Around the World

Light Reading…
A Brief Guide to India’s Telecom Market
In this article, Ray Le Maistre gives readers an overview of India’s telecom landscape. There is an insatiable demand for mobile communications services! By the end of 2005, about 80 million mobile lines had been activated, and just five years later, mobile connectivity had grown to a whopping 750 million users. This is a clear reflection of the desire for communication services from the Indian population, which is in line with a previous Around the World blog post we highlighted detailing a Frost & Sullivan report on India’s tremendous growth over the next five years.

Additionally, Ray notes that introducing Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, which are likely to run over the world’s first large-scale Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) networks, should help deliver some of the tangible growth that the Indian government is looking for. However, the Indian government is concerned that not enough local telecom companies are benefiting from the operators’ combined annual capital outlay of more than $30 billion. As a result, there have been talks of introducing local manufacturing quotas. Ultimately, legislation will play a big role in what’s to come, and as Ray states, because India’s market is changing so quickly, it’s hard to predict what market-altering new legislation or regulation might come along next.

ZDnet…
WiMAX to Survive as ‘Niche’ Tech
WiMAX seems to have lost to LTE as the dominant mobile broadband standard, but it will survive as a “niche” technology, author Liau Yun Qing reports. According to In-Stat analyst Chris Kissel, the former may find a place to survive in under-developed markets such as Latin America or Africa, where technology can still be built in areas with little or no mobile service. There could also be room for WiMAX in small markets focused on wireless DSL and in the smart grid market. Chris notes that ultimately, the problem with implementing WiMAX is that mobile operators had to build it from the ground up since it’s not backwards-compatible to any existing UMTS standard. Despite WiMAX’s decreasing popularity, LTE is thriving in China, India and elsewhere. In fact, according to a Global mobile Suppliers Association report in May, there are 208 operators worldwide investing in LTE—98 more than in June 2010. Do you believe WiMAX will survive as a niche tech with this rapid rise of LTE, and if so, for how long?

Nation Multimedia…
More Plan to Buy Smartphones: Survey
The popularity of smartphones is both undeniable and rapidly growing. According to an online survey conducted by Nielsen, almost 42 percent of online customers in Thailand without smartphones said they will definitely, or are likely, to buy one in 2011. At the end of 2010, Nielsen survey research showed that Southeast Asia’s average smartphone ownership was 25 percent. Will Wang, director of the firm’s telecom practice, states that while Thailand still awaits the arrival of a full-scale commercialized 3G network, citizens are willing to buy a smartphone so they can integrate with social networks and enjoy gaming experiences via Wi-Fi or existing data services. However, it’s important to remain focused on what will keep smartphone users satisfied, especially as smartphone usage increases. As Oliver Suard points out, it’s critical that industry leaders remember to focus on customer satisfaction on all types of mobile users, and remember to also cater to those who do not own an iPhone or are heavy users of mobile broadband value-added services.

Around the World

ITP.net…

Saudi Must Expand Data, Content Services: Report

According to a recent report by Informa Telecoms and Media, Saudi Arabia should investigate growth opportunities in data and content services following the country’s strong growth in mobile voice services.  There is significant potential for these advanced offerings because of the country’s lack of many broadband options and its young population who wants to have on-the-go access to social networking applications and entertainment.  Operators in the region are betting their futures on this growth—one is expecting mobile broadband to account for 37% of its revenue by 2014, while another is planning to expand its data, content and mobile broadband applications to draw 20% to 30% of its revenue.

SearchTelecom.com…

WiMAX and LTE: Sometimes Complementary, Not Competitive

U.S. wireless carriers pit WiMAX and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) against each other as competing technologies.  But in other regions, operators are deploying them as complementary technologies for specific applications and markets.  Richard Webb, directing analyst at Infonetics Research, notes that “in [other parts] of the world, WiMAX is much more of a niche technology…and therefore [it is] much less of a threat.  Mobile operators [across the globe] are much more open to looking at ways they can [deploy] WiMAX [rather than hold] back the threat of it…which is the attitude of [U.S. carriers] Verizon Wireless and AT&T.”  Although co-existence is unlikely in the U.S., WiMAX may come to play a supporting role for operators whose choice of technology doesn’t wholly define their market identity; this might be, for example, smaller wireless carriers using the technology to support smart grids or M2M.  But Webb believes WiMAX will not be “front and centre” for them.

Billing & OSS World…

BSS/OSS Transformation Key to Asia

Asia-Pacific CSPs are experiencing a changed market landscape to say the least—falling average revenue per user (ARPU) for voice, increasing demand for mobile Internet, convergence everywhere (network, services, devices and industries) and intense competition are necessitating operational efficiency, combined with innovation in rolling out new data services.  New research from Frost & Sullivan reveals that the shift to customer-centric organizations in this region and the exponential increase in demand for data services is causing operators to optimize and transform their networks.  Supporting this shift are OSS/BSS solutions.  Analyst Vikas Chanani believes the building blocks that must be part of every customer-centric and business transformation strategy going ahead in the future are unified real-time rating and charging, integrated network management, data analytics, and business intelligence and customer experience management.  Do you see these for being crucial for APAC operators?  What building blocks would you add or take from this list?t