3G Telephony Services: Implications for Indian Operators

Third Generation or 3G mobile telephony services have been introduced in over 100 countries worldwide.  In India, the auction of the 3G spectrum was held in March 2010wherein none of the operators managed to win licenses for PAN India. The telecom operators are expected to launch 3G services by early 2011.

Am trying to put my thoughts here in terms of the way it might impact the telecom operators.

Immediate points to ponder:

1. Funding requirements – The funds required for the payout for licensing fees and the equipment enhancements must be an immediate concern item for all the telcos who have successfully won spectrum.
2. Increased marketing investments – To ensure the uptake and usage of services, operators would have to educate the subscribers regarding the benefits of the services. Thus putting more pressure on them to invest in the marketing activities.

Thought provoking long term plans:

1. Competitive advantage: With no operator able to nail the PAN India licenses, the telcos in a particular region may invite the high ARPU 3G hungry subscribers from the ones who could not win the licenses there. Number portability would definitely play an interesting role here.
2. New avenues for revenue generation: Currently data services make a 5-7% off the VAS revenue pie while in the matured European nations it is about 20-25%. So the operators can look forward to increased uptake and thereby additional revenues.
3. Better Spectrum management: With the 3G spectrum available to the telco and it’s better voice handling capabilities, they may be able to manage subscriber expectation in terms of QoS much better.
4. Handset Prices: With the operators beginning to liaison with the handset manufacturers, they might want to play an important role in increasing the affordability of 3G enabled handsets for mass adoption of services.

Mobile 2.0 is all about VAS…

Apologies for having disappeared without notice…
The fact is, I am inducted into a new role in my organization and have started traveling pretty often. Since I am writing after a long time, this is just a post to cover up my writers block here…

The details provided on various parameters and players in the industry, introduced in my previous posts, can be analyzed in great depths but I would want to cut this short and move on to newer horizons of analyzing the various happenings and the buzz across the industry. People may have discussed this on forums and their blogs but I am trying to spill out my thought process rather than aping somebody else’s mindset.

There is a lot of talk about web 2.0 and now the mobile arena is looking to replicate the same experience. There are a lot of views on the definition of itself. Some are of the opinion that it’s about web on the mobile providing you the freedom of internet access on the move. Whereas, some are talking about the technology convergence and offering multimedia specialties on the mobile. In fact most of the players in the value chain would want to perceive it in the manner that would be most beneficial.

But I have a different perspective to the same scenario. Whatever the industry is trying to believe whether convergent devices or web on the move; it’s all about “Mobile Value Added Services“. There is a variety of subscribers that the mobile industry caters to and each one has their evident needs and wants. All of those would be addressed by mobile 2.0 services portfolio.

People have compared applications on the web to their counterparts on mobile and have also gone ahead to compare the existing applications to what can replace them in mobile 2.0.

All that I believe is Mobile convergence providing the subscribers the strength and reach of web and the convenience of a mobile is the next generation of mobile – trying to be termed as Mobile 2.0.

My thoughts –

Mobile 2.0 is much more than broadband access on the move. This is not about accessing the web in the mini browser and hanging onto web 2.0 through your mobile. This is much more than that to my understanding.

Mobile 2.0 is more about getting personal about your most personal device ever. Although I remember that the earliest talks of Mobile 2.0 have started way back in late 2005, but I am unsure on how much India progressed on this front. I understand that hindrances are many and players are trying to find way-around to provide the subscribers the experience they would have never imagined.

Jatin Madan
jatinmadan@aol.in