Mobile Broadband in 2011

Indians have many hopes from the emerging 3G and WiMAX scenario that promise high speed mobile broadband services. How successful will it be and what will the scene of mobile broadband in India in 2011?

If figures are any indication, then a report by leading global IT research and advisory firm Gartner says that by the end of 2011 India will have 6.9 Million mobile and fixed WiMAX connections. The flipside is that this report also points out that due to low PC penetration in India there will be a limited demand for WiMAX. This will make WiMAX a niche technology limited to enterprise and high-end residential users in urban India.

This fact is further strengthened by the fact that in January 2008 India had only 3.4 million broadband subscribers as against the 9 million targeted by 2007 by the broadband policy.

The high hopes of Indian masses is based on the way the Indian government is strongly promoting WiMAX as a technology to connect the country with broadband services. Although, if we look at the mobile broadband framework of our country, we can easily see that a nationwide rollout of WiMAX is not a near possibility due to the costs involved. This has acted as a demotivator for operators from rolling out country-wide mobile broadband.

By 2011, the Government can work through bringing WiMAX broadband to rural centres in villages including schools and hospitals. From these access points, individual access can then be made available via a Wi-Fi mesh. This will help achieve higher degree of rural penetration as envisioned by our government. Where urban areas are concerned, WiMAX will offer mobile and semi-mobile broadband to consumers.

3G or WiMAX

The future mobile broadband access market share between 3G and WiMAX will greatly depend on the timeline and bandwidth of 3G and WiMAX licenses. The mobile broadband scene in 2011 will greatly depend on spectrum allocation, ecosystem, and the timeliness of WiMAX and 3G licenses.

On comparison, though, 3G has an upper hand than WiMAX in terms of mobile broadband services. 3G will offer higher processing speeds and make it possible for consumers to use new kinds of value-added services. Adding new dimensions to mobile broadband, 3G will offer everything from mobile banking, micro finance to services providing useful information to farmers and safety information to fishermen. 3G will also enhance the mobile broadband experience of a business laptop user by enabling roaming across heterogeneous networks through single integrated USB/integrated modems.

3G-India Update

A week after the 3G spectrum auction began in India the country has seen a huge jump of 63% for pan-India licences. The bid has bumped up Rs. 5,710.36 crore (Rs 57.10 billion) over the base price. This implies total minimum revenue of Rs. 22,841 crore (Rs 228.41 billion). As the numbers roll in, Delhi is turning out to be the high-priced circle at a bid value of Rs 626.37 crore (Rs 6.26 billion), followed by Mumbai at a bid of Rs 598.59 crore (Rs 5.98 billion). Gujarat, which was ahead of Delhi in the initial rounds, now stands fourth at Rs 533.40 crore (Rs 5.33 billion). It is preceded by Tamil Nadu at a bid price of Rs 549.24 crore (Rs 5.49 billion). These are the figures at the end of 40 rounds. Six of these rounds were held on Sunday.

Major mobile operators have planned well for the 3G auction in India so they can outdo the others in this battle of bids for the spectrum. Three biggies of the Indian telecom industry have put in their applications for one of the three slots that are available for bids. All companies that had submitted applications to take part in April's 3G and broadband wireless access spectrum auctions have received approval from India's Department of Telecommunications.

After studying the pre-qualification data such as the size of the upfront deposit, the picture is becoming clearer as to who plans to bid for pan-India spectrum. This will mean bidding for spectrum across all of India's 22 mobile service areas or as it is technically called ‘circles’. Out of 9 companies that are bidding in the auction, 6 have placed their bid for a pan-India spectrum. Among the major players in race for spectrum in the 2.1GHz band are some major telecom operators of India. Apart from this, many other mobile operators are bidding for selective circles. Many of these companies will also be bidding for spectrum in the 2.3GHz band under broadband wireless access (BWA). All of them will be vying against each other to pick countrywide airwaves.

Unlike other countries, India took way too long to announce their date of auction, almost three years. This can be attributed to the slow decision-making, something we all are familiar with in India. Apart from the mobile operators, customers also lost out on many benefits due to the delay. The delay deprived them of the benefits of high-speed mobile data services used by many across the globe. Once 3G is rolled out, customers will get to enjoy bandwidth intensive services. 3G will enable high-speed data transfer for services such as live video streaming and other graphic formats. It is also hoped that rural India will also benefit from the coming of 3G. Areas such as telemedicine, virtual marketplace and e-learning will get a boost. As the day of 3G auction nears, we can only hope that all that 3G promises will finally be delivered, though a bit late.