by Paul Joseph
July 25, 2010
Operator Tussle – We would usually see CDMA & GSM operators fighting against each other, but right now we are seeing a case of GSM operators fighting against other GSM operators – COAI is kind of split – Tatas against the older operators. Further, none of the new operators seem to be doing all that well, while the overall subscriber additions even in June has been very healthy . It might be time for consolidation or going the MVNO way. Virgin Mobile seems to be doing OK, or at least trying to getting a lot of brands on board. The costly third generation – Sunil Mittal says 3G will not come cheap for city-dwellers. Will it take the Ambanis to do something on this, to reduce the 3G rates? Or will newer players like Tata DoCoMo do something. After all, post the per second billing, they have also introduced “free calls” for data users. Security Conundrum – There was a lot of brouhaha a couple of weeks back on RIM etc that they should resolve the issue within a week etc, but the issue seems to be died down again, RIM says they are waiting for DoT to call them. Meanwhile the ‘block list’ of telecom equipment seems to be hitting the CDMA operators hard. It really does not help the Chinese that Motorola has accused Huawei of stealing stuff , though it is being denied . Content Craze – The report from Informate shows that there are not enough desi destinations for content – While Ovi tops the list (obviously due to the market share of Nokia), Getjar, Brothersoft, Songs.pk are the other top destinations! Am surprised to see no operator store there. Handset News – A law is being proposed to boost mobile manufacturing in India, that may spell trouble for desi makers. They are expanding to other countries (like Micromax in SL & Bangladesh ), even newer people like Moser Baer (with Mindtree) are entering the fray, and are coming up with what all concepts – “Alpha keypad” phones , it seems!! Well, on second thoughts, it seems alpha keypad is not a bad idea to someone not used to PC keyboards. Talking of PC, yeah, PC makers like Dell are planning to make it big in India too. The old fox, Motorola has launched 5 low end models but given the crowd there now, they may sink without a trace. Leaving all these aside, it seems ‘luxury phones’ are also doing well in India – no doubt, it is told that there is a market for ‘every possible segment’ in India. VAS News – After CRBTs, voice based social networks seem to be the next big thing for operators (like every other service launched ), with Bubble Motion even getting profiled in Techcrunch. Cross-operator services are also emerging, like Indiatimes HiBuddy . Well, in my opinion, instead of listening to celebrities, there are a lot more sensible ways of using voice – like the CGNet Swara – a citizen journalism concept in Chandigarh. But then, do you have money to be made there? Next in line is ‘mobile TV’ – once 3G is in place, we may see a lot of them coming out – we already see news about Zee collaborating with Geodesic (whose Mundu TV is getting famous ) and ‘ made for mobile ’ bollywood movies. Applications – The ‘mobile only social network’ Mig33 seems to be growing from strength to strength in India. They just partnered with Lemon for pre-embedding and are claiming ARPU of 1 USD per month from Indian users. Well, when did all companies start talking in ARPU terms Nokia’s desperate attempts – With Ovi Store, music store etc not picking up as much as they would have wanted (probably), Nokia is trying to sell them through ‘retail outlets’ – not a bad idea, I would say, if executed well. At least certain content will get sold once – when the customer buys it. And some good news finally for Life Tools – Tata Docomo have also agreed to partner – for a really long time, it was only Idea.
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by Paul Joseph
July 25, 2010
The telecom ministry is not duty-bound to follow the industry regulator’s advice on policy issues, the solicitor general has said, fuelling concerns that roles of regulators are increasingly getting diluted under this government. Solicitor general Gopal Subramanium has said the ministry can change the terms and conditions of existing licences and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendations are not binding on the government. The opinion comes after the department of telecommunications sought a legal view following the regulator’s letter that it must be consulted on uniform licence fee. Source
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