Shyam Mardikar, chief – Strategy, Architecture and Engineering, Airtel, today narrated the spectrum related challenges faced by Indian telecom operators while addressing the huge demand for mobile VAS and other services.
Speaking at a Mobile VAS event in Delhi, Mardikar said that the expansion of mobile services creates a huge demand for spectrum.
“Spectrum availability across bands in global telecom markets is 750 MHz against 280 MHz in India. Out of this, spectrum available for Indian mobile operators was 15 to 17 MHz as against 46 MHz globally,” Mardikar said.
Additional spectrum is one of the demands of Indian telecoms such as Vodafone, Airtel, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Reliance Communications, Tata Docomo, MTS, etc. Indian mobile operators are struggling to find ways to improve quality of services due to lack of sufficient spectrum.
“Operators now have to move from providing connectivity to ensure customer experience of a whole wide range. Handling video demand is one of the main challenges for telecoms here. Due to wide spread adoptability of smartphones, video demand shoots up,” said Mardikar.
Statistics revealed by Nishant Batra, vice president and head of engagement practices in Ericsson India, reflects Mardikar’s statement on spectrum challenges.
Ericsson’s Batra said fixed and mobile subscribers in India will increase from 111 million to 650 million by 2018, and smart phone penetration would expand from 90 million in 2013 to 520 million by 2020.
Ram Yagya, advisor (Operation) Department of Telecommunications, said that mobile gaming will have a potential of $14.3 billion by end of this decade from $2 billion in 2010. Value added services in regional language were already proving to be of great potential. He referred to Bharti Airtel’s Behtar Zindagi content in Rajasthan that had become popular.
Monitoring changes in the telecom market and demand of cusotmers is still a challenge for the state-run BSNL which is expecting government support for revival.
“Our challenge is how we monitor these rapid changes in consumer preferences and range,” said SC Sharma, senior GM, Product & Pricing, BSNL.
