Telecom panel allows VoIP under National Telecom PolicyThe Mint March 27, 2012

India’s Telecom Commission has approved allowing voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services under the National Telecom Policy (NTP), 2012, in a move that is aimed at making telecom services more affordable and which will also benefit companies such as Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) that have plans, licences and spectrum to offer wireless mobile broadband services.

An internal department of telecommunications (DoT) note reviewed by Mint says the commission, the country’s apex telecom policymaking body, has done this “to enhance affordability to consumers”.

The decision will come into effect next month.

An RIL spokesperson did not respond to phone calls, and email and text messages seeking comment on the development.

Media reports say RIL, the only company to have a pan-India licence to offer mobile broadband services, is preparing for launch and is in the process of picking devices and services (including telephony and content).

India is a latecomer to the VoIP revolution. Currently, Indian laws only allow VoIP calls to a telephone in India under strict conditions. However, they allow such calls between computers within the country’s borders and between a computer in India and a telephone (fixed or wireless) outside India.

On 6 March, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), in its final recommendations on NTP, suggested that VoIP be fully allowed in the country.

“There is a convergence of technologies happening. The NTP also talks of separating the network providers from the service providers. In such a scenario, it makes sense for us to allow this,” said a senior DoT official, who did not want to be identified.

“Earlier there were many other issues and (it) did not make sense. Many of the operators and other stakeholders opposed it, saying that India was not ready for it. Now we feel the technology should be allowed,” added this person, explaining why India was far behind the rest of the world in the adoption of VoIP.

To offer voice calls between a computer and a phone within India, the service provider has to have a telecom licence or UASL (universal access service licence) and follow Trai’s mandated interconnection norms.

Once the new norms come into place, phone users, too, can use their handsets to call other phone users through the Internet, provided the handsets are compliant with the technology.

Analysts say the move will benefit customers.

“Doing this will allow more flexibility and new competition to emerge through non-facilities based providers,” said Kunal Bajaj, partner-director (India) at Analysys Mason (India) Ltd, a technology consulting firm. “It should hopefully also allow for a wholesale market to emerge, which does not really completely exist today. So this should be good for consumers, and for innovation.”

April 2012 Contact: india.commerce@international.gc.ca

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Analysts also add that the full adoption of VoIP will not affect tariffs. The prospect of tariffs going lower than the present 40-70 paise per minute is remote, they say.

They also foresee some challenges. Apart from policy, the biggest challenge is security. “Allowing VoIP means bringing the problems of the Internet to the mobile in full force,” said Hemant Joshi, a partner at consultancy Deloitte Haskins and Sells.

, the Telecom Commission has reiterated

the targets that were set out in the NTP, 2012. TRAI had removed many of the targets, though some of them were retained, including those relating to manufacturing, broadband and spectrum availability. “The Telecom Commission, after due deliberation, reiterated the need for retaining the targets as they represent quantified articulation of the objectives underpinning the policy intent of the government,” the minutes of the Telecom Commission meeting held on 7 March and reviewed by Mint said.

The targets reiterated by the commission include increasing rural teledensity from the current level of 37% to 70% by 2017 and 100% by 2020. Another target reiterated by the commission refers to provision of high-speed and high-quality broadband access to all panchayats (village councils) by 2014 and to all villages and habitations by 2020.

TCS Insight: In India, VoIP has been allowed in restricted manner, where a user can either make calls from his computer outside India or receive calls on Computer. Internet calls cannot be terminated on a landline or a mobile phone. Once the VoIP services are implemented, the voice call rates are expected to drop further. Given that local mobile or landline calls are already fairly cheap in India, those rates may not see much of a change. This move will also help some Internet companies offering voice and data services (although, they will need to tie-up with licensed telecom operators to offer those services) to join the bandwagon. Overall, VoIP approval will help Indian users as well as

telco's tremendously in bringing down the cost.

Mobile tower companies go green The Times of India March 21, 2012

On March 14, Indus Towers, the world's largest telecom-tower company, said it would replace diesel generators with batteries on 20,000 of its 1,10,000 towers by next year with the objective of reducing its carbon footprint.

It added it had already stopped using diesel - an environment-unfriendly fuel - as the power back-up in 5,000 towers, saving 3.6 million litres of the fuel a year.

Indus - a joint venture between mobile service providers Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular - is pitching 'Indus green city' as an example of its environment stewardship.

"We, as a company, are dedicated to an ecofriendly India," says BS Shantharaju, CEO of Indus Towers. But Indus' initiative, as well as similar moves by other tower companies, is as much about business compulsion as it is about a good practice, if not more.

Dismissing the Rs. 19,000-crore tower industry's claim of

a change of heart, Hemant Joshi, partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, says it's an act of "self-preservation". He says tower companies are simply responding to diesel being stolen by people who man these towers. "There are some pretty horrific stories of pilferage and the cost of running these towers is not feasible given the rental rates," says Joshi.

"Green is a collateral benefit." According to AT Kearney, a consultancy, the Indian tower industry has about 3,50,000 towers and spends Rs 8,500 crore a year on diesel. Officials at Indus and Viom Networks say, on the condition of anonymity, that 15% of the diesel they pay for is stolen. That works out to Rs 1,275 crore.

Diesel is also an ongoing source of friction between tower companies and their clients, mobile service providers, as some agreements put the onus of fuel payments on the latter. But mobile service providers often decline to pay the stated amount, citing pilferage. "A dispute on that creates a cash drain," says a senior official at a leading tower company, not wanting to be named.

A 32% increase in the price of diesel in the past two years and large-scale theft of the fuel are further blows to an industry that has slid from promise to pain in just three years. Tower companies like Indus, Viom Networks and GTL Infrastructure had expanded aggressively after 2008, when mobile licences were given to eight new players. But the new business never materialised in the volume envisaged.

First, the slowdown in 2008-09 crippled the world economy. And then, in 2010, a legal taint fell over the licences, because of which mobile companies held back their rollouts.

Now, profitability of tower companies is under pressure and costs hurt like never before. "Reducing the consumption of diesel and its pilferage is critical from the perspective of creating a profitable, efficient and environment-friendly telecom industry," says Manoj Tirodkar, chairman of GTL Infrastructure.

In its presentation, however, Indus makes no mention of diesel pilferage. But company officials who did not want to be identified admit this is the main driver to

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shift from diesel generators to batteries as the power back up.

The motive and pitch aside, tower companies are actively exploring options to reduce dependence on diesel generators, but there are issues attached with each energy alternative.

According to AT Kearney, of the 70,000 towers that are not connected to the grid, 5,000 have solar-power units (see graphic). But their initial capital is high: the consultancy estimates a capital cost of Rs 10 lakh per tower to go solar. "It's an expensive proposition as a back-up for grid electricity," says Sairam Prasad, chief technical officer of Bharti Infratel, which owns 33,000 towers.

"The cost can go as high as Rs 40 a unit for a remote-tower site powered by solar energy compared with Rs 6 per unit for grid electricity. This cost is unsustainable."

Bharti Infratel is, instead, using more efficient generators and alternative cooling solutions to reduce its diesel consumption. Elsewhere, Indus is using a battery bank to replace diesel generators on its sites. Battery installation costs Rs 1.2-1.5 lakh per site and the return on investment is three years, says a company presentation.

So far, Indus has largely done this in areas like Mumbai, where there is a good supply of power on the energy grid. TCS Insight: With unstable electricity, the cost of diesel increasing and operators penetrating deep into rural India, companies are looking at alternative power solutions and technologies to run telecom towers. This not only brings down the cost of operations but also helps companies get carbon credits for their operations. Canadian companies with innovative telecom power solutions would have a significant traction for their solutions with Indian tower companies.

Lava to manufacture first Intel-powered smartphone in India The Hindu Business Line February 28, 2012

Barcelona: Indian start-up Lava announced its partnership with Intel at Mobile World Congress on Monday with the launch of the first Intel-powered smartphone in India, the Xolo X900. Lava, which has so far focused on budget phones, will manufacture smartphones under the Xolo brandname. At MWC, Intel announced two Medfield processors, which include the budget Atom Z200, but the X900 will ship with the more high-end 1.6 GHz Z2460 with a 400 MHz GPU, Intel Hyper threading technology and the Intel XMM 6260 platform. The phone will run on Android Gingerbread v2.3 and feature a 4.03-inch LCD display, 8-megapixel rear

camera with burst mode, front camera, NFC, HDMI and HSPA+ support. Mr. Vishal Sehgal, Co-founder and Director, Lava, who was present during Intel’s press conference at MWC said that the phone will hit the Indian market in the second quarter of this year.

TCS Insight: India is adding an average of 8 mn subscribers per month and to this an average 4 mn handsets are sold every month. Statistics point out that upto 50% of the phones sold in urban metros and cities are smartphones (1 mn smartphones sold in last month with the last three month seeing as many as 23 new smartphone launches) and this has prompted many of the Indian mobile phone manufacturers like Lava, Micromax, Spice etc. to start their own facilities to compete with Samsung and IPhones. Canadian companies with successful mobile handset technologies from chips design to software plug ins (messaging solutions, security etc.) would find opportunities with mobile manufactures.

Airtel launches mobile money service across India The Economic Times February 23, 2012

Bharti Airtel has launched Airtel Money, a mobile wallet service, across India. The Airtel Money service, is now available across 300 key cities in India, and will allows its users to load cash on their mobile devices and spend it to pay utility bills and recharges, shop at 7,000+ merchant outlets, transact online etc. Apart from serving as an easy alternative to cash / card payment options, Airtel Money also offers customers the convenience of instant money transfer from an Airtel Money wallet to another Airtel Money wallet and bank accounts. With this, customers can now use Airtel Money to make payments and transfer money across the country.

Commenting on the rollout, Sanjay Kapoor, chief executive officer - India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel said, "While an estimated 240 million people across India hold bank accounts, more than 90 per cent of country's population uses cash to pay for its daily needs. Additionally, a majority of customers continue to rely on traditional or time consuming methods like money orders and cheque remittances when it comes to transferring funds. On the other hand, the penetration of mobile telephony currently enriches the lives of over 900 million people in our country and can facilitate a paradigm shift in the way India transacts."

We see the national rollout of Airtel Money playing a pivotal role in accelerating mobile based commerce in India and look forward to further extending the availability of this service in deeper pockets of the country in weeks to come," he added.

There are two types of accounts under the Airtel

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Money service - express account and power account. Users can dial *400# from their Airtel mobile phones or sign up for the service by walking into any of the 15,000 plus Airtel Money outlets across the top 300 cities of India and submitting the required KYC documents. Under the Express service, Airtel users can enjoy services like paying utility bills like electricity, mobile recharge, gas etc. Users of this service can spend up to Rs 10,000 daily by uploading cash on their Airtel Money account.

Airtel Money Power Accounts offers lot many services than the Express account. Users with Power accounts can apart from paying utility bills can use their mobile to shop at merchant outlets.

"Airtel Money will work as a convenient payment alternative to debit and credit cards in days to come for online transactions on popular websites like Flipkart, Yatra, Letsbuy and even www.airtel.in," Airtel said in a press release.

The mobile wallets are generally very secure even in case users miss place their handset. Airtel mobile wallet service can be used by any Airtel customer with any handset.

TCS Insight: Indian Mobile operators have been struggling for long to successfully find an m-payment solution. Vodafone’s experiment with HDFC and Airtel’s latest attempt (Airtel Money) are all initiatives to revive this. Increased awareness and penetration of mobile services, adoption of smartphones and 3G, a tested and successful Africa model (probably the first best practice which any operator has adopted into it’s Indian network from an overseas operation) and overcoming fears on mobile security might make these projects successful, at least that’s what initial reviews of Airtel Money suggest. Canadian companies offering financial solutions especially micro financing/para banking should find opportunities in the Indian market with mobile operators and/or financial institutions.

Idea Cellular inks pact with Opera Software to provide super mobile browsing experience The Economic Times February 02, 2012

Idea Cellular, the country's third largest mobile phone company, has inked a deal with Opera Software to offer a customised Opera Mini mobile web browser to subscribers. Opera Mini is a mass-market web browser providing a rich web experience for smartphone users.

With Opera's cross-platform UI framework, operators can

deploy a consistent experience, look, and feel across their product offerings. Opera Mini helps drive data traffic, increases the average revenue per user (ARPU) and claims to provide the best user experience on any phone.

Idea customers will be able to download this co-branded version of Opera Mini on their devices from the end-March 2012. "In emerging markets like India, the mobile phone will soon become the primary way of accessing the Internet.

We are arming ourselves with the best-in-class solutions for catering to this data-hungry population," said Idea's chief marketing officer Shashi Shankar. "Operators such as Idea Cellular are driving mass awareness about mobile Internet in the country," adds Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software.

"Opera Mini is the ideal enabler for the Web on all mobile phones, bringing the full Internet to all devices, regardless of device constraints and platform. As the mobile landscape in India grows and changes, we hope to work together with Idea Cellular and continue building value."

As consumers expect more functionality from their mobile-browsing experiences, technology will have to advance to meet these demands. Mobile networks will have to accommodate more types of content; they have already advanced to handle, for example, streaming media and video, entertainment, navigation and gaming, among other uses.

TCS Insight: With 3G finally tiding over teething troubles and finding acceptance within the mobile community, operators are now looking at increasing its penetration through innovative products and increase their VAS (value added service) revenue. This will help Canadian telecom companies providing successful 3G applications, content and technologies in Canada/US to better position their products and services to mobile operators. ___________________________________________

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