kesav 127 Report post Posted March 19, 2008 MTNL mulls MVNO for CDMA biz NEW DELHI: MTNL, the state-owned telecom provider in Delhi and Bombay has become the first mobile operator to actively evaluate the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) model for its CDMA-based (Garuda) operations. "We are exploring a franchisee relationship with a foreign operator for our CDMA operations. Once MVNOs are permitted, we will explore the MVNO route as well," CMD, MTNL, RSP Sinha told ToI. As an operator, MTNL will be able to add to its Rs 7,619 million income from mobile telephony (2006 07) and utilize its spectrum while receiving additional cash flow from the proposed MVNOs as paying customers. The decision to go the MVNO route will of course be subject to recommendations from Trai and government guidelines — which could take a minimum of four to six months. Last week, senior DoT officials commented on the attractiveness of MVNOs in the Indian market place and it is expected that a reference on the subject will be made to Trai. While the term MVNO has been used loosely in the recent Virgin-Tata mobile controversy it essentially refers to resale of airtime and for the most part, without infrastructure. At present, there is no provision for resale in the Indian regulatory regime. The National Telecom Policy 99 and the Unified Access Service License (UASL) section 33 prohibits resale except resale of infrastructural bandwidth to another licensed service provider. In the telecom world, an MVNO is the equivalent of doing business with the enemy as the MVNO uses the operators infrastructure while competing for the same customer. Clearly, the MVNO scores by expanding the market faster just as in case of increased competition. Competition amongst seven mobile operators in virtually each circle, has resulted in India becoming the world's fastest growing mobile market today. The International Telecom Union (ITU) defines MVNO as "an operator who provides mobile communications services to users without its own airtime and government-issued licenses". Oftel, the UK regulator, defined it slightly differently as "an organization providing customers with mobile phone services without owning any airtime". The attractiveness of an MVNO option for MTNL as well as BSNL, for that matter, is crystal clear. It is the best form of partnership when one company is good at building and operating networks and the MVNO operator is better placed to engage in marketing, branding and customer care activities. MVNO is already a global phenomenon. By early 2007 there were approximately 360 planned or operational MVNO's worldwide according to consultancy firm Takashi Mobile. There are certainly regulatory issues, as yet unresolved that the Trai will have to examine to ensure that competition in mobile markets is maximized as well as to avoid the local loop unbundling failure in fixed networks. In fact, from a competitive viewpoint, MVNO is similar to a fixed line network operator offering backbone services to ISPs competing against its own service it sells minutes on the network. The experience of Indian ISP's in this regard in absence of proactive and effective regulation is well known. India's Internet penetration remains abysmal as compared to the growth in mobile subscribers which is about to cross 250 million. source :: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India_B...how/2879174.cms CDMA is going great guns..... Reliance, TATA, Virgin, Orange, BSNL/MTNL and MVNO(on MTNL)............................... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vishalkumar 0 Report post Posted March 19, 2008 ^^^ Wish to have something like this happening in handsets segment too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
