Indian Telecom Folder

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 24 Aug 2009 20:14

http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/aug/ ... -calls.htm

The government, in the wake terror threats, is planning to set up a centralised system to monitor communications on mobile phones, landlines and the Internet.

Looks like the GoI is planning on a NSA type of operation wherein it has direct access to every telco's trunks, both voice and data. No idea on what sort of mechanisms will be in place to prevent unauthorized peeking, but given past experience, I dont hold much hopes.

In most likelihood this will be a fishing expedition rather than something like ThinThread/Traiblazer that the NSA tried (or is using). I predict more business for Legal Intercept Gateway manufacturing companies in India... As an aside, I think after Israel, India has the highest proportion of targeted subscribers for legal intercept as a percentage of total users on an average.

manish · Post by **manish** » 26 Aug 2009 19:28

As the tough times for giant telecom vendors continue, someone floats the idea of merging two entities that were formed out of recent mergers...
NSN, Alcatel-Lucent - once bitten, now merger shy

ARIS/HELSINKI, Aug 25 (Reuters) - As top mobile network equipment firm Ericsson snaps up bankrupt Nortel's assets, its smaller rivals need to combine to provide a real challenge, but painful recent mergers are likely to blind them to that logic.

On paper, a merger of struggling Nokia Siemens Networks [NSN.UL] and loss-making Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) -- the number two and four manufacturers of mobile network equipment in terms of market share -- would make a lot of sense.

"Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent may want to consider a collaboration of sorts to gain scale against Ericsson and to fend off Huawei's ascent with Western operators," said Pablo Perez-Fernandez, analyst with MKM Partners.

"Huawei's cost advantages and resulting competition may be the spark that ignites a marriage of convenience," he said.

Wot say the Gurus? Wasn't this 'spark' etc the rationale behind the original merger that has backfired so spectacularly for AlcaLu?

manish · Post by **manish** » 27 Aug 2009 12:48

manish wrote:As the tough times for giant telecom vendors continue, someone floats the idea of merging two entities that were formed out of recent mergers...
NSN, Alcatel-Lucent - once bitten, now merger shy
ARIS/HELSINKI, Aug 25 (Reuters) - As top mobile network equipment firm Ericsson snaps up bankrupt Nortel's assets, its smaller rivals need to combine to provide a real challenge, but painful recent mergers are likely to blind them to that logic.

On paper, a merger of struggling Nokia Siemens Networks [NSN.UL] and loss-making Alcatel-Lucent (ALUA.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) -- the number two and four manufacturers of mobile network equipment in terms of market share -- would make a lot of sense.

"Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent may want to consider a collaboration of sorts to gain scale against Ericsson and to fend off Huawei's ascent with Western operators," said Pablo Perez-Fernandez, analyst with MKM Partners.

"Huawei's cost advantages and resulting competition may be the spark that ignites a marriage of convenience," he said.
Wot say the Gurus? Wasn't this 'spark' etc the rationale behind the original merger that has backfired so spectacularly for AlcaLu?

Something's cooking, eh? Now the talk of a Chinese bid for AlcaLu...
Alcatel shares surge on Chinese bid talk, upgrade

By Leila Abboud and Anupreeta Das

PARIS/NEW YORK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Shares of Alcatel-Lucent SA (ALUA.PA) jumped 16 percent on Wednesday on market chatter that it could be bought by a rival Chinese manufacturer of telecommunications gear, and a rating upgrade by Natixis.

IMHO, unlikely. Look at Huawei's track record - Marconi-failed. 3COM-failed. Nortel-failed. Not gonna be allowed, esp as the article mentions the Bell Labs security concerns that such a deal would raise.

manish · Post by **manish** » 14 Sep 2009 13:47

Hmm...ITI gets yet another chance.
BSNL to award $2-bn equipment deal to ITI

NEW DELHI: State-owned telecom operator BSNL will award a $2-billion equipment contract to Indian Telephone Industries (ITI), following security agencies’ opposition to giving the deal to build 25 million wireless lines in the west zone to Huawei, the lone shortlisted bidder for this area, said a company official.

And AlcaLu is never far behind whenever ITI's name comes up. Here you go again. Their bid had been rejected on technical grounds earlier.

He said the telco is concerned about ITI’s ability to deliver, considering its two plants — in Mankapur and Rae Bareli — have a joint annual capacity of producing only about 10 million lines.

Alcatel-Lucent may step in here, but according to the executive, BSNL will not enter into negotiations with the multinationals, as it does not want any further legal complications over the contract.

AlcaLu makes its pitch...gimme a captive market and I will buy ITI.

ET had reported on April 4 that Alcatel-Lucent is interested in buying a part of ITI, provided the government enforces the ‘offset clause’ for all telecom tenders issued by BSNL and MTNL, the two main clients of ITI, who contribute over 80% to its revenue.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 14 Sep 2009 15:04

^^^ Huh?

When did ITI come up with a GSM switch? Its not easy coming up with a decent wireless switch, and certainly not in a form factor that BSNL is used to.

I suppose AlcaLu involvement is a given then. The article (to me) sounded as if BSNL was going to buy a ITI switch which is probably not the case even if it was made by ITI.

manish · Post by **manish** » 14 Sep 2009 18:37

Tanaji wrote:^^^ Huh?

When did ITI come up with a GSM switch? Its not easy coming up with a decent wireless switch, and certainly not in a form factor that BSNL is used to.

I suppose AlcaLu involvement is a given then. The article (to me) sounded as if BSNL was going to buy a ITI switch which is probably not the case even if it was made by ITI.

Yes, even I think AlcaLu involvement is a given. They have had a 'partnership' before anyways. This article might just be a simple attempt to prepare the grounds for them to walk in and take over. Nice back door entry by them if that is the case. Looks like our dreams of a 'National Champion' are destined to remain unfulfilled.

This may turn out big for AlcaLu if the offset clauses etc come true and ITI remains minority owned by govt. If I am not mistaken, AlcaLu is not that big globally in wireless anyways. This will be a nice foot-in-the-door in the second biggest wireless market in the world. Good for them.

manish · Post by **manish** » 14 Sep 2009 19:15

Another sad chapter in the Nortel saga has ended. Nortel's Enterprise Division and its assets just went to Avaya in an auction.

Avaya today announced it was selected to acquire Nortel Enterprise Solutions for US $900 million in proceeds to Nortel and an additional pool of $15 million reserved for an employee retention program.

However, things did not go all that smoothly. Verizon for one, wasn't all that happy to have Avaya around. This news item also states that Ericsson has offered around jobs to around 680 Nortel employees in its Canadian operations. So some thing for the employees to cheer for as well.

In a court filing, however, Verizon objected to an Avaya purchase, saying Avaya had told the company it would not support existing contracts already in place with Nortel.

Avaya said in a statement issued Thursday that it is working to resolve differences with Verizon.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 15 Sep 2009 15:34

Banning VoIP in India
http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/ ... -calls.htm

More hare brained ideas from the intelligence side. What sort of logic is this? Should we stop using cell phones because a lot of underworld types use them? Sadly its a sign that the sleuths are clueless and do not understand the technology... if anything VoIP calls are even less secure that ordinary calls, so inability to tap is not an excuse. Anyone with Wireshark and having access to the relevant routers should be able to get a dump of the converstation in real time. All it takes is drive and initiative, rather than wailing about lack of nice GUIs to do the tapping.

rachel · Post by **rachel** » 16 Sep 2009 21:53

manish wrote:Long ago, when Tanaji predicted dire straits for AlcaLu, I agreed and said that the Chinese 3G rollout would deliver a major blow to non-Chinese players, esp AlcaLu which anyway had the most to lose. Now comes the news that this is happening...
Huawei Aims for Optical Crown
Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. has a chance to overtake Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) for the top market share in optical networking gear, according to the latest numbers from Ovum Ltd.

The research firm figures Huawei just fell short of the top spot, building a 20.5 percent market share in the second quarter of 2009. AlcaLu's share was 20.7 percent. (Those numbers are based on data from the previous four quarters.)

That's because of strong demand in China, driven largely by 3G wireless build-outs and the associated backhaul requirements, says Ovum analyst Ron Kline.

Those build-outs disproportionately favor the Chinese vendors. So, ZTE Corp. saw revenues grow as well, by 62 percent over the previous year's second quarter.

By contrast, pretty much everybody else is seeing revenues decline, a predictable side-effect of the decline in, well, everything since October. For instance, AlcaLu's second-quarter optical revenues were down 22 percent from the previous year, and Ericsson AB (Nasdaq: ERIC) was off by 18 percent, Kline reports.

NORTEL's wireless and enterprise divisions have been sold to Ericcson and Avaya respectvely, now one of their corwn jewels will be auctioned off: their metro ethernet division. Makes carrier grade ethernet switches.

Expect Alca-Lu to be in fierce contention for this. Ericcson and Nokia-Siemens will NOT be involved here.

Cisco may make a run, but they tend to dislike large acquisitions.

Other smaller players like Juniper etc may be in contention but will they have the firepower and size to compete?

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 16 Sep 2009 22:03

Tanaji wrote:Banning VoIP in India
http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/ ... -calls.htm

More hare brained ideas from the intelligence side. What sort of logic is this? Should we stop using cell phones because a lot of underworld types use them? Sadly its a sign that the sleuths are clueless and do not understand the technology... if anything VoIP calls are even less secure that ordinary calls, so inability to tap is not an excuse. Anyone with Wireshark and having access to the relevant routers should be able to get a dump of the converstation in real time. All it takes is drive and initiative, rather than wailing about lack of nice GUIs to do the tapping.

Until India has laws such as POTA the intel agencies may not have any other way out.
Either the laws change or restrict Indians from collaborating with foriegners to attack India

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 17 Sep 2009 00:34

Can some of the telecom gurus answer this question: do you expect the launch of 3G in India to help PC broadband penetration? Is a USB 3G wireless modem likely to be cost-effective for end users? And have 3G wireless modems become popular in any other country?

Wireless seems to be pretty much the only chance India has to push up broadband penetration in the short term, and bring down prices to reasonable levels. I found out today that Airtel considers any user who uses two or more PCs connected to their service a "commercial" user, and their cheapest unlimited plan for such "high-end" users is Rs.2222 per month for a 256 kbps connection. For those of you who haven't lived in India for a while, that is not a typo.

Avinash R · Post by **Avinash R** » 17 Sep 2009 09:31

^BSNL costs Rs.700/month only for the same service(unlimited plan). Among all ISP's only Reliance has better speeds than BSNL. This is regarding data plans concerning home users only not considering commercial establishments here. And some of the private ISP have followed their american counterparts shady tactics in "throttling" connections which are heavy usage while BSNL doesn't do such things.

vishwakarmaa · Post by **vishwakarmaa** » 17 Sep 2009 11:19

As of today, BSNL is best ISP in India in terms of speed and cheapest bandwidth. Those who cry about 'poor service' are mostly elites who don't prefer getting out in sun to pay bills.Airtel is worst in terms of bandwidth costs and sucky service(50 calls a day if you miss to pay bills+ Rs.100 delay penalty).

BSNL = common man's choice.
Airtel = elite's choice.

If there hadn't been BSNL around, these private players would still be charging 4 times the rent each month.

One PSU is must to keep the private cartel in check, in every service domain. Be it airline, telecoms, logistics or transport.

Rishirishi · Post by **Rishirishi** » 17 Sep 2009 15:50

Abhijeet wrote:Can some of the telecom gurus answer this question: do you expect the launch of 3G in India to help PC broadband penetration? Is a USB 3G wireless modem likely to be cost-effective for end users? And have 3G wireless modems become popular in any other country?

Wireless seems to be pretty much the only chance India has to push up broadband penetration in the short term, and bring down prices to reasonable levels. I found out today that Airtel considers any user who uses two or more PCs connected to their service a "commercial" user, and their cheapest unlimited plan for such "high-end" users is Rs.2222 per month for a 256 kbps connection. For those of you who haven't lived in India for a while, that is not a typo.

Wireless is a dead end. There is not sufficient spectrum. One circle can maximum manage 5-7 mb (all the people in the circle has to share it).
The only way to get the prices down, is the break the international bandwidt monopoly, and bring down the wholesale prices. The cable TV gues can then purchase bandwidt and distribute in the local area. Either the cable whalla can invest in inexpensive switches and cables, or even set up multiple wifi points. But thanks to regulation, advancement is again hindred.

wasu · Post by **wasu** » 23 Sep 2009 19:05

The Scorching pace continues...15M subs added last month...we must have hit 500M total sometime in the last couple of wks...

http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/tr ... 09no67.pdf

15.08 Million new additions in wireless in august

Total Telephone subscriber base reaches 494.07 Million
o Wireless subscription reaches 456.74 Million
o Wireline subscription declines to 37.33 Million

Arun_S · Post by **Arun_S** » 23 Sep 2009 21:03

The key here is security and backdoor access to network routers that is provided to intelligence agencies of respectibe nations.

This could have been a repeat of Sankya Vahini (Read B.Ramans article in SAAG) albeit 100,000 times worse.

It is quite likely that input from some BR members helped modify the RFQ, with the highlighted terms below

manish wrote:Hmm...ITI gets yet another chance.
BSNL to award $2-bn equipment deal to ITI
NEW DELHI: The domestic market in India is set to see a significant game changer with one of the largest IT and telecom hardware contracts,

21 Sep 2009, 0330 hrs IST, Joji Thomas Philip & Shelley Singh, ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: The domestic market in India is set to see a significant game changer with one of the largest IT and telecom hardware contracts,
worth around $2 billion (Rs 10,000 crore), to be up for grabs soon. The mega project involves creating a nationwide 43,000-km long alternate communications network for the armed forces, who in turn will vacate a bulk of the radio frequencies or spectrum they currently occupy for commercial telephony. Spectrum is the lifeline for mobile telephony as all communication signals travel on these airwaves.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) of the project, which has been in discussion for over two years, is set to be issued by the month-end on BSNL’s website as the telco will execute the contract.

At present, the detailed project report is being prepared by the representatives of the Army & Navy in collaboration with BSNL. The contracts will be awarded within 60 days after the project report has been cleared by the Telecom Commission and the union cabinet, says a Department of Telecom (DoT) note on the issue. In the first of its kind in India, all successful bidders will have to transfer technology, manufacture all key components in collaboration with domestic firms and also part with their IPR due to the security implications of the project.

Given the scale of the project, it is unlikely to go to a single vendor and multiple vendors could comprise a combination of private and public entities. According to sources, for project companies such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL, Tech Mahindra and state-owned outfits like C-DAC, ECIL and BEL, along with telecom equipment majors such as Motorola, Ericsson, Alcatel Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks, are likely to be among the bidders.

An added incentive for successful bidders is that following the completion of this project, the Centre will then hand out an additional Rs 5,000-crore project to manage and maintain this network for the next 10 years.

Successful equipment vendors will have to manufacture all core components in India, failing which they have to enter into collaborations with state-owned companies such as Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) and BEL to fulfil this obligation, a government official associated with this project told ET. IT majors too will have to share IPR rights for their services with BSNL and other state-owned entities such as C-DAC.

In May 2009, the communications and the defence ministry had signed an MoU, under which the armed forces will release up to 45 MHz of radio frequencies over a three-year period, of which 25 MHz would be for the 3G services and the rest for 2G, the airwaves on which all communications services in the country are currently offered. As per this agreement, the defence forces must also release two blocks (10 MHz) of 3G airwaves and one block of 2G frequencies immediately while the remaining would be released in phases over a three-year time frame, based on the progress or completion of this alternate communications networks. The cost of the alternate network for the Air Force is Rs 1,077 crore while it will be Rs 8,893 crore for the Navy and Army combined.

When asked about it, Tanmoy Chakrabarty, V-P & head of global government industry group, said: “The defence project has been in discussion for some time. We will respond as and when the RFP is out.” TCS is currently pursuing about two dozen government projects including those from defence, power sector and railways.

Infosys did not reply, citing silent period requirements prior to the results. Though in a recent interview, head of Infosys India business unit Binod HR told ET: “In the domestic market, we are already bidding for a few defence projects and will pursue any relevant opportunity that comes by. Given that the private sector has reduced intensity in the domestic market, the government projects are definitely very attractive.”

DoT sources also said Chinese equipment majors such as Huawei and ZTE will not be allowed to participate in this project due to security concerns. Besides, other bidders also cannot source equipment manufactured in China. Even equipment imported from the West will have to pass stringent security tests in a government-controlled test bed for every product before the same can be installed in the alternate communication network project.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 24 Sep 2009 11:38

Thanks to the untiring efforts of the Indian babus, we have been successful in protecting our populace from the dangers of the Internet.

A survey finds that the number of Internet users in India went down by 6% in the last year, to 47 million.

The remaining users seem to use the Internet more frequently though.

http://www.slideshare.net/inetk/snapsho ... dy-1203583

Bring on more of those screaming fast 256kbps connections!

merlin · Post by **merlin** » 24 Sep 2009 12:21

Abhijeet wrote:Bring on more of those screaming fast 256kbps connections!

Sssshhhh! Don't give them ideas on speed

Next thing you know it will be a faster 128 kbps connection for all

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 24 Sep 2009 14:56

At present, the detailed project report is being prepared by the representatives of the Army & Navy in collaboration with BSNL. The contracts will be awarded within 60 days after the project report has been cleared by the Telecom Commission and the union cabinet, says a Department of Telecom (DoT) note on the issue. In the first of its kind in India, all successful bidders will have to transfer technology, manufacture all key components in collaboration with domestic firms and also part with their IPR due to the security implications of the project.

If one reads that, one would think that hey, we are going to get all the technologies, we will be the world leader now! Unfortunately, reality will be a bit different:

A lot of the telecom gear is moving from proprietory hard ware to COTS solutions. These will be using commercial processors like ones from Intel and Motorola, using standard chassis. WE will end up merely assembling these. Secondly, switches have a lot of legacy code, not because of laziness, but features that have been put through the years that everyone uses and have been debugged at high cost. There is no "secret" technology here in a voice switch, it is just features that have been worked upon to be flexible and bug free. Lucent/Ericsson may give us that, but what is the point of it? That approach will work only on the Lucent architecture and nowhere else... it is not as if they are going to reveal to us how to make a DWDM OC192 class diode....

Not that I am being pessimistic, the above deal is good , gives more work for us. But let there be no illusions that ITI will suddenly be fielding a 3G switch that will win contracts everywhere.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 24 Sep 2009 20:59

it will generate some local employment and get more people into high end manufacturing.

but design and development of new products is a very human and relatively undocumented process that lives in people's heads. no book can ever 'teach' that, its all learning by doing.

to be frank I dont think ITI even wants that end of the pole.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 25 Sep 2009 06:24

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK2WzMzZoiU

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 30 Sep 2009 19:59

Bharti-MTN deal called off.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel today called off discussions with MTN for the $23-billion merger deal saying the South African government has rejected the proposed structure.

This is the second time in just over a year when Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel has been forced to abandon talks for amalgamation of the two organisations in a complex deal that also required Indian government's clearance for dual listing.

"The structure needed an approval from the government of South Africa, which has expressed its inability to accept it in the current form," Bharti said in a statement while applauding the support given to the proposed deal by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and others.

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 30 Sep 2009 22:40

Indian mobile: onwards to one billion.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 01 Oct 2009 21:15

Abhijeet wrote:Can some of the telecom gurus answer this question: do you expect the launch of 3G in India to help PC broadband penetration? Is a USB 3G wireless modem likely to be cost-effective for end users? And have 3G wireless modems become popular in any other country?

Wireless seems to be pretty much the only chance India has to push up broadband penetration in the short term, and bring down prices to reasonable levels. I found out today that Airtel considers any user who uses two or more PCs connected to their service a "commercial" user, and their cheapest unlimited plan for such "high-end" users is Rs.2222 per month for a 256 kbps connection. For those of you who haven't lived in India for a while, that is not a typo.

Thats NOT TRUE. I'm a Airtel BB user.

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 01 Oct 2009 21:20

vishwakarmaa wrote:As of today, BSNL is best ISP in India in terms of speed and cheapest bandwidth. Those who cry about 'poor service' are mostly elites who don't prefer getting out in sun to pay bills.Airtel is worst in terms of bandwidth costs and sucky service(50 calls a day if you miss to pay bills+ Rs.100 delay penalty).

BSNL = common man's choice.
Airtel = elite's choice.

If there hadn't been BSNL around, these private players would still be charging 4 times the rent each month.

One PSU is must to keep the private cartel in check, in every service domain. Be it airline, telecoms, logistics or transport.

BSNL suffers due to quality of their last mile connections. Old copper wires that are broken and spliced togather at places causes poor connection quality and during rains they actually the lines go dead.

What's the use of the cheap services if it fails during crucial times? What's the use if a particularly rainy day I choose to work from home to find out that the lines are dead?

I bought peace of mind, switched over to Airtel.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 04 Oct 2009 02:28

SRoy wrote:
Abhijeet wrote:Can some of the telecom gurus answer this question: do you expect the launch of 3G in India to help PC broadband penetration? Is a USB 3G wireless modem likely to be cost-effective for end users? And have 3G wireless modems become popular in any other country?

Wireless seems to be pretty much the only chance India has to push up broadband penetration in the short term, and bring down prices to reasonable levels. I found out today that Airtel considers any user who uses two or more PCs connected to their service a "commercial" user, and their cheapest unlimited plan for such "high-end" users is Rs.2222 per month for a 256 kbps connection. For those of you who haven't lived in India for a while, that is not a typo.
Thats NOT TRUE. I'm a Airtel BB user.

Did you tell them specifically that you have more than 2+ PCs using their connection? When the CS rep asked me this, I said yes, unfortunately, being cursed with congenital honesty. From that point on they refused to let me take a home connection. Your experience could have been different based on the phase of the moon when you took your connection.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 05 Oct 2009 14:47

How would they even know how many PCs you are using if you dont tell them? (Assuming you are not asking for static IPs)

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 05 Oct 2009 20:18

Abhijeet wrote: Did you tell them specifically that you have more than 2+ PCs using their connection?

I was never asked.

I've 2 laptops, 1 desktop and 1 smartphone sitting behind my wireless router.

In fact, I threw away the Airtel supplied modem and installed my own modem cum router. I asked the Airtel tech support to help me configure it over the phone.

Seriously...except my desktop everything else is wireless based. How does someone figures out, how many devices I'm using?

Your case is curious. Why would Airtel bother? You are paying for bandwidth and data usage, ain't it?

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 05 Oct 2009 20:23

Acharya wrote:
Tanaji wrote:Banning VoIP in India
http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/sep/ ... -calls.htm

More hare brained ideas from the intelligence side. What sort of logic is this? Should we stop using cell phones because a lot of underworld types use them? Sadly its a sign that the sleuths are clueless and do not understand the technology... if anything VoIP calls are even less secure that ordinary calls, so inability to tap is not an excuse. Anyone with Wireshark and having access to the relevant routers should be able to get a dump of the converstation in real time. All it takes is drive and initiative, rather than wailing about lack of nice GUIs to do the tapping.
Until India has laws such as POTA the intel agencies may not have any other way out.
Either the laws change or restrict Indians from collaborating with foriegners to attack India

Acharya boss, would you mind explaining as how would such stupidity help?

You have options. An open protocol like SIP that can be monitored or basement hack jobs by crooks every now and then to fool packet sniffers. What affords more security?

Vipul · Post by **Vipul** » 05 Oct 2009 23:12

Rural mobile teledensity doubles.

New Delhi: Rural is hot, when it comes to mobile telephony. Rural wireless teledensity has almost doubled -- to 15.35% from 8.73% -- according to the latest data available with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). For 100 people living in rural areas, more than 15 had mobile phone connections as of June-end. Just a year earlier -- the close of June 2008 -- it was less than nine.

Urban teledensity, meanwhile, grew to 87.18% from 63.85% in the corresponding period.The rural mobile subscriber base increased to 125.95 million in June 2009 from 70.83 million in June 2008, while that in urban areas went up to 301.34 million from 216.04 million. Among the service providers, Bharti Airtel has the maximum number of rural wireless subscribers at 33.78 million, followed by Vodafone at 24.83 million and Idea Cellular at 19.8 million.

State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has 19.35 million rural mobile phone subscribers, while Reliance Communications has 16.36 million, Aircel has 8.82 million and Tata Teleservices, 2.93 million.

When it comes to percentage share of rural mobile subscribers, Idea Cellular tops the list, with 42.05% of its 47.09 million subscribers based in rural areas. Aircel is next with 40.47%, followed by BSNL at 35.59%, Bharti at 33%, Vodafone at 32.48%, Reliance at 20.55%, Tata Teleservices at 7.89% and Sistema at 5.29%.

When you look at the total rural phone subscriber base (mobile and landline)
too, Bharti comes out on top with 33.78 million. BSNL has 29.64 million rural subscribers, Vodafone with 24.83 million, Idea with 19.80 million, Reliance with 16.36 million, Aircel with 8.82 million, and Tata Teleservices with 2.96 million.

At the close of June 2009, the country had a total of 464.82 million phone subscribers. Out of this, 70.7% -- or 328.55 million -- were urban subscribers while 136.27 million were rural users. The total teledensity in the country was 39.86%, with urban teledensity at 95.05% and rural teledensity at 16.61%.

Fixed-line stats, however, are on a decline, with the subscriber base falling 1.14% from the quarter ending March 2009, to touch 37.53 million in June 2009.At the last count, urban fixed line teledensity was 7.87%, while rural fixed line teledensity was a dismal 1.26%.

Urban teledensity will have crossed the figure of 100% by December of 09.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 05 Oct 2009 23:29

SRoy wrote:I was never asked.

Exactly. Unfortunately they did ask me, and I told them with no idea they would have such an insane policy. There is no way for them to tell how many PCs I have, and as you say I am paying for the bandwidth (it's not like I'll be downloading 100 GB per month on their pathetic 256kbps connection). But this is the way it is. In 2009 India, apparently, only the elite can afford more than one computer, and they should be milked for all they're worth.

Bah. I despair.

manish · Post by **manish** » 06 Oct 2009 12:10

Breaking news on CNBC-TV18: AlcaLu is reportedly looking to sell off its India R&D units. Apparently they are planning to outsource the functions in future and Wipro, Infy and Cognizant have been named as potential buyers. The units have been reportedly valued at Rs. 250cr.

No links yet.

Raju · Post by **Raju** » 06 Oct 2009 15:12

cheapskate cisco is asking me to download a 277mb firmware upgrade to resolve a wireless drop out issue on a 'brand new' wireless adsl modem.
don't these people check even basic stuff before dispatching units to the customers ?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Oct 2009 19:43

thats tough. even their big routers dont have images that big...around 100mb is usually common..up from 10mb a decade ago. a home wireless router having a 277mb image is very strange indeed.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 06 Oct 2009 22:03

Raju wrote:cheapskate cisco is asking me to download a 277mb firmware upgrade to resolve a wireless drop out issue on a 'brand new' wireless adsl modem.
don't these people check even basic stuff before dispatching units to the customers ?

..... are you sure it is not kb or 2MB ??

Raju · Post by **Raju** » 07 Oct 2009 09:57

I'm sorry about that. That 277 mb file was a tar.gz source code of the particular firmware ver.

the actual firmware update was just 3.29 mb. But until I updated the firmware to the latest one from the default ver the adsl wireless router would keep dropping the connection after every 6 mins. Why is it not possible to fix such a basic error before shipping the device. Then I had to log onto cisco forums to find out the cause. Ideally products like routers should be good to go after straightaway unboxed, why harass the consumers.

I was thinking I had a lemon.

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 07 Oct 2009 10:11

^^
AFAIK firmware level bug fixes are not uncommon.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 09 Oct 2009 18:27

The company we keep...

In a survey of worldwide broadband by Cisco and Oxford that covers 66 countries, India ranks in the bottom 4 countries, with other world leaders such as Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya.

The average worldwide download speed is 4.75 Mbps. That would cost you over Rs.10,000 per month in India, if it's available at all.

The survey classified countries into 5 categories: "Ready for tomorrow", "Comfortable for today", "Meeting needs for today", "Below needs for today", and "Leapfrog opportunity". India, along with Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya, was in the last category.

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/2009/10/04/t11.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8282839.stm

How can we get our policy so, so wrong that things have come to this?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 09 Oct 2009 18:51

we let public funds be spent on BSNL and they wont rent their cables to anyone, shoddy as last mile work is.

however it must be said bband is not a easy entr unlike cellphones or TV. you need a PC , a phone line AND monthly fees on top it. a country's per capita income needs to get to a certain level before bband usage ramps up steeply.

Abhijeet · Post by **Abhijeet** » 09 Oct 2009 19:44

Fair enough, and India is indeed one of the poorest countries on that list. But the survey was not just about the number of broadband connections but also their quality (which includes speed). Given that there's no shortage of bandwidth both within and outside India, it's reasonable to expect broadband connections to not be so slow and expensive.

I imagine that a lot more than 6 million people (the current number of broadband subscribers) would take a connection, if only it was more attractive in terms of price and speed.

The last mile monopoly, plus the high peering charges probably both contribute to this sad state.

How is broadband ever going to take off? Can anyone provide educated guesses?