between a fixed and mobile service. Though this flash-bang entry established Qualcomm firmly in India, it left the company with two serious issues. First, its CDMA platform, though more advanced than GSM on most counts, quickly got relegated to the lowest end of the price and consumer segments because CDMA operators like Reliance presented it as a poor man’s technology. They did this to quickly mop up the millions of lower-income potential subscribers still not signed up for GSM. Qualcomm also alienated itself from GSM incumbents like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone (then Hutch) who felt, rightly, that it was the ammunition provider for their upstart, backdoor competitors. The net result was that Qualcomm was left picking up low value crumbs from the bottom one-fourth of India’s mobile market — CDMA subscribers. For close to 10 years Qualcomm has remained in that position. And now that the two members of the CDMA camp — RCOM and Tata Teleservices — had both switched allegiance to GSM, people expected Qualcomm to stay down, and out. There Will Be Changes But in technology as in politics, to quote Bob Dylan, “…the loser now/Will be later to win.” A change in circumstances in India and some humble learning means Qualcomm could be a force to reckon with in the near future. The first star that heralded its new fortune was the successful completion of India’s 3G auctions. Because Qualcomm’s IP is embedded in all 3G technologies, it will make a 4-5% cut off every 3G phone that will now be sold in India. In one shot it stands to make money out of almost every new phone sold in India versus just CDMA phones earlier. _“Till now India was driving the very low end for us, with profits significantly lower than other markets. But there will be a massive change once 3G kicks off because we’ll work with all the operators, including those that saw us as their enemy,” says Paul Jacobs. “The average selling prices of our phones will go up as well. Over 2014, as a market for us, India might then only be surpassed by China,” he adds. The second omen was on March 11, at a press conference in New Delhi’s Oberoi hotel, when Kanwalinder Singh, its India head said, “Today I’m very proud to announce that Qualcomm has invested one billion US dollars into India.” Singh did not spend that money in building offices, hiring thousands of new employees or buying local businesses. He spent it to buy 20 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the cities of Mumbai and New Delhi and the states of Haryana and Kerala. Qualcomm was one of the six companies that won precious spectrum to offer high speed “4G” wireless broadband to Indians. The $1 billion spent in India was its single largest bet anywhere around the world. The funny thing though is that Qualcomm is betting on deploying a technology that it didn’t think much of to begin with, a commercially unproven technology called TD-LTE originally developed by the Chinese. Learning from the Chinese The Chinese government, in the mid-90s, decided to develop a technology to avoid paying royalties to Western companies like Qualcomm. They created TD-SCDMA, a 3G wireless standard. But it never really took off. The Chinese, in order to avoid paying royalties, had to reinvent the wheel. This made their technology cumbersome and inefficient. The Chinese pumped more resources into it and refined it into TD-LTE. They also roped in two large Western partners, Verizon and Vodafone, to conduct joint trials of LTE combing the Western (FD) flavour with its own (TD) one. Julian Grivolas, an analyst with Ovum in Paris who tracks the LTE space closely, says China’s goal was to make sure that this joint LTE becomes the next equivalent of the mobile world’s ubiquitous GSM standard. But the company that took advantage of this trend the fastest was the one which was the last to join the LTE party — Qualcomm. For that it had to swallow its pride and abandon Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), a 4G technology it had been developing for many years. In late 2008, it abandoned UMB to focus exclusively on LTE when it saw big operators tilting towards it. A few years earlier it had already spent over USD 800 million to acquire Flarion, a company with a significant amount of patents in areas related to LTE. Qualcomm smartly co-opted its erstwhile foe China into becoming an ally by announcing plans to build new “multi-mode” mobile chipset that would combine the version of LTE that Qualcomm and a galaxy of mobile companies like Ericsson and Nokia had developed along with what the Chinese had developed. Given that a significant chunk of TD-LTE patents rest with Chinese companies like China Mobile, Huawei and ZTE, the only way Qualcomm would have integrated them into its own offerings would be by cross-licensing — basically sharing patents with them. The Chinese are returning the love because a global acceptance of TD-LTE will mean cheaper equipment prices for its mobile operators and larger markets for its equipment vendors. With TD-LTE under his belt, Jacobs knew he had WiMAX cornered. “TD-LTE parked its tank right on WiMAX’s lawn. And there was going to be conflict,” says Gabriel Brown, an analyst with telecom consulting firm Heavy Reading in London. Intel Meets Its Match It was back in 2002 that Intel bet big on a fledgling technology called WiMAX which allowed for high-speed wireless broadband with speeds up to 30 Mbps over distances as large as 40-50 km. Faced with plateauing sales of its mainstay PC processors, it figured that consumers would rush to upgrade to newer processors embedded with WiMAX. The importance of WiMAX to Intel can be judged from the fact that it gave the responsibility for popularising it to Sean Maloney, an executive vice-president at Intel, widely slated to become its next CEO nder Maloney’s leadership Intel became the de-facto cheerleader for WiMAX, investing huge resources to present WiMAX as the best 4G option for consumers, especially in developing countries. A key reason for Intel’s bullishness was because WiMAX was designed to work better over “unpaired spectrum”. All wireless communication take place over two types of spectrum: Paired, meaning there are two equal chunks of spectrum to send and receive information, and unpaired, meaning there’s just one unbroken chunk for receiving or sending. Repeated attempts to get Intel to answer to queries were met with no response. Voice conversations, being symmetric (carrying one party’s voice is as important as carrying the other’s) have traditionally been carried over paired spectrum. In contrast, data is usually asymmetric, meaning we tend to download much more than we upload, and is hence better suited for unpaired spectrum. But as wireless data traffic skyrocketed around the world over the last few years, regulators in country after country kept coming up short of enough paired spectrum to feed their telecom operators with. Which was good for WiMAX, but bad for FD-LTE. “There was an uneasy sort of detente that WiMAX was going to be used for unpaired spectrum and [FD] LTE over paired spectrum. There was no agreement or anything, just assumptions on the part of a lot of people,” says Brown. Until one fine day the Chinese decided to make LTE work over unpaired spectrum as well. That technology was TD-LTE. The result: Operators around the world, even WiMAX ones like Clearwire in the US and Yota in Russia, decided to cast their lot with TD-LTE. Big equipment backers like Nokia and Cisco backed out too. And now with India, a market large enough to tilt the fortunes of a new standard, appearing to veer towards TD-LTE, WiMAX and Intel are in a spot of bother and Qualcomm with a fairly open field. “WiMAX is a proven technology,” says Jacobs, before mischievously adding, “Proven to be a failure!” Those in the know of things say Qualcomm’s intention is not to build out its own 4G network in India, but only to conduct limited demo trials in its four circles to show that TD-LTE works as advertised, especially alongside 3G and 2G. Within a couple of years we might see one or more operators, like Airtel or Vodafone, become equity partners with Qualcomm in a new joint venture. It will be the operators who will then use the 20 MHz spectrum that it won to build their own 4G networks. In the interim, Qualcomm will lean on the 3G operators to only buy equipment that can easily be upgraded to LTE, thus keeping an open door for 4G. It will also try to cobble together a “nationwide alliance of the best operators”, says Singh, so “everyone’s 3G and LTE works together.” A few years earlier, Singh might have found it hard to convince Indian operators to collaborate. But faced with a new competitor in the form of Reliance Industries, the blue whale in the ocean of Indian industry, they may not have any option but to bury their differences and follow the light from Qualcomm’s torch. Countdown to 4G So far, mobile networks have been designed primarily to carry voice rather than data, though every iteration since the 1990s has allowed for faster and faster data transmission speeds. The world’s first “fourth generation” (4G) networks, when they start appearing from 2012, will instead be designed primarily for high-speed data transmission. Here’s how mobile networks have been evolving. First, There Was Voice The first GSM mobile networks in the early 1990s (called second generation, or 2G) were designed to carry voice. Users could still exchange SMSes sent over idle signalling channels. Qualcomm’s 2G rival to GSM — cdmaOne — too was optimised for voice, but significantly provided for data transmission at speeds of up to 14.4 Kbps. Need for (Data) Speed With the Internet gaining popularity, there was a need for faster data traffic. Enter 3G and 3.5G. CDMA became the technical foundation for 3G in all camps (W-CDMA for GSM; EV-DO for CDMA), offering speeds up to 2 Mbps. These evolved into the 3.5G standards HSPA and EV-DO Rev. A & B, respectively. Many thought ubiquitous mobile television and video calls were finally here, but that didn’t happen. In 2007, WiMAX was added to the list of 3G standards. It was designed almost purely for wireless broadband to begin with. Finally, 4G Many mistakenly refer to WiMAX and LTE, a rival high-speed standard, as 4G. Neither comes close to the 1 Gbps data download speed that 4G needs.

the fortunes of BSNL are linked to the fall of DMK!

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/Uninor-offers-discounts-on-1-paise-per-second-mobile-tariff/articleshow/6236718.cms Taking the tariff war to a new low, Uninor, a JV between Unitech and Norway-based Telenor, today offered an up to 60 per cent discount on one paise-per- second tariffs, depending upon the location and timing of a call. Calls can now cost as low as 0.4 paise per second and this would be available on local, as well as domestic long distance (STD) calls, the company said in a statement here. This can put further pressure on the revenue of mobile firms after the companies introduced a per second pulse. At present, Uninor services are available in 13 circles of UP (East and West), Bihar, Orissa, Kolkata, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra and Gujarat. The company has a pan-India licence. Telenor has a majority stake of over 67 per cent in the joint venture. The new tariff, called 'Dynamic Pricing', would be available on a recharge tariff of Rs 26 with a validity of three months. Going by the maximum discount offered by the company, a one-minute call could cost as low as 24 paise compared to 60 paise charged by other operators. Different discounts across different locations are possible for companies as they can save on paying termination charges to another operator in case the call is on the same network. The discount would be maximum whenever a call is on the same network. uninor was resisting attempts to be in tariff war till recently.probably having realised the rules of the tariff game uninor seems to jumped into the arena just 1 day after making a staement that"I want Uninor to be lowest on costs in India" the new MD started his work! http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/I-want-Uninor-to-be-lowest-on-costs-in-India-Sigve-Brekke-India-MD-Uninor/articleshow/6230486.cms

^ thanks for in depth analysis

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/07/21/stories/2010072154080100.htm Reliance Industries is said to be in talks to invest in the Hyderabad-based Notion Ink, which is developing a “made in India” tablet computer that is already being pitched against Apple's iPad. It is learnt that the talks, which could even lead to RIL picking up a majority stake in Notion Ink, are centred on the Adam tablet, which is scheduled for a worldwide launch later this year. A tablet PC is a laptop equipped with a stylus or a touchscreen. RIL's interest could have been triggered by the fact that the Adam has been touted as an “Apple iPad killer” in many quarters. The product has been generating enormous buzz on tech Web sites and gadget blogs since an early prototype was put up for demonstration at consumer tech trade shows earlier this year. An RIL spokesperson said, “We do not comment on speculation as a matter of company policy.” Officials at Notion Ink said the same. Notion Ink was established by six IITans and an MBA graduate who were able to integrate two breakthrough power saving components — nVidia's Tegra 2 chip and a PixelQi screen. The buzz is that Adam has twice the battery life and performance of the iPad. Starting at $325, the Adam tablet PC is around 36 per cent cheaper than the starting price of an iPad — $499. Moreover, Pixel Qi screen technology makes it easier to read under bright light, technology experts say. The deal with Notion Ink is also expected to help RIL in its quest to garner a significant share of the Indian broadband market. RIL recently re-entered the Indian telecom market through its Rs 4,500-crore acquisition of Infotel, which has bagged broadband wireless access spectrum for all 22 circles Given the high propensity of a tablet PC to consume bandwidth, RIL could bundle the Adam tablet with its broadband services to target high-end users in India, Mr Kunal Bajaj, Director, of technology advisory firm Analysys Mason, told Business Line. “From Notion Ink's perspective, the funds infused by RIL could help in setting up its manufacturing and distribution networks.” Apple's iPad is not yet sold in India. Interestingly, in a blog posting dated June 9, Notion Ink co-founder Mr Rohan Shravan, said: “We have closed the final round of funding and are now in perfect sync with our investors. This is extremely good news for everyone. I say that because if we have global ambitions, there must be someone who can help us achieve that. And now we have got the muscle power… I cannot reveal the amount of investment, but it's a big day for Notion Ink!” Analyst firm ABI Research has predicted that eight million media tablet devices will be sold this year.

now i understood about trai's order! kesav

can any body please identify the cause of the horizontal white line appearing on the monitor..is it time to dump the monitor or a small issue to worry about

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/interviews/LTE-tech-will-help-3G-cos-plug-network-gaps-Ken-Wirth-Alcatel-Lucent/articleshow/6174182.cms Commercial LTE devices will be available in the market by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal Alcatel Lucent has been working in the WiMAX space for long. What prompted the shift to LTE and how ready are you for the technology? We are as ready as we can be. Globally, we have already won two big contracts and are deploying Verizon’s commercial LTE network across 25 cities in the US later this year. AT&T will launch soon after. There are other two contracts, which we have not made public. There are also 50 LTE trials being conducted globally with key service providers. LTE is a fourth generation technology with capabilities built on 3GPP standard, which has linkages with other networks including 2G and 3G. It can be integrated with other networks. It is beneficial from India’s point of view, where licences have just been granted and networks will start to roll out. Since there is no pan-India 3G operator, there will be gaps in network. But with LTE, 3G operators will have an option to partner with LTE operators to fill gaps. Whether it is CDMA/EVDO or HSPCA, LTE can provide interoperability. WiMAX, on the other hand, cannot do that. But a section of the industry contends that LTE is about two years away and that WiMAX is the technology to be deployed today. Isn’t it a bit too early to bet on LTE? I have heard those discussions which say WiMAX is a more mature technology than LTE. That is not true. Two things are important for a technology to succeed — network ecosystem and device ecosystem. We already have LTE network,which we are deploying commercially and there are others coming up. So, it is not true that LTE will take two years to be deployed. On the device side, we are working with four device partners and four more are coming up. We are actively building the device ecosystem. Commercial LTE devices will be available in the market by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal. The deployment time between WiMAX and LTE is shrinking. The operators are now rethinking their strategy in favour of LTE, since ultimately everyone will move to LTE. And, India, I think is moving very quickly. I see vendor selection announcements in the next six months. Maybe, India will have LTE a bit later than other parts of the world, but it will attract demand rapidly. I see networks launching in 2010. There is not much difference between the two technologies but the interoperability factor is crucial.Alcatel Lucent has lagged behind its competitors in the 2G space. Now, in 4G and LTE too, the Chinese vendors have higher number of patents. How will you combat competition? Chinese vendors may have more patents, but, having a commercially-deployable solution is different. From patent perspective, we are at a comfortable position and have already deployed commercial network. We have Bell Labs backing us and we will definitely grab the market. We maintain key LTE patents in all part of the technology — from radio access to IP backhaul to IMS to enhanced packet core. We are a leader in creating such an ecosystem and LTE is about IP and we are the undisputed leader in IP communications technology. Alcatel Lucent and C-DoT have a research centre in India. Will it be converted to focus solely on LTE and what happens to the WiMAX patents the company has acquired? The Chennai centre is working on a lot of platforms simultaneously. The discussions on LTE have already begun, but WiMAX development will also continue there. It would not be just for LTE. We are still working on WiMAX so the patents are not null and void. We have increased focus on LTE and some of the WiMAX patents we have acquired are applicable to LTE also. How does the India opportunity for LTE look like compared with other markets and what early breakthroughs has the technology made in India? There is a significant momentum in the US, the first market for LTE, which is maturing. LTE is the broadband standard there. That will naturally extend to other areas. We see significant business in India too. We are talking to the operators who have announced their commitment to LTE (Qualcomm and RIL’s Infotel). We will have trials here too, that is definitely on our agenda. The global momentum LTE is acquiring is important. Globally, 450 service providers have announced their decision to move to LTE. Having a single standard for broadband is important because it makes it simple. Going forward, there will be shrinkage in WiMAX platform and expansion in LTE. In India, already two players have announced their commitment to LTE and here the key thing will be the partnerships between LTE and 3G for roaming agreements. Alcatel Lucent is working on several applications in various segments, including automotive and healthcare, that will be very useful, as with LTE one can think of a number of innovations because of high bandwidth. Also, the consumer satisfaction in case of a break down or emergency will be faster. Then, there are new market segments coming up like cable operators who are looking to offer services like voice over internet protocol (VoIP) through LTE. Also, public safety is another segment where LTE services can be used effectively. The company had plans to develop India as one of its global services hub. When do you see it materialising? The discussions are on, it is being worked out. A decision is expected by next month. India is a very important market for us.

@ramesh from ur reasoning i fail to understand why phone manufacturer( samsung) shall be greedy over cdma customers than gsm ? regading qualcom royalities see https://www.trefis.com/company?article=18888# where it says "Royalty Rate Litigation Qualcomm charges royalties on each CDMA handset sold; and one time licensing fees from CDMA handset vendors to use its proprietary technology. Royalty rates have always been a debatable issue and the tussle between CDMA handsets vendors and Qualcomm has taken larger proportions as is evidence from an increasing number of lawsuits against Qualcomm. The famous lawsuit filed by Nokia against Qualcomm is one such example".

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Telecom//articleshow/6154662.cms Market leader Bharti Airtel today cautioned that 3G mobile services will not come cheap, especially for subscribers in metros, as service providers had to pay dearly for spectrum. "Take the example of Delhi itself, or Mumbai. The amount for spectrum that has been charged is close to Rs 3,500 crore each... Just to recover license fees and input cost, it works out to be Rs 700-900 per month," Bharti Group Chairman Sunil Mittal said. Amid highly aggressive bidding for 3G spectrum, Bharti Airtel won 13 circles, including Delhi and Mumbai, paying Rs 12,295.46 crore, the highest among service providers. The company could not achieve the objective of a pan-India 3G foot print as the prices rose beyond a reasonable level due to various factors like the auction format, a severe shortage of spectrum and also ensuing policy uncertainty, it had said. Asked by when the service would be launched by Bharti, Mittal said, "Some time later this year. We will wait for the spectrum allocation, which is promised in September, a few months after that." In fact, not only Bharti, but no operator could bag the pan-India 3G spectrum. The three leading mobile operators -- Bharti, Vodafone and Reliance Communications -- managed to win 3G spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai, which could lead to a tariff war in these two metros. In the rest of the circles, especially in the C-category, the tariffs may not be very high. Elaborating on the rationale for differential tariffs, Mittal said "My view is that certain circles, it would be circle dependent, like C circle and all will not be very expensive, but in circles that have gone very high in the 3G auction, price will have to adjust for itself." "The pricing of subscriber tariffs have to be based on the input cost. Any industry relies on input cost and here, the input cost is spectrum and it has gone high," he said. Since Bharti did not get pan-India spectrum for 3G, the company has started a dialogue with operators in circles where it is not present for an arrangement to offer undisrupted 3G services to its subscribers. Asked which are the operators with whom Bharti has started talks, Mittal said, "We are talking to anybody whoever is in a particular circle, because there are different operators in different circles. "In nine circles where we are not present, our teams are talking to the people who have the spectrum and we are going to build the network. Nobody has got pan-India license. So people will need something from us. We will have to give something back. All I would say is informal discussions, it's still early days, have started," he added.

@kesav from my recent memory.. lg gsm handset having mp3 player costs around 1600 lg cdma having mp3 player costs around 2700 do u still believe that royalties are not the reason..pl see http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/bline/2006/07/03/stories/2006070303350200.htm