Wait Could Be Longer For Better 3G Services

The promise of high-end phone services by mobile firms through the much-hyped third generation (3G) telecom technology seems to have hit a roadblock as customers complain of frequent call drops and inconsistent internet speeds.

Experts say it could take between six and nine months for the service to stabilise.

Anuj Kumar, a Delhi-based banker, preferred switching back to the 2G network after he got exasperated by deficient service and inconsistent network coverage.
"Problems of call drops increased once I switched to 3G network. The voice quality also became very poor. I was left with no option but to switch back to the basic network. In my line of job uninterrupted calls are a must," Kumar told IANS.
Pratibha Srivastava, a sales manager with a leading private bank, had similar grievance.
"The connectivity on the 3G network is very, very poor, especially when a person is on the move. While the network disconnects frequently, the voice quality is also not good at all," said Srivastava.
Among the nine-million odd people who are estimated to have opted for 3G services in the country, there are many others like Kumar and Srivastava who are facing similar problems with their services across the country.
The private telecom operators who shelled out billions for buying spectrum claim that every new technology needed some time for maturing and becoming consistent. According to them it was a matter of time for consumers to experience the promised quality of 3G.
But Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman J.S. Sarma does not agree with the claims of operators.
"It is high time customers start getting quality services for the money they are paying. You cannot go on saying that the problems are caused due to initial phase launch for so long. Such excuses can be accepted for a week or so," Sarma told IANS.
"We also need to look into what kind of investments these people are making," Sarma said and added that the telecom watchdog was looking into the matter and would come out with a quality check very soon.
Mahesh Uppal, a telecom analyst and director of consultancy ComFirst India, maintains the networks are having problems because they were moving customers from 2G to 3G.
"Even I am having problems with the 3G network. I feel that this is because the networks are in a transition phase. Therefore some hiccups are probably expected. These companies are moving into 3G in an incremental way," Uppal told IANS.
On the other hand the telecom operators say that every new technology takes time to find its feet and so it is with 3G.
"You have to realise integrating new technology with an older one takes time -- 3G is like going back to square one. Operators almost have to build an entire network," said Rajan Matthews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).
"The operators will take almost 6-9 months to straighten out things."
Though the telecom watchdog does not have a record on the specific number of customers who have switched from 2G to 3G so far, some telecom operators have revealed their data individually.
While the dominant player Airtel currently has over two million 3G subscribers, Idea Cellular has one million across the country. On the whole, there are 811 million mobile phone subscribers in the country.

Jaideep Ghosh, director, KPMG advisory services, too, agrees with operators. Since the technology was new to India and companies were still in the implementation phase, some technical glitches were bound to come up, he said.

"Some operators launched it six months back and some are still in the process across all the circles. So it will be too early to a conclude that the services are good or bad," Ghosh told IANS. "We should wait till all operators launch full-fledged services."

A few operators also blame scarcity of spectrum to be a hitch for the service providers not being able to perform efficiently.

"The larger problem is not 2G or 3G but spectrum allocation. If you do not have enough spectrum, how would you be able to provide better services?" queried a senior official with a leading telecom operator.

Tata DoCoMo was the first private player to launch the 3G services in the country -- in November 2010. Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Idea Cellular are among the other operators who have launched their 3G services across the country.

Third generation telephony services are supposed to allow faster connectivity with some new applications such as Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.source

Telemarketers asking customers to unsubscribe DND

Days before rules to curb pesky calls and SMSes take effect, telemarketing firms are sending messages to cellular subscribers to remove their numbers from the 'Do-not-call registry'. 

Telecom regulator Trai released guidelines last year to provide relief to mobile users from unsolicited calls/SMSes, and the rules are to be implemented from March 1. 

Now, mobile customers are receiving messages from telemarketing firms saying, "Your number is in Do Not Call Registry. Your account setting allow us not to call you to provide services. So please send request to your operator for cancelling your number from the Do Not Call Registry." 

Trai proposed that in case of violations, as per the revised guidelines, the telemarketers would have to pay a fine of Rs 25,000 for the first offence. It would go up to Rs 75,000 in case of the second violation, Rs 80,000 for the third, Rs 1.25 lakh for the fourth, Rs 1.50 lakh for the fifth and Rs 2.5 lakh for the sixth offence. 

After that the number will be blocked by all service providers. 

"I am getting a number of messages every day from various telemarketing firms to cancel my number from the Do Not Call Registry," said a customer. 

Under the new rules, subscribers may choose the 'Fully Blocked' category, which is akin to 'Do Not Call Registry', or opt for the 'Partially Blocked' category, in which case they will receive only SMSes for the categories they choose. 

If an unregistered ordinary subscriber makes unsolicited commercial communication, he/she will be warned for committing the offence for the first time. On committing the offence for the second time, his/her telephone will be disconnected. 

Customers already on the 'National Do Not Call Registry' will continue under the 'Fully Blocked' category and need no re-registration. 

DoT, on a suggestion from Trai on January 31, 2011, issued '140' series for this purpose and restricted it for use of mobile phone service of telemarketers.source

Mobile Call Charges Likely To Rise

he Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday, has recommended a six-fold jump in 2G spectrum cost for operators. This is after the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) findings that the exchequer has lost an estimated amount of Rs. 1.76 lakh crore in 2008 by selling 2G licenses bundled with start-up spectrum at Rs. 1,658 crore to pan-India operators.

The operators are currently paying Rs. 1,658 crore for the contracted 6.2 MHz spectrum for pan-India license but TRAI has come out with a new rate of Rs. 10,972.45 crore. Also, each MHz of additional spectrum held by operators should cost a one-time charge of Rs. 4,571.87 crore (all India). However, this would vary from circle to circle and operators would be required to pay only for those circles, where they hold extra spectrum. TRAI has also recommended that the suggested prices should be made effective from April 1, 2010.

This would mean that our mobile bills are going to multiply in the coming days. Imagine the call rates being Rs. 5 or Rs. 6 per minute, for local calls. That would be “disastrous”, as the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the general body for GSM service providers, says.

“This would mean that my mobile charges are going to triple or even more. My father lives abroad and if the call charges are going to be hiked, all I can do is reduce my dependency on mobile phones and make use of cheaper internet based services like Skype or GTalk,” says Arun Shajan, Quality Controller, Hilton Hyundai, Trivandrum.

“Also, in the long run, this is going to cause heavy loss for the government as more and more people would turn to the aforementioned services,” he adds.
Major telecom operators like Bharti and Vodafone have raised their concern over the new recommendations by TRAI, terming them as “flawed, illogical and discriminatory” against the old operators. The COAI also commented that it is like “changing the goal post in the middle of the game.”

However, the telecom operators in Trivandrum, when contacted chose not to comment on this. “I’m not aware of any such issues and as such I have not been intimated about any call charge hikes,” says Jyothi Shankar, XX, BSNL, Trivandrum.

Telecom minister Kapil Sibal also criticised the CAG for the methodology used to arrive at the presumptive figures.  source

22.62 million mobile users added in December

India added 22.62 million mobile phone subscribers in December, taking the total number of cellular users in the country to 752.19 million till Dec 31, official data said. 

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI )), the wireless phone user base grew 3.10 percent in December 2010, from 729.57 million in November. 

But the report said that in December the total number of active subscribers was only 529.22 million. 

The growth in wireless phone category was led by Reliance Communication with an addition of 3.3 million users, 14.54 percent of the country's net addition in December, taking its user base to 125.65 million. 

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel followed next with an addition of over 3.1 million subscribers accounting for 13.71 percent of the net addition in December, taking its total number of subscribers to 152.5 million 

Vodafone stood at the third spot with an addition of 3 million subscribers, taking its total subscriber base to 124.26 million. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 2.98 million subscribers and thus has 86.71 million subscribers. 

Other telecom players such as Idea Cellular performed remarkably well with the addition of 2.95 million users, closely followed by Uninor, which added 2.31 million users. This took their total subscriber base to 81.78 million and 18.51 million respectively. 

According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 1.88 percent from 10.71 million in November to 10.92 million in December 2010. 

However, the wireline segment declined marginally from 35.19 million in November to 35.09 million at the end of December 2010.source

TRAI - Boon or Bust for SMS Pull services

No doubt unsolicited calls and SMS have been a menace to Indian society for a long time. People from both sides of the table have lobbied extensively with the government to keep their side of the business running. TRAI created the National Do Not Call registry against this Unsolicited Commercial Communication (UCC), but without enforcement or awareness it just seemed like an half hearted attempt. But now with the new guidelines being laid down by the TRAI (now called NCPR) it appears that the government is indeed serious to curb this menace. Or is it?
NCPR appears to have sharper claws compared to NDNC by making the operator party to the UCC. Operator cannot get away this time by passing the blame on to the aggregator. The fines imposed on a complaint registered are quite steep to make both the operator and aggregator sit up and screen the messages being sent over their network. For Bulk SMSes, it defines two categories, Transactional and Promotional. Transactional SMS, according to their FAQ is any message sent by Financial institution, Railways, Airlines or Educational institutions to it’s registered users. Everything else is termed as Promotional.
It appears that the consumers are indeed going to be happy with this new guideline if implemented and enforced to the dot. But they will also not be able to use any of the pull services that they were used to due to this blanket ban on such communication. Google (SMS number 9 77 33 00000), Facebook (92-FACEBOOK) and our own direction services (90088 90088) rely on consumers sending a SMS, and the service replying to the requested sms. TRAI guideline does not talk about these services, and since the operators are going to term any Bulk SMS as a promotional SMS,

• People registered in NCPR/NDNC will not be able use these services,
• People will lose interactivity as the message now will not come from the virtual 10 digit number and
• No one (even people not registered in NCPR/NDNC) will be able to use the service between 9PM and 9AM.

This guideline is definitely something good against the UCC, but it appears that not a lot of thought has been given while drafting it. TRAI seems unapproachable to any of our queries. It requests Tele-Marketer to register with http://www.nccptrai.gov.in after paying Rs 10,000/- and download the list of NCPR registered users for scrubbing, but the site just provides a CSV file with zero rows in it.
Is this yet another half hearted attempt by the TRAI to address Unsolicited communication? Is this going to kill the nascent industries banking on SMS pull services?
Only time will tell.

India’s cellular Boom Unabated, as 3G Rolls out

Large amounts of Indians are acquiring new cellular connections, which rose to 23 million in November, up from 19 million with the prior month.
About twenty % of those 2G subscribers may possibly migrate to 3G companies that take place to be becoming rolled out by crucial operators which includes dominant Bharti Airtel, mentioned Kunal Bajaj, director for indian at telecom consultancy Analysys Mason.
There have been 729.6 million cellular connections on the finish of November, in accordance with information launched through the Telecom Regulatory Authority of indian (TRAI) on Tuesday.
That amount consists of individuals who have additional than a single cellular connection, and also connections that are actually permitted to lapse by some users, in accordance with analysts.
Bharti Airtel and also the third-largest operator, Vodafone Essar, the Indian joint opportunity of Vodafone Group, every additional about 3.1 million subscribers. Reliance Communications, the second-largest operator, additional three million subscribers, even though state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam additional 2.99 million subscribers, in accordance with TRAI.
Most in the subscribers will proceed to 3G to consider benefit of quicker web entry speed, after which after search at other uses like video, Bajaj said. The anticipated availability of 3G-enabled handsets for below US$100 will accelerate this trend, he added.
Mobile operators will also search at 3G like a method to boost typical income every operator (ARPU), Bajaj said. ARPU continues to be dropping in 2G companies simply because of stiff competition, which has pushed lower tariffs.
To counter opposition in urban markets, some operators started out expanding in outlying markets. But in accordance with TRAI data, with the quarter ended Sept. 30, 67 % of subscriber additions have been in urban markets. The fee of development of outlying subscriptions also declined with the quarter, in comparison for the prior quarter, TRAI said.source