Telecom Lead India: The cabinet’s approval of National
Telecom Policy 2012 has allowed voice over Internet telephony (VoIP), which
will help Reliance Industries that has pan-India 4G licenses to offer
Voice-over-LTE services.
This will be a big blow for 4G operators without
pan-India licenses.
The opening up of VoIP will be a big boost for RIL as it
will look at launching 4G offering both data and voice services. There will be
no need to buy an existing telecom operator to become a full mobile service
provider.
The move to allow VoIP in India will enhance
affordability to consumers and with pan-India license and spectrum Reliance
industries will be in commanding position in the space.
RIL’s LTE with data and voice will become a compelling
combination for bandwidth hungry customers in India. Globally VoIP is a popular
medium, but India is a late comer. Presently, Indian government allows VoIP
calls to a telephone under strict conditions.
However, Indian authorities allow VoIP calls between
computers within the country’s borders and between a computer in India and a
telephone (fixed or wireless) outside India.
With VoIP in place, mobile phone users can use their
handsets to call other phone users through the Internet. Analysts say that
allowing VoIP will allow more flexibility and new competition to emerge through
non-facilities based providers.
Furthermore, it will also allow for a wholesale market to
emerge, which does not really completely exist today. However, analysts are of
view that the full adoption of VoIP will not affect tariffs.
RIL, which is about to foray into the telecom sector with
its pan-India 4G-LTE launch can now offer VoLTE over its network. The VoLTE
launch will assist the company to add business and it will become another
strong revenue stream for RIL.
Three major technical components are needed to launch
commercial VoLTE services and that are IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Call
Session Control Function (CSCF), VoLTE-capable Wireless Voice Application
Servers (VAS) and handsets with Single Radio Voice Call Continuity (SRVCC)
capabilities.
A Sethuraman, executive director, Huawei Technologies,
said: Voice over LTE will be a major break-through for all operators who want
to launch voice service using their LTE network. Operators with enough spectrum
can offer high definition voice to customers. Recent tests suggest that quality
of VoLTE services is excellent.”
Top 3 voice over LTE equipment vendors in first quarter of 2012
Top three VoLTE (Voice over LTE) vendors in first quarter
of 2012 are Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. With approval
of complete VoIP, these companies will see a great business opportunity in the
Indian market.
Danish Khan
[email protected]
