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Radio Trunking is one telecom segment that has been unable to leverage from the dynamic telecom times in the country. There has been a plateau situation for the last few years. The market continues to be at around 29,000 subscribers excluding the captive numbers which are not accounted for. The captive market on the higher side would be another 9,000 to 11,000 subscribers. The grey market where the services are offered without paying the license fees consists of 25,000 subscribers, nearly as good as the official one. Though there has been some growth (5-10 percent), it is not in the impressive range as the other telecom verticals have been witnessing. The overall market can be pegged at approximately Rs 57 crore.

Though there exists a niche market but the regulatory bodies have failed to take notice. The policies are hanging where they were over two years back. Various reports with reference to international performance have been submitted to the regulatory bodies but to no avail.

Growth opportunities
With the retail segment, hospitality, ITES, transport and the likes thriving in India, Public Mobile Radio Trunking Services (PMRTS) has a distinct need and growth opportunity. With more and more solutions like fleet management and GPS enabled solutions hitting the market, there is an expected surge in radio trunking market. With the retail and ITES verticals deploying PMRTS centered security solutions, the market is expected to see some traction.

Market players
There are over 13 operators in India, amongst whom ASC Enterprises (ASCEL/Agrani) leads the pack. ASCEL through Agrani Wireless Services Limited (AWSL) has acquired four companies in the field of PMRTS, currently operating under the brand "Smartmobile" and "Procall" in 18 major Indian cities. Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai together account for 71.65 percent of the market share. Delhi leads the tally with 9,057 subscribers followed by Bangalore, Mumbai and Chennai with 3796, 3651 and 2406 subscribers respectively.

Procall has the largest number of subscribers at 8131, followed by Arvind Mills and QuickCalls India with a subscriber base of 6530 and 3664 respectively. Smartalk, Arya Offshore Service, Hapag Llyod, The Arvind Mills, Aryadoot Transport and QuickCall have registered a negative growth rate of 8.99 percent, 5.02 percent, 4.57 percent, 0.93 percent, 0.29 percent and 0.25 percent respectively. Bhilwara Telenet Services has increased its subscriber base with the highest growth rate of 25.21 percent.

AWSL is soon going to deploy state-of-the art integrated digital wireless communication systems to provide radio trunking services in several metro and mini metro cities. AWSL is going to deploy digital network to provide Public Mobile Radio Trunking Service (PMRTS) in metro and mini-metro cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar among others. The company's network will provide offerings to potential customers, through one compact subscriber unit by integrating: direct connect services, wireless telephony services, messaging, data and Internet services.

What lies ahead?
The market is experiencing the beginning of resurgence. A potential market is the institutional user in the fields (security, construction, ITES, transportation etc) where they need one-to-one as well as one-to-many kind of communication. As the operators have not been allowed to make the digital offering, the form factors get affected.

The market has not really witnessed any real growth in terms of revenues. Though the few leading operators claim to have registered profits to the tune of 24-25 percent, the subscriber numbers do not reflect growth. The profit growth has been attributed to the growth of PMRTS with data like the location-based services for the transport industry, mobile data terminals on radio trunking platform are few areas from where profits have been accrued.

Recent service introduced in the country by Tops Group like the one based on 9/11 emergency response service makes an extensive use of PMRTS services clubbed with GPS based systems. PMRTS will see traction in the coming years with more and more similar services being introduced in the market with regards to public safety. A number of government sector initiatives like public transport will see extensive use of PMRTS.

Minu Sirsalewala