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Amidst rumors of a possible slowdown in the wireless infrastructure market in the world (excluding India) in 2007-08, India has shown sustainable growth in net additions of mobile subscribers in the past one year and the overwhelming rise will continue in the coming years too. Indian service providers and wireless infrastructure players have always been comparing their statistics or growth stories with our neighbor China, the largest telecom market in the world. Their efforts have resulted into some cheers in August and September last year, when India added more wireless subscribers than China. This is a very important achievement because this also means India is showing a faster and sharper growth trajectory. This would suggest that India will reach the same milestones that China has in a shorter timeframe. According to industry estimates, approximately 80-100 mn wireless subscribers will be added resulting into approximately $5-6 bn business opportunity. The future growth, which will mainly come from GSM and WiMAX, will be in rural, with more than 35% of new subscribers coming from C-category circles (rural).

Entering a New Orbit
The growth curve on penetration has now clearly entered a new orbit. And we believe that the coming months and quarters should show a very healthy and robust growth in the telecom services especially in the mobile segment given the over all growth of economy and the accelerated GDP growth. Teledensity has increased to almost 100% in the past two years, from 8.62 at the end of December 2004 to 17.16 at the end of December 2006.

Both the GSM and CDMA communities are framing enough strategies for enhancing the network in India. For instance, the CDMA community to promote further wireless penetration has spearheaded accelerating the availability of entry-level devices in India. Since the beginning of 2006, CDMA handsets have accounted for as much as 60% of all entry-level handsets imported into India on a monthly basis. The CDG expects to see sub-$40 (wholesale) CDMA handsets become commercially available in the Indian market soon.

CDMA offers the largest selection of fixed and mobile devices to address the diverse needs of India's market segments. Introducing mobile broadband services will stimulate foreign investment, increase productivity, and help strengthen the economy. India's enterprises, small businesses, consumers and government will be the benefactors.

What can Hamper Growth?
Cell phone penetration in India is just 13.5% in 2007, while the predicted penetration will rise to 31.5% in India in 2010. Mobile subscribers want a wide range of services over numerous networks with a seamless experience. Service providers are looking for better ways to compete in a converged services world. Infrastructure providers are fine-tuning their mobile broadband solutions offer new user experiences and create market opportunities for service providers.

Wireless growth has taken over the growth of wireline in India. India's integrated telecom player like Bharti is adding over a million customers every month during 2006-07. The factors that are driving the growth in the Indian telecom market-affordability, reduction in tariffs with reduction in taxes, handset prices, innovative packages to suit different segments, availability, network expansion, distribution reach, etc.

However, in order to achieve a sustainable growth, adequate spectrum is required. The available bands for GSM spectrum are 900 Mhz and 1,800 Mhz. As of today, the 900 Mhz band has been fully utilized and the 1,800 Mhz band has miniscule availability. The government has set up a committee for enhancing spectrum availability. The defense services are expected to vacate up to 75 Mhz in the 1,800 Mhz band, out of which 20 Mhz is expected to be vacated in the next few months. In fact, India may never have adequate spectrum but we are sure that we will keep getting our bit from time to time.

Service Provider Demands
Telecom operators are looking at curtailing project implementation costs. This can be via sharing passive infrastructure and selecting one prime vendor to undertake the end-to-end implementation. Operators are looking for solutions that provide them with lower Opex and also help them in generating higher ARPUs and taking leadership. Spectrum allocation by the government is a main concern among operators as well as infrastructure providers. Another concern for infrastructure providers are dropping prices.

Aspiring for Better Things
Speed of deployment, start-up costs and quick revenue returns are significant factors in the favor of wireless technology. Wireless broadband, WiMax, Mesh solution for SEZ, enterprise mobility solution for retail and new VAS applications and contents will dominate the market. 

New HSPA Embedded Module
At 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona, Ericsson has launched its new HSPA embedded module, which enables built-in mobile broadband in every new notebook computer, as well as in any other device.

To further strengthen its position in the broadband market, Ericsson is moving to bring HSPA to every new notebook, fixed wireless terminal and any other device where 3G can replace ADSL. The launch is in line with Ericsson's strategy to accelerate the growth of the mobile broadband market and continue its world leadership. Ericsson wants to make mobile broadband a mass market.

Networks all over the world are now being upgraded and users are starting to realize that the same high-capacity services that, until now, have been available only at home or in the workplace can be accessible using any device. Users are beginning to see the possibilities of mobile broadband-connectivity to any service, anytime, anywhere and on any device.

4G Scenario
Though India is yet to come out with its final policy on the 3G deployment policy and both GSM and CDMA players are loggerheads on the spectrum pricing, cellular service providers are talking about 4G, the short term for fourth-generation wireless, the stage of broadband mobile communications that may be way ahead of the 3G. While neither standards bodies nor carriers have concretely defined or agreed upon what exactly 4G will be, it is expected that end-to-end IP and high-quality streaming video will be among 4G's distinguishing features.

Fourth generation networks are likely to use a combination of WiMax and Wi-Fi. Technologies employed by 4G may include SDR (software-defined radio) receivers, OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division multiple access), MIMO (multiple input/multiple output) technologies, UMTS and TD-SCDMA. All of these delivery methods are typified by high rates of data transmission and packet-switched transmission protocols. When fully implemented, 4G is expected to enable pervasive computing, in which simultaneous connections to multiple high-speed networks provide seamless handoffs throughout a geographical area. Network operators may employ technologies such as cognitive radio and wireless mesh networks to ensure connectivity and efficiently distribute both network traffic and spectrum.

The high speeds offered by 4G will create new markets and opportunities for both traditional and startup telecommunications companies. Japanese telecom major NTT DoCoMo is testing 4G communication at 100 Mbps for mobile users and up to 1 Gbps while stationary. NTT DoCoMo plans on releasing their first commercial network in 2010. Other telecommunications companies, however, are moving into the area even faster. In August of 2006, Sprint Nextel announced plans to develop and deploy a 4G broadband mobile network nationwide in the US using WiMax.

4G Before 3G?
In India, many service providers are not targeting a huge subscriber-base for their 3G services because the services may be pricey too. On top of this, 3G may be restricted to metros because of 3G handsets may not be affordable to masses in India's rural belt. 3G performance may not be sufficient to meet needs of future high-performance applications like multi-media, full-motion video, wireless teleconferencing, etc. We need a network technology that extends 3G capacity by an order of magnitude. Some feel that WiMax deployment may be faster than the roll out of 3G services because of the scarcity of spectrum in India.

Building 4G Networks in India
Is India gearing up to offer 4G? Not yet. A number of spectrum allocation decisions, spectrum standardization decisions, spectrum availability decisions, technology innovations, component development, signal processing and switching enhancements and inter-vendor cooperation have to take place before the vision of 4G will materialize. We think that 3G experiences-good or bad, technological or business-will be useful in guiding the industry in this effort. We are bringing to the attention of professionals in telecommunications industry following issues and problems that must be analyzed and resolved: