Though the radio trunking market grew by almost 80 percent last year, the market is expected to slow down in the coming six months. Operators have been feeling the heat from telecom companies like Reliance, Bharti, and Tata who have plans to offer value-added radio services over their existing networks. Also, high cost of hardware and customer preference for mobile phones has affected radio trunking growth. Though radio trunking offers unlimited calls for a fixed sum and offers group calls, which is not possible in mobile teleophony, people are not aware of its advantages.

The last couple of years have seen massive consolidation among radio trunking operators with Agrani going on an acquisition spree. It acquired Quickcalls India, Bhilwara Telenet, SmartTalk, Procall, and Punwire, thereby ending with PMRTS licenses for Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Surat, Baroda, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Lucknow and Kanpur. The Pune-based Arya Omnitalk from the Lalbhai group is active in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, Indore, and Vizag. Mobilkom, which operates in Delhi, plans to provide data services on its networks in a major way. This includes on-site automation for mobile machine control, asset location, and environmental monitoring, especially SCADA, besides automatic vehicle location on GSM and CDMA networks. Also, the company is offering LED and LCD displays for information and wireless security alarms. India Satcom and Anco are two other operators who are present selectively.

l Policy Issues: Unlike mobile services, radio trunking has been caught in the dragnet of government policies. The current wireless planning and coordination (WPC) charges, which include the royalty for spectrum plus license fee, come to around Rs 100 per subscriber. TRAI has fixed the total royalty and the licence fees to be paid to the DoT to 5 percent of the adjusted gross revenue. The operators say though the fee was reduced from almost 8 percent to current levels, it is still high when it comes per user cost. As the burden is passed on to the customer, per unit cost come to around Rs 900. The government is still not clear on allowing PSTN connectivity on radio trunking services, the operators are losing out to mobile and basic operators. Particularly with WLL-CDMA phones catching up with the users, organizations are finding it profitable to switch to mobile telephony as it gives them two-way communication network.

From Analog to Digital: Though the DoT guidelines mentioned that PMRTS licensees should use only digital technology, TRAI has recommended that the choice of technology should be left to service providers. Today, most of the operators have analog infrastructure in place and shifting to digital mode would require more investments. Considering the industry’s health, analog operators are not willing to invest more unless all-India connectivity and roaming are allowed. This will give them a competitive edge over other mobile services. Also, the number planning issue is preventing digital technology from taking off.