Network speed: Can MediaTek gain smartphone user confidence

Technology company MediaTek is facing a huge task of gaining customer confidence in the Indian 4G smartphone market – because of concerns about the quality of chipset that determines phone users’ experience on a 4G or 3G network.

MediaTek, a leading technology company from Taiwan, is the 10th largest semiconductor company in the world based on revenue share in 2016, according to Gartner.

Intel, Samsung and Qualcomm – command the top three positions in the global semiconductor market.

MediaTek is competing with US-based telecom chipset major Qualcomm for growing its share in the Indian smartphone market. Qualcomm is not trying to draw the attention of telecom decision makers such as TRAI and DoT. But leading telecom operators are not happy with the performance of MediaTek chipset that goes into several 4G smartphones in India.

MediaTek was not available for comments.

Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) has approached the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) claiming that some 4G smartphones slow down network quality owing to sub-standard chipsets.

COAI, which represents leading telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, etc. said that some 4G/LTE devices, especially those using MediaTek processors, deteriorated the network quality. COAI said its claim is based on the basis of tests conducted by individual telecom operators.

The allegation assumes significance because all leading telecom operators are now trying to keep network quality and network speed as the differentiator to grab the next million subscribers for mobile Internet.

It is believed that Lenovo, Xiaomi, Lenovo’s Motorola, Oppo, Micromax, Samsung and Intex, among others, are using MediaTek chipsets.

Xiaomi, which has been rated as the top smartphone brand to be picked up by Indian phone users in 2017 by a Strategy Analytics report, says that all its smartphones are using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors in India and are optimized for India-specific bands for the most efficient usage of 4G.

The devices that went through tests were Lenovo A7000 and K4 Note, Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Note 3, Motorola Moto G4, Oppo A35 and Samsung Galaxy J7, among others.

“Both TRAI and Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are yet to respond to our letter. TRAI has asked us to submit some additional information on the testing and indicated that they would like to call an industry meeting to discuss the matter,” said Rajan S Mathews, director general, COAI.

The COAI letter said MediaTek is present in more than 35 percent of smartphones in the country, IANS reports.

COAI said that placing a SIM, which has only 4G / LTE capability, in the number 2 slot (2G-only) significantly deteriorates the throughput of any other operator’s 4G SIM present in the main slot, by as much as 40 percent.

COAI wants telecom authorities should mandate an Over The Air (OTA) update within four weeks’ time to fix the issue. “The devices should be taken off the market in case of non-compliance,” the letter read.

Bharti Airtel and testing company Viavi Solutions jointly conducted measurement and analysis of 4G and 3G smartphone performance — representing over 8,000 smartphone models — crowdsourced using a big data approach from the live Airtel network, with help of location intelligence platform.

Viavi said around 23 percent of 4G smartphones and 13 percent of 3G only smartphones amongst the top 128 smartphone models did not meet the qualification benchmarks.

Baburajan K