Recently in Regulatory Category

Much awaited MNP (Mobile Number Portability) is said to be available only after 30th June 2010. DOT (Department of Telecommunication) has announced a press release earlier this month with set of targets for operators. From known industry sources i could conclude, some of the major mobile operators in india including PSU BSNL/MTNL is not happy with early adoption of MNP. May be scared about loosing customers in selected telecommunication circle. Among the private players known big telecos who use Zuu Zuu is expected to loose more in view of less investment in dense areas.

This time the reason for postponement is IOT (Inter operability/Operator Test). Even now readiness of some of the ILD operators have been questioned. I wonder how larger regulator like DOT is failed to calculate accurate time involved in launching a big market changer like MNP. It has been postponed thrice in the past. Almost an year is passed by. Further delay is adding heat to the customer who wanted to get out of worst service providers.This time DOT has expressed its concern about delay caused by PSU BSNL and MTNL, specific target and action plan has been given. As per DOTs previous communication all operators should have MNP gateways with communication to MNP centers.

Though MNP looks to be a new crowd sourcing technique for new entrants like MTN, Videocon, and uninor it is a potential threat. These new operators lag very much in proper infrastructure to provide carpet coverage, which is a minimum requirement for any service offering.  Any technology which is not adopted on time will not have value, I am scared about MNP in this regard.

Government has extended the time line of MNP portability implementation in metros and category-A circle by March 31, With respect to the previous launch date MNP availability is postponed by 3 months. It is stated that all the operators are not ready with seamless integration with MNP operators. Some of them have completed the setup, few of them have only established physical link, and few of them yet to proceed. Since these activities are time consuming process government has postponed the launch date. Two of the MNP operators MITS (JV of telcordia) and Synervise are activly working on implementing MNP.

Customers will be asked to pay one time porting charge in order to migrate their number. Outgoing operator will not get benefited in any way, No re-leaving charges or benefits.

There are 3 transactions involved in the transfer of a mobile number to another operator, of which two - the per port transaction charge and the dipping charge - are between the participating operators and mobile number portability service providers. The subscriber who intends to shift to a new operator and retain her existing number will need to pay only the porting charge. Despite varying opinions on porting charges of the 13 telcos - from a high of Rs. 200 to Rs. 20, TRAI has capped the porting charge at only Rs. 19. The regulator has also noted that operators are free to charge any amount less than this. Considering the mobile customer base of india with 460 million, and 10-12 millions every month, MNP has opened up host of revenue opportunity to MNP operators.

The MNP operators in the two zones of the country are to provide centralized database, query response and clearing house to enable correct routing and termination of calls by Access (Basic/Mobile) service providers and international long distance (ILD) operators post MNP implementation. The whole network in the country is to be ready and tested before the MNP service is implemented. When the service providers are ready with their own inter-operator test results, a complete Acceptance Test (A/T) is to be carried out by DoT across the networks of all the concerned service providers in all the service areas before MNP service is implemented.

In an effort to simplify the cumbersome process involved in MNP, TRAI has floated a frame work and invited interesting operators, after lengthy process two companies are announced as MNP operators. Indian telecom circle is divided in to four zone and operators are selected for each of them, South, North, east and West are the four MNP zones. The country has been segmented into two zones consisting of 11 Licensed Service Areas each with 2 Metro service areas in each zone. A maximum of two companies will manage MNP for a period of 5 years, each with a separate zone of operation. Initially MNP will be implemented in all Metro and category 'A' service areas within 6 month of award of the License. MNP regime will be rolled out in the country by end of summer 2010.

MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions India Pvt Ltd (MITS) has been selected to manage south and east, Syniverse Technologies for the North and the West.

Syniverse, which has won the mandate for the North and West regions, including two fairly saturated and key markets - Delhi and Mumbai, is a company that provides technology interoperability, network services and number portability to mobile operators, wireline carriers, emerging telecom market entrants and enterprise customers.

MNP operator for south and East, MITS is a joint venture of Telcordia, it received the go-ahead from India's Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) for foreign investment. South and east include heavy usage Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, and kolkatta, These cities are reportedly having high number of floating population that other metros.Telcordia was allowed to pick up upto 74% foreign investment in the mobile number portability, and allowed a foreign investment of Rs. 45 Crores. Telcordia has partnered with Deepak Talwar Consultants for the MITS JV. Telcordia is one of the biggest OSS and BSS vendor too.  

3G and BWA Wireless spectrum auction base price announced, as usual government has exceeded all predictions, My prediction too. Do read my previous analysis on expected revenue to government Here. As usual reaction from industry is totally against high price. Government is looking at money and not affordability, some strong reaction from Industry icons.

• Pan-india 3G spectrum base price is 35 Billion INR.
• 3 nos of 20MHz spectrum total base price is 17.5 Billion
• 2 nos of 1.25MHz slot of EV-DO spectrum base price is 8.75 Billion

Stated by one of the popular Telecom journal in  India tele.net. COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) expressed concerns about huge difference between base price of 3G spectrum adn BWA. COAI is very much concerned about WiMax operators backdoor entry in to 3G, they further explained that since WiMax and 3G can offer similar type of services and availability operators will choose WiMax and get in to 3G customer base with less spectrum cost. AUSPI (Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India) also expressed concerns over price difference and limiting the number of spectrum to 2 in case of CDMA. They have also criticized about government policy of increasing the competition in auction by reducing the number of participating band. On the other hand ISPAI (Internet Service Providers Association of India) expressed concerns about huge base price and further limitation in roll out obligations.

In my view government intention to gain as much as 250 Billion in revenue is met. This huge difference between competing technologies enable big muscle players to hold all possible spectrum and hence technology monopoly in Indian Telecommunication industry. Internet service providers will have huge problem in terms of keeping their present customer and gaining new customers. Mobile operators will easily meet coverage and roll out obligations by using their available passive and back bone infrastructure where as Internet service providers can not. On the other hand ISP stron hold of IP back bone will leverage more managed services business opportunity. Government should use alternate mechanisms to bridge digital divide, allowing operators to use 700MHz spectrum to meet rural coverage obligations is one such solutions.

I went to a near by prepaid card and mobile peripheral reseller few months back. Out of curiosity asked him a question about which mobile connection sells faster. He said "TATA DOCOMO is the fast mover, all 500 connection cards of his quota soled out in 2 Hrs and waiting for next dispatch, If you want a new connection book in advance with RS 100 payment." And to my question why ? his answer is 1 sec billing. TATA DOCOMO simple USP is "PER SECOND BILLING". To an end customer it saves lot of money, since so long one minute billing from other operators are charging a same amount for 1 sec as well as 59secs of call duration. Those mobile operators billing is technically wrong. Phone usage should be billed based upon ERLANGS. A unit to measure Hrs of traffic used in an hr. It is a statistical measure of offered load. With this every second will have big difference on required link capacity and hence investment. Docomo's strategy of per second billing is in either way does good thing for indian mobile communication industry. Soon all the other operators may have to follow similar frame work. TATA GSM has become number one in terms of user addition Thanks to per second billing. BSNL has started billing as per sec pulse. Recently TRAI's chairman suggested similar norms.
 

We may ask all the operators to consider per-second pulse as a mandatory tariff option along with their other tariff plans, Even there (in per-second tariff plan), they must ensure to bring out clearly all the riders and caveats" Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman J S Sarma told reporters on the sidelines of the International Telecommunication Union conference in Geneva.

Auction of 3G spectrum and BWA is expected to complete by January 2010. Big mobile operators are well planned to kick start implementation as soon as possible. Who ever owns the spectrum, what is in it for the government? Like sea, land, and minerals WIRELESS SPECTRUM is considered to be a key national resource. Every technology can not operate in every possible spectrum, It has limitation in terms of Radio propagation, coverage, expected quality and so on. So allocating a spectrum becomes a critical activity of the government with incremental revenue generating opportunity. Since the number of operator want to participate in this telecommunication business is high, like any other opportunistic business environment, Auction process increments expected revenue.

The Government expects to get over Rs 25,000 crore from 3G spectrum allocation alone. "From the five players, we expect Rs 20,000 crore and another Rs 5,000 crore would come from bidding process. It can even be higher," From BWA auction government is expected to generate minimum of 10000 crore additional revenue.

 Even before spectrum allocation decision, Bharati airtel has announced it's participation in 3G auction. "If everything goes well on time with regard to spectrum auction, by February or March we will have spectrum allocation. By next Diwali (2010), we will have commercial launch of 3G services in India," Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli.

It would be interesting to see how far the fight for spectrum goes. More the intensity more will be the revenue to government. But considering the low price high volume indian telecommunication market. 25k crore is gettable in few years time. Looking forward to spectrum war. Once more put off will definitely bring down the interest on customers. Let see how indian Telecom market react to DATA intensive 3G (W-CDMA, and EVDO) and BWA (Mobile WiMax, LTE, WiMax advanced) technologies. 

Much awaited 3G and BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) wireless spectrum auction time lines are announced by Telecommunication ministry of India. Revised information memorandum will get released in few days from now on. It will be interesting to see, who will win the rights to operate in what spectrum. A high level GOM (Group of Ministers) team is controlling the whole process. Indian government is expecting a huge sum from telecom payers. Spectrum action will mark the beginning of an era of information exchange. Bridging the communication gap is the main agenda behind this. Both 3G and BWA aiming at increased throughput and hence more value added services (VAS). More number of internet enabled terminals, internet enabled government functions, internet enabled future rely on this auction.
Major fight is expected between big players from mobile operators like reliance, Airtel, TATA, Vodafone, and idea. It is very evident that Government is so keen to grab as much as money they can. 3G market have been a big failure in western countries largely because of the way internet penetration by means of cable and other means. Indian telecom story is entirely different from other countries. When mobile communication market kicked off in india way back late 90's, the whole world was not in a optimist look about Indian telecom market. But the present situation is so different that, late comer india is expected to by pass US very soon. Indian telecom growth story in voice market (2G) will help to achieve greater heights with 3G as well.
BWA action is the only option for many of the categoryA ISPs in India. Except Airtel, MTNL, and BSNL, All the other internet service providers have challenges in implementing the last mile internet access. Cable theft, environmental condition, too large distance to cover are some of the problems. Wirelss seems to be the only way out. New bound challenge, Mobile internet against traditional internet access is another big thread. Mobile WiMax promises to bridge the difference, but investment is huge. Available spectrum is another big challenge. ISPs are left out with 2.3GHz and 2.5GHz. Out of available 5 player options, Companies like Sify, Net4India, Tulip, TATA VSNL, Airtel, Reliance, Shyam, you telecom and etc have to fight for the 4 spots.
BSNL, and MTNL are enjoying the clear advantage as a early winners in both 3G and BWA auction. We keep hearing that nothing seems to be going well for BSNL and MTNL, there are speculations that Bharati and Reliance may catchup so easily with their implementation capability. Lets see how this 3G and BWA auction comes out.