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The dust around 3G spectrum allocation is yet to settle in India. In these circumstances, what are your current expectations?
3G auction is delayed in India. But India will begin to catch up with the rest of the world, and we believe that it is around the corner. The planning has already started, and Starent is actively involved in helping operators evolve a future ready packet core solution. Over the past years, Internet and mobile communications have drastically changed the way people communicate, stay informed, and entertain themselves. As these drivers have now merged to become the mobile Internet, operators have adjusted their business models to exploit the opportunity for increasing their revenue. Starent already has two key customers in India, and a substantial amount of the data traffic in India passes through our packet core solution.

The adoption level is very low in rural India, whereas urban markets are almost saturated. Keeping this in view, what is the growth rate that you see for mobile broadband in India?
Indian carriers have several challenges to address in the rural markets. Handheld and community networks are an answer to this. It is very interesting that the highest data usage was observed from rural areas in India. While urban people have an alternate means to access Internet, those who live in rural communities do not have such access. For many, their first Internet experience was through a mobile device. As a result, there is a tremendous demand for high-speed mobile data networks.

3G technology has not been a successful technology, except in a few countries. Considering India as a low ARPU country, how do you see the evolution of the 3G market here?
3G, when combined with an appealing billing model, and true multimedia devices, has been very successful. Our customers are seeing dramatic growth in data consumption as the network, devices, billing and services have come together. 2.5G or 3G networks such as EDGE, UMTS/WCDMA were limited by the throughput and speed. However, when some of these carriers deployed 3G technologies like CDMA EVDO Rev A, or HSPA and HSPA+, their data traffic throughput galloped eight to ten times higher within a short span of time. Several new application providers and entrepreneurs came up that increased the data usage multi-fold. Some carriers exploited this data traffic explosion by converting it into profitable data revenue streams, whereas others took the evasive, passive approach of curtailing the demand that seriously limited their revenue options.

Akhilesh Shukla
akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in