India’s long-awaited auction of 3G spectrum is expected to generate INR350 billion (US$7.26 billion), reports Reuters, citing the country’s annual budget outlined on Monday. This figure is up 75 percent from an earlier target.
A Light Reading report notes that the budget forecast indicates that the finance ministry has likely got its way in wanting the reserve price for each spectrum block to be doubled to (US$838 million).
The government had earlier also restricted the auction to five 3G licenses in each of the 20 telecom service areas due to a lack of adequate radio bandwidth. Siddhartha Behura, the DoT secretary, said the department expects to conduct the 3G spectrum auction in the next three-four months.
The auction process has been delayed several times since January when it was first scheduled to happen, and no definitive auction date has yet been given (although it will likely happen before December).
India’s Defense Ministry released 45 MHz of spectrum, according to a report in India’s Business Standard. Some 15 MHz of the spectrum will be released immediately, with the rest to be allocated over the next three years. Of the 15 MHz for immediate release, 10 MHz is for 3G and 5 MHz in the 2G band, according to the report.
India’s Department of Telecoms plans to auction 3G and/or WiMAX spectrum in 20 of India’s 22 telecom service areas. State-owned mobile operators BSNL and MTNL have already begun 3G network rollout, though both will eventually be required to pay a license fee equivalent to the highest price paid in the private auction.
India’s state-owned mobile operator BSNL has confirmed it is studying bids from Ericsson India and Huawei for a contract to supply 93 million GSM lines in India, which is believed to be one of the largest tenders of its kind.
At the end of 2008, India’s mobile service providers boasted nearly 347 million connections, a year-on-year increase of nearly 50 percent. The government expects the subscriber base for combined wireless and wireline connections to touch 600 million by the end of 2012, from 404 million at the end of April, this year.
Operators that will use 3G spectrum to offer CDMA services will be required to match the bid of the highest paying GSM operator, and their fee will then be reduced pro rata to the reduced spectrum they will use.
Fixed wireless access auctions for 2.3 MHz and 2.5 MHz spectrum, which is likely to be used for WiMax services, will start after the conclusion of the 3G auctions and follow a similar process.
The WiMAX Forum forecasts that India will have 19 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012, or 20% of the world’s WiMAX user base while Gartner says India will have 6.9 Million mobile and fixed WiMAX connections by the End of 2011. According to the WiMAX Forum, India’s spectrum auction will enable two 20 MHz blocks in both the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz bands. The government also announced that blocks in the 700 MHz and 3.3-3.6 GHz bands will be auctioned as they become available to offer Fixed WiMAX and rural wireless broadband segments to consumers.
Light Reading has a definitive Guide to India’s Telecom Market.
Global telecom revenue was some $2 trillion at the end of 2008, an increase of 7.6% over telecom revenue in 2007. By 2011, global telecommunications revenue is estimated to hit close to $5 trillion, with the growing demand for high-volume data applications driving both business and consumer markets.
China had 627.3 million mobile-phone users at the end of October, 2008. India is the second largest wireless market in the world. Their total wireless subscribers (GSM, CDMA & WLL) base is more than 391.76 million now. India’s wireline subscriber base stood at 38.22 million in October 2008, a decline of 0.13 million. The United States is the 3rd largest wireless market, with some 263 million mobile-phone users, according to the CTIA.
Sixty percent of US households accessed the Internet via broadband in 2008, according to a report just published by analyst firm Strategy Analytics, compared to 95% of South Korean households. This number puts the United States in 20th place worldwide, says the firm.
Parks Associates claims that by 2013 the households globally with broadband internet access will be over 640 million. The firm reports that homes with broadband worldwide grew by over 18% in 2008 exceeding 400 million.
Flagship WiMAX operators include:
- The WiMAX Forum forecasts that India will have 19 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012, or 20% of the world’s WiMAX user base while Gartner says India will have 6.9 Million mobile and fixed WiMAX connections by the End of 2011. According to the WiMAX Forum, India’s spectrum auction will enable two 20 MHz blocks in both the 2.3 and 2.5 GHz bands. Indian state-owned operators, BSNL or MTNL, have had early access to 3.5 GHz WiMAX spectrum ahead of coming auctions in the 2.1 and 2.5 GHz bands. BSNL WiMAX is expanding throughout India’s fastest-growing telecom circles: Gujarat, Maharashstra and Goa, and Andhra Pradesh. Tata Communications (TCL) has signed up 50,000 subscribers for its fixed WiMAX service in the 3.3 GHz band.
- Clearwire Communications will launch CLEAR’s 4G service in Las Vegas this July, the third major market that Clear has launched under its own name. Atlanta launched Clear’s Mobile WiMAX on June 16th and Portland in January. Sprint Nextel’s XOHM-branded Baltimore market is expected to come under Clear’s wing sometime this year. In 2009 Clear is also expected to launch in Chicago, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Philadelphia, and convert existing pre-WiMAX markets in Seattle, Honolulu and Charlotte, N.C., to mobile WiMAX.
- Japan’s UQ Communications launched commercial service on July 1 and plans to cover Japan in the next few years. UQ is the first major mobile WiMAX operator to use fractional frequency reuse, which can eliminate typical ‘3-frequency’ operation. UQ is the only company that has a nationwide approach for their 2.5 GHz spectrum and expects to have more than 90 percent population coverage by 2012. Partner cellco KDDI (with a 35% share), will start their LTE build-out in 2012.
- Russia’s Yota Mobile WiMAX network is now offering services in three regions, including Moscow and St Petersburg, and claims it is carrying more data already than all the cellcos combined. Yota’s WiMAX system is using Samsung base stations exclusively. Other WiMax networks are being launched in various regions in Russia by Enfortas, Synterra, Start-Telecom, Comstar-UTS, and Media-Net.
- Korea Telecom is rolling out voice-over-WiBro this year. KT’s Wave 2 network is expected to start commercial operation in July while SK Telecom is targeting September. KT, which controls more than 90 percent of the fixed-line telephony market and about 44 percent of the broadband sector, had gathered about 206,000 customers for WiBro by the middle of 2008, while SK Telecom, the dominant cellular carrier, has a comparatively miniscule 2,000 WiBro subscribers. WiBro (now Mobile WiMAX) has been growing fast in South Korea. The country helped to define the Mobile standard and vendors like Samsung are based in South Korea.
- The National Communications Commission (NCC), Taiwan’s regulator, has given the go ahead to VMAX to start rolling out WiMAX base stations and related infrastructure in its licensed areas in the island’s northern region, with full commercial launch in Q3 of this year. The Taiwanese operator is deploying about 300 WiMAX base stations from Alvarion and Samsung with an initial budget of $29m. VMAX is expected to use a total of 1,200 base stations in the planned three-stage project.
Intel has poured nearly $2 billion into 18 WiMax companies in recent years.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Nokia Wins China Contract, Big 3G & WiMAX Wins, China Makes Big 3G Move, Hong Kong 2.5 GHz Auction Winners, Tranzeo: Go for Indonesia WiMAX, China Expands the Largest Mobile Market, WiMax: East Meets West, India’s 3g/4G Auctions: Late January, Voice Added to WiBro, Japan Sub-channels WiMAX, Japan’s WiMAX Gets Going, WiMAX Global War in Japan, Japan Launching WiMAX Rival, European Commission: 3G/WiMAX Together on 2.6 GHz, European 2.5 GHz Auctions & the Global Market, KDDI & Willcom to WiMAX Japan, VSNL WiMaxes Bangalore, Battle for Britain, European 2.5 GHz Auctions & the Global Market, WiMax: East Meets West, Mobile WiMAX: Fast and Cheap or Out of Control?BT’s European WiMAX Plan, WiMAX Roundup, Australia Unwired, India 2nd Largest Mobile Market, Intel: $500M for M-Taiwan and Urban WiMAX in the UK.
