India to have 15.8 mn WiMAX users by 2012: Springboard
July 4, 2008
NEW DELHI: India will be the leading market for WiMAX in the Asia pacific and is expected to have 15.8 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012. [Read more]
“No Portability” Rollout for India?
April 16, 2008
The implementation of the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in India will be delayed if state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL don’t significantly upgrade their networks.
MNP allows subscribers to change their telecom operators while retaining their numbers but it cannot be implemented on the networks of private telcos alone. Sector regulator Trai has already written to the Department of Telecom (DoT) demanding that the government get cracking and ask BSNL/MTNL to upgrade their networks within 6-8 months. [Read more]
India, China nowhere in top league of networked economies
April 16, 2008
LONDON: Despite its status as a world leader in information technology, India does not figure among the top 20 of the world’s most networked economies. In fact it has slipped four places to rank 50 in the Global Information Technology Report for 2007-2008 published by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum (WEF).
China, the hub of global IT manufacturing, lags a shocking seven places behind India in the overall ratings for 127 countries published Wednesday.
Europe remains the most important player in networked readiness this year. Denmark is the single most networked economy in the world, followed by Sweden and Switzerland. Eight other European countries figure in the top 20 - Austria, Britain, Estonia, Finland, Germany Iceland, the Netherlands and Norway.
The failure of India and China to make it to the top 20 is mainly on account of their poor infrastructure for information and communication technologies (ICTs), said Irene Mia, senior economist of the Global Competitiveness Network at the WEF and co-editor of the report.
“India and China have progressed enormously in the last decade or so, becoming global leaders in high tech services (notably India) and goods (notably China) exports. Nevertheless the areas and clusters of excellence present in those countries are not the only reality,” Mia said.
“If you look at the global picture, bearing in mind we took a snapshot of the whole country in both cases, the infrastructure for ICT is still lagging behind - 71st for India and 86th for China. So is individual usage - 109th for India and 80th for China,” she added.
By contrast, developed countries are striding rapidly ahead with an increased recognition of connectivity as a key component of public infrastructure in general, the report said.
“New definitions portray high bandwidth connectivity as a necessity, perhaps even a public utility on the order of drinking water,” it added.
The report said many developing countries such as India were now adopting next generation technologies such as WiFi and WiMAX to boost connectivity and leapfrog past technologies dependent on copper wires.
“In India, WiMAX is publicised as 30 times faster than 3G mobile technology and 100 times faster than wireless data rates, and has been widely anticipated to cure the problems of rural connectivity,” it said.
“It has been promoted as the answer to India’s last-mile connectivity issues, which have hampered Internet take-up in rural India.”
By early 2007, Motorola and Wateen Telecom, a subsidiary of UAE-based Warid Telecom, had rolled out a WiMAX network in 17 major cities across Pakistan.
Among Asian countries, South Korea, at ninth place, notched up one of the most impressive improvements by going up 10 places from last year. Other Asian economies featured in the top 20 are: Singapore (fifth), Hong Kong (11th), Australia (14th), Taiwan (17th), and Japan (19th).
India is down four places at 50, while China improved five positions to reach 57.
Mia said Nordic countries have featured consistently among the top ten over the last seven years - an achievement she attributed to “a continuous focus on education, which resulted in top class national educational systems”.
Other factors in their success included a culture for innovation with an outstanding public and private disposition to create and adopt new technologies and a business-friendly market and regulatory environment.
Mobile number portability In India by June ’09
April 13, 2008
For everyone who compares Pakistani sectors to the massive Indian industries, here’s a bit of news - the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has only JUST recommended the implementation of nation-wide mobile number portability from June 2009 - even that to be deployed in a phased manner. In a release, it was mentioned that the “TRAI has also sought the Department of Telecom’s (DoT’s) nod to select an operator for providing and operating mobile number portability solutions.”
Market surveys have shown that up to 50% of all mobile users in India are unhappy with their operator, and are willing to switch to another service provider if allowed to retain their number. Number portability has so far been introduced in Australia, Korea, Japan, Canada, the US, UK, most of Europe and Pakistan, among other countries. According to reports, its introduction has been followed by up to 50% subscribers switching operators in some of these countries.
The introduction of MNP has allowed for customers to select a provider that best serves their needs without having to give up their numerical identify, and has forced providers to provide better quality of service.
Despite all the issues pertaining to MNP, it’s funny how none of the mainstream media has even picked up on the fact that this “small step” has already been implemented by Pakistan’s regulatory body, and yet, the ‘report’ shows up when the deliberation process is just commencing on the other side of the border. Makes you think! You can read more about the post up on the PTA website about MNP, which was put on their site in 2005.
Internet services in Egypt, India disrupted
February 1, 2008
MUMBAI: A breakdown in an international undersea cable network badly disrupted Internet links to India and Egypt on Wednesday.
Egypt’s Telecommunications Ministry said a communications cable in the Mediterranean was cut, disrupting 70 per cent of the country’s Internet network. The ministry said in a statement it was not known how the cable was cut but that services would probably take several days to return to normal.
India reported serious disruptions to its services and one Indian Internet service provider linked the problem to the Egyptian outage. “There has been a cable cut on several cable systems in Alexandria, Egypt, which has impacted Internet connectivity in India,” Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), an Internet service provider, said in a statement. VSNL said its service had been “largely restored” by diverting to another cable. India said it had lost more than half of its capacity.
“There has been a 50 to 60 per cent cut in bandwidth,” Rajesh Chharia, president of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of India, told Reuters. He told the Headlines Today news channel that a “degraded” service would be activated by Wednesday night, but full restoration will take 10 to 15 days. Chharia said companies, including some of India’s many outsourcing businesses, had been affected. [Read more]
Entry for all to halve call rates: Ministry
November 19, 2007
The communications ministry is of the view that telecom tariffs in India can fall further to almost half their current levels — with local intra-circle calls for 25 paise and nationwide long distance calls for 50 paise — provided new operators are allowed to start services.
The ministry has apprised the Prime Ministers’ Office of this.
According to a top ministry official, there is enough spectrum for accommodating existing second generation operators as well as well as the new ones.
“Between 30-35 Mhz of 2G spectrum will be available in a few months. Only 37 Mhz has been allotted to existing six or seven operators, who service around 217 million users. With a similar quantum of spectrum set to be available soon, another 250 million users can be added to existing and new 2G networks in the next three to four years”, he added.
The official added that with the advent of third-generation (3G) mobile services, for which the government had already announced an auction process, another 100 million users would go mobile, taking the mobile subscriber base to around 600 million in a few years.
“Even school-going children will go mobile at such tariffs. Handsets, which are available for Rs 600-700, will sell for as less as Rs 50-100. The Indian market is huge and that is why so many new entrants want to come in”, he added.
Taking a dig at existing operators, the official said the current subscriber growth (every month around 7.5 million people go mobile in India), was something they wanted to keep only for themselves.
“They are making huge profits but are not investing enough to meet the demands of fresh subscriber growth. At the same time, they are not willing to accept new applicants and want full monopoly. Trai has recommended there should be no cap on the number of service providers, but they want otherwise”, the official said.
Insisting that the DoT was not wrong in allowing use of cross-technology (GSM) to CDMA operators, the official claimed that Reliance had applied for this in 2006 and not as was being said.
“The application was referred to Trai by the ministry then. It was only this August that the Trai’s recommendation permitting cross-over came to the DoT,” he added.
Wipro posts 18pc profit growth on overseas orders
October 20, 2007
BANGALORE: Wipro, India’s third-largest software maker, posted higher-than-expected second-quarter profit growth of 18 per cent on Friday on the back of overseas orders, new clients and a 600 million dollar US acquisition.
Profit rose to 8.237 billion rupees (208.4 million dollars) in the three months ended September 30, from 7.002 billion rupees a year earlier, the Bangalore-based company said. [Read more]
India Opens 4th IT Center In Australia
October 1, 2007
SINGAPORE: Indian software services firm satyam computer services said on Thursday that it has open an information technology solution center in Brisbane, its forth such facility in Australia.
“ the facility will support Queensland based clients across various IT platforms with an emphasis enterprise application based solutions,” the company said in a statement. Satyam computers with Tata consultancy service Infosys technologies and wipro LTD at home and companies like Accenture, Electronic data systems and computer science crop.Globally.