Telecom Lead India: The Indian telecom industry has
welcomed the launch of 4G LTE services by Bharti Airtel, the first telecom
service provider in India to commercially launch TD LTE services. The telecom
minister Kapil Sibal announced the launch of 4G in Kolkata today morning.
The industry feels that with Bharti in the forefront,
other players would follow soon. However for smooth adoption of 4G services,
affordability and availability of devices are going to be key determinants.
Enterprise customers feel that while on one side data
plans offered are competitive, the dongle price is nearly 8 times of an EVDO
dongle and 3 times of a 3G dongle.
It is definitely a significant step for India. With
increase of competition, this should be taken care of. The current high price
of 4G services from Bharti is to ensure coexistence of 3G and 4G together and
monetization of 3G. Moreover, 3G also benefits from a developed ecosystem in
comparison to LTE where the ecosystem is in a really nascent state,” said
Abhishek Chauhan, senior consultant, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan, South
Asia & Middle East.
The benefits of 4G to enterprises include: it improves
efficiency; improves quality of output; improves quality and efficiency
to communicate, transect and consume. 4G will also create new opportunity for
enterprises to be innovative, cost efficient and drive consumption.
4G launch is expected to create affordable broadband
services. It will even have a great impact on making PC and tablets affordable.
It shall even impact rural broadband penetration in India as 4G gets deployed
across metros, due to high competition existing Wireline ISPs will need to look
for newer markets like rural India and superior technologies like FTTH. Both
scenarios will help improve broadband penetration in India.
3G was the catalyst to make smartphones, social media
and mobile apps feasible. 4G will be a catalyst for Tablet, cloud and mobile
entertainment (TV, games, virtual life),” said Abhay Doshi, chief operating
officer, Flytxt.
Demographic mix of India mixed with education level can
be a killer combination for next generation digital netizens. 4G will enable entrepreneurs
to be able to innovate towards efficient business model and superior delivery.
I think the world will be looking at Indian entrepreneur
for the next big idea in the area of education, healthcare, communication and
retail,” Doshi added.
The telecom industry head honchos feel that looking at
the last BWA spectrum pricing it’s going to take one big success story before
others will jump into bandwagon. And that success story is at least few years
away.
With a limited 3G spectrum 3G experience in India is been
way below the global standards. With right
value proposition, different services focused on different consumer segments at
right price there is a huge market for 4G in India.
