India Mobile Broadband – Statistics and Analyses

By mid-2015 there was considerable progress in the roll-out of 4G services:

• Bharti Airtel was already operating a TD-LTE network;

• Bharti had also launched a trial FDD LTE network in 20 cities;

• Aircel had launched 4G services;

• Vodafone was planning to launch 4G in Calcutta, Mumbai and Delhi by December 2015;

• Reliance Jio was also set to launch its 4G network by early 2016

• Idea Cellular was reported to be set to launch LTE services in January 2016;

• BSNL was preparing to launch 4G by March 2016.

In early 2014 Bharti Airtel highlighted a number of issues potentially troubling India’s developing 4G market, noting in particular that LTE services would ‘not be significant’ in India until prices for 4G terminals drop below US$100. At the same time, available spectrum was insufficient to support the number of players in the market, running at what it claimed was about of the global average. Making the situation worse was that eight to nine operators shared the spectrum, making for extremely fragmented spectrum holdings. The company also noted the limited footprint of optical fibre networks in the country, with just 5%-10% of base stations connected to fibre, a necessity for reliable high-speed wireless broadband services.

Vendor Alcatel-Lucent noted in 2011 that the deployment of 4G wireless networks in India was likely to happen a little later than initially expected. The company said this was because (1) operators were still busy rolling out 3G networks and (2) there were not many devices available for supporting LTE. At the time telecom market size Alcatel-Lucent had a total of 12 LTE contracts with operators around the world and was conducting over 60 trials worldwide. There was speculation that India could leapfrog many European operators and get LTE into the market early. The long delays and limited spectrum associated with 3G were making operators eager to push into 4G. The TRAI had launched a ‘pre-consultation’ paper on 4G with plans to turn this into an official document.

 In July 2012 Aircel said it was investing around US$ million in rolling out 4G services, targeting end-2012. The operator was set to launch services in Chennai between October and December whilst expanding the network to other cities in the Tamil Nadu circle. In addition to wireless broadband for handsets and dongles, the provider planned to offer home broadband and related value added services such as a Video on Demand (VoD) library. Majority owner Maxis of Malaysia said the company’s focus was on ‘creating a big data business,’ adding that the price of Long Term Evolution (LTE) compatible devices was expected to fall.

One of the Indian security agencies expressed concern in August 2012 that Bharti Airtel had awarded a contract to China’s ZTE to deploy an LTE-based network in Kolkata. The MCIT confirmed that it had received a notice from the security agency. The Bharti Airtel deal involved rolling out the 4G service using Time Division-Long Term Evolution (TD-LTE) technology which has been developed by ZTE. ZTE was awarded the turnkey contract by Bharti Airtel in October 2011, but some services were limited on security concerns. The company had asked ZTE to commission around 850 base stations in Phase 1 of the Kolkata rollout. ZTE also had a managed services contract for the network.

 It was being reported in February 2013 that the telecom regulators in India were prepared to allow service providers to offer voice services on 4G wireless spectrum, regardless of the underlying technology. However, in a puzzling move, a fee of billion (US$ million) was first to be paid to the regulator for the right to use the frequency.