India announces 3G spectrum, MNP guidelines

Finally, the wait’s over! The Indian government today announced the guidelines for 3G (third-generation mobile communications) spectrum as well as mobile number portability (MNP).

First, all players — Indian and global — have been invited to bid for 3G spectrum, making it a truly level-playing field. The condition for a foreign player or telecom operator is that it should have some experience in running 3G telecom services.

Those interested to know more about the guidelines for auction and allottment of spectrum for 3G telecom services, can download the documents from DoT’s site.

Apparently, the 3G guidelines allow 10 players in the Indian 3G space, including both Indian and foreign players.

Spectrum in the 2.1GHz band would be available for the 3G telecom services through bidding/auction. Spectrum shall be auctioned in blocks of 2x5MHz in the 2.1GHz band. As per the DoT guidelines, the number of blocks to be auctioned may vary from five to 10, subject to the availability in different telecom service areas. Should there be non-availability, the number of blocks may be less than five in a telecom service area.

The MNP allows mobile phone users/subscribers to change their operators, while retaining their mobile phone numbers.

As per the DoT guidelines, a customer can approach a ‘recipient operator’ to port his or her number. The ‘donor operator’ cannot re-use that customer’s ported number till such time the ported number is in use. The donor operator can only have the ported number once it has been surrendered by the ported customer.

Well, both of these announcements are going to add to India’s brilliant telecom success story.

As for the foreign players coming into the country, quite a few are already present. It would be great to see the likes of NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, China Telecom, China Mobile, Telefonica, etc., enter the 3G space in India. As for 3G technology itself, TD-SCDMA, HSPA, etc., should be considered as well.

Oh yes, there’s some good news for those itching to use the Apple iPhone 3G. Once, the 3G networks are in place, there’s nothing that can stop this from happening.

On the MNP front, a good majority of Indian subscribers are on prepaid. So, there may be quite a few changeovers happening! It could well prove to be a nightmare for the operators, but then, that’s the fun of having a level-playing field and the challenge of playing in the booming Indian telecom market.

Postscrpt: A reader, Abhshek, left a very interesting and relevant comment regarding 3G services that users could be charged heftily. I quite agree with him! The 3G operators would need to price their services right. It should be win-win for both operators and users.

To start off, service charges could possibly be on the higher side, as the 3G licenses won’t come cheap, and operators would also look at the revenue angle. However, over time, service charges are quite likely to come down, if the pattern of the Indian telecom history is repeated. Many thanks for your comment, Abhishek.

Speculating on Indian 3G spectrum specter

The ongoing saga regarding spectrum for 3G services, use of dual technologies, etc., reminds me of 2002, the MII, TD-SCDMA and 155MHz! Read on…

Anything on the spectrum spectacle in India makes very interesting reading! It’s as though two sides fighting over a valuable possession. Worth a click!!

We have been following how the two GSM and CDMA lobbies -– COAI and AUSPI -– have been in the news over the use of mixed bands. GSM operators have constantly warned that any move to allocate spectrum in the 1900MHz band to CDMA players would adversely impact their services in the 2100MHz band. We’ve been following what the TRAI, the DoT and others have to say on all of this.

Then AUSPI informed this week that field trials conducted in Hyderabad last week had proved successful. The trial conducted by AUSPI on behalf of the Department of Telecom (DoT) claims that the co-existence of 1900 MHz and 2100 MHz is possible.

Now, we are told that defence would be vacating spectrum by end of this year and India would have 3G services by next year. Hope all disputes are settled amicably and India finally gets to see what 3G services would have to offer.

I am reminded of two things – one, the 3G license auctions in Europe, which nearly brought the wireless house down in the early 2000s, and two, an interesting development in China. I’ll dwell on the second one.

Nearly seven years ago, I happened to break the news on TD-SCDMA (Time Division-Synchronous Code-Division Multiple Access), a 3G technology being developed at that point of time by Datang Telecom and Siemens. That story link no longer exists, so I’m providing a link to another story, mentioned below.

About two and a half years later, around October 2002, the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in China allocated a total frequency of 155MHz for TD-SCDMA! This, for an untested, untried 3G technology, in a country much larger than India, was and is still unheard of!

Makes me wonder, why did the MII give away so much of spectrum so long back to an untested 3G technology, when in India, we keep hearing reports about spectrum issues, use of dual technologies, etc. Are there lessons to be learnt from the Chinese example?

On TD-SCDMA, much later, in 2002, I also discovered not many had even heard of it in India. However, around the time I reported this 155MHz spectrum story, STING’s Robin Grewal contacted me in Delhi to find out more about this 3G technology! That was the level of interest in 3G and TD-SCDMA, and spectrum in India, at least, at that time. Things have changed since! Hopefully!!

Broadband hasn't grown as expected in India

Yes, I believe so! The numbers, if one were to contend with those alone, DO NOT meet the expectations. Broadband was and is considered to be the new paradigm of India. However, are we anywhere near whatever growth we have been expecting? Let’s see the stats for the various telecom segments.

According to the statistics made available by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the total number of telephone subscribers was 232.87 million at the end of July 2007, and the overall teledensity had increased to 20.52!

In the wireless segment, 8.06 million subscribers were added in July 2007 and the total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA and WLL (F)) base was 192.98 million. The wireline segment subscriber base stood at 39.89 million, with a decline of 0.20 million in July 2007.

And what about broadband? For broadband (≥256Kbps downloads), the total broadband connections in the country had reached only 2.47 million by the end of July 2007. In fact, during July 2007 there was an addition of 0.05 million connections!

Let’s go back a few months! Venkat Kedalya of Convergent Communications had pointed out in an article to CIOL that India was nowhere on course to reach a target of 9 million broadband subscribers by this year! India has a target of achieving 20 million broadband subscribers by 2010, which now seems to be highly ambitious and well, unachievable!

Allocation of frequencies for BWA (broadband wireless access) is the immediate need of the moment. There is a need to look at WiMax and broadband over powerline (BPL) as far as technology is concerned. Some folks have entered the IPTV domain, so hopefully, we will get to see some content over broadband.

Even TRAI has urged the government to boost broadband growth. One of its suggestions has been to ask BSNL and MTNL to adopt a franchisee model so that local players may use their copper cables and offer high-speed Internet services. Decisions need to be taken for allocating spectrum for WiMax as well as making the National Internet Exchange of India more effective.

TRAI said: “Only 0.47 million broadband subscribers have been added in first six months of 2007, which is far below the growth trend required to achieve broadband policy targets. This necessitated an analysis of regulatory and policy frameworks, and to formulate new approach necessary for rapid roll-out of broadband in the country.”

TRAI also accepts that while the growth of Internet subscribers was satisfactory, we are seriously lagging behind as far as broadband is concerned. It adds: “The government should ensure availability of more number of Ku-band transponders to roll out broadband services through DTH platform and utilize Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund to provide subsidy for providing broadband services through satellite in remote and hilly areas.”

I’m not really sure how all of this will help. You do need at least a PC to access the Internet services. Am not sure how many folks are still willing to invest in home PCs and broadband, given that watching TV is a favorite pastime. Broadband over cable TV has not been a success either. What are we doing about this?