Disagreements over base price of 3G spectrum among Indian government officials, has further delayed launch of broadband wireless in India. Some observers now say it will hurt country’s broadband expectations. “We expect the launch of 3G and WiMax services by private operators to get pushed to at least the last quarter of 2009,” said Naveen Mishra, communications research analyst at IDC India.
India’s Department of Telecom had set the base price for the pan-India 3G spectrum at US$406.6 million (INR 20.2 billion) and for the BWA spectrum at US$203.3 million (INR 10.1 billion), but the finance ministry had demanded the floor price for both be doubled.
The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has filed a petition with the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) against the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), which is calling for the surrender of 2.5GHz WiMAX spectrum. The ISPAI claims that ISPs are being discriminated against by the DoT after the government called for the return of WiMAX spectrum from those standalone internet providers it allotted it to in 2003. The DoT plans to auction the spectrum for a base price of INR5.5 billion (USD109 million). The ISPs have claimed that, if won by a large operator, WiMAX spectrum could go unused.
India’s Business Standard (right), says the only hope for WiMax operations in South Asia will be India. According to a Yankee Group study, “India’s broadband penetration, barely over 1 percent, is held back by a schizophrenic regulatory environment. India’s global profile is threatened, with potentially serious local consequences for investment.”
Even though some operators like Bharti Airtel, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (along with Soma Networks) and Reliance Communications (RCom) have begun offering WiMax services, the industry is awaiting allocation of spectrum to offer full-fledged services.
Cellular operator Reliance Communications is targeting a potential 15 million users (includes 6 million laptop users, 1 million 1X CDMA Datacard users and 8 million home PC users) across India for its EVDO service.
At present, Indian companies are offering WiMax services on 3.3 GHz. The government plans to allocate the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz spectrum which are considered superior. That would enable Indian companies to offer full-fledged WiMax services.Bharti Airtel had earlier announced plans to launch services across 300 cities, while RCom has launched services in Bangalore and Pune, and BSNL across in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The WiMax Forum (India Chapter) had estimated that the delay in auctioning Broadband and Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum will cost the country around $2.2 billion (Rs 10,500 crore), excluding the estimated Rs 4,000-crore spectrum fee.
“We have Tata Communications leading the way here, with the company already rolling out fixed WiMax services and mobile (WiMax) services expected to follow soon. There is some hope for the technology in the country,” Yankee Group Senior Vice President Ashvin Vellody told Business Standard.
Researcher Maravedis, on the other hand, estimated up to 21 million WiMAX subscribers would be in India by 2014. But that was before the spectrum delay.
According to the latest statistics from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) , India’s wireless carriers added 10.35 million new lines during November 2008, taking the total number of mobile lines activated to 336.1 million.
Bharti Airtel (wikipedia) is the country’s largest mobile operator with 82.9 million subscribers. Reliance Communications (wikipedia) is the second largest with 59.6 million, just ahead of Vodafone Essar (wikipedia) with 58.8 million.
With its 1.2 billion people, India is filled with opportunity and challenges for wireless companies.
At the end of November, India had 38.05 million fixed line connections (down 170,000 from a month earlier), giving the country a total of 374.13 million telephone connections. The total number of broadband lines (which includes any connection that runs at 256 kbit/s or faster) is now nearly 5.3 million, according to Unstrung.
As the largest of the country’s two state-owned operators, BSNL is guaranteed to get a broadband wireless license for 20 MHz of spectrum at 2.5 GHz in each of India’s circles, except for Mumbai and Delhi, where fellow state-owned operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL) will be awarded 2.5 GHz licenses, explains Unstrung. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is India’s largest telecommunication company with 24% market share as on March 31, 2008.
Meanwhile, Tata Communications, formerly known as VSNL, hoped to blanket India in WiMax by March 2009. That plan would have cost more than $100 million and span 115 Indian cities. Tata (VSNL), is India’s largest telecommunication company, in international long distance, enterprise data and internet services.
According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the country, which has a population of more than 1.1 billion, had 272.88 million telephone connections at the end of 2007, of which 233.63 million were mobile and 39.25 million were fixed line. TRAI has set a target of 20 million broadband connections by 2010, up from the current 5 million.
In other news, Malaysia’s first WiMAX service provider Packet One Networks introduced its portable P1 W1MAX USB modem named Wiggy, this week. The company’s fixed wireless WiMAX broadband service which was introduced last August. PI’s Wiggy made its debut at the 2009 PIKOM PC Fair in Kuala Lumpur. 
Samsung officially unveiled their WiMAX tablet last month. Samsung’s Mondi provides GPS navigation and business applications on a 4.3-inch screen powered by Opera 9.5.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has issued a tender in a bid to select universal service providers for mobile services across the country. Under the guidelines the regulator has split the country into 22 clusters for the purposes of bidding, with operators able to bid for any number of clusters; up to two operators will be selected per cluster.
The List of deployed WiMAX networks is now into the hundreds. A number of WiMAX operators livecast to Intel’s Video wall at the Mobile World Congress this February. They included: Aria (Italy), Clearwire (USA), DBD (Germany), Digicel (Jamaica), Global Data Services (Lebanon), ITRI (Taiwan), Libya Telecom & Technology (Libya), Max Telecom (Bulgaria), Mobilink (Pakistan), Nuevatel (Bolivia), OneMax (Dominican Republic), Packet One (Malaysia), Worldmax (Netherlands), Wipet (Panama) and Xanadoo (USA).
Muniwireless says WiMAX in France has suffered setbacks. French telecom regulator ARCEP has agreed to extend the deadline for WiMAX rollout to June 2010. Bolloré Télécom, the largest WiMAX provider that holds 12 licenses, has only completed 13 percent of its planned rollout, while competitor Altitude has completed only 15 percent. In Europe the 3.5 GHz frequency band, which is not ideal for Mobile WiMAX, is often used. ARCEP has been promoting network sharing between competing companies and invited market players to submit agreements, along its guidelines, by the end of the year.
At year end 2008, Maravedis counted over 3.16 million BWA/WiMAX subscribers world-wide (pdf), a 15% growth from Q3 2008 and an 87% growth from Q4 2007.
