Voice over the technology will lead global growth for the next 10 to 12 years but it will take India three-four years to adopt the nascent technology that improves carrying capacity of airwaves and provides data at nearly 10 times the speed offered on 3G, ET finds...
The US will shortly see the deployment of voice over the LTE technology (VoLTE) by some of its mobile phone companies, becoming among a few markets in the world to offer such 4G services.
Telecom companies and analysts in India however belie any hopes that this development in the US - widely considered the world's benchmark market - would act as a catalyst for Indian mobile phone companies like Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. to speed up starting 4G LTE services in the country.
India is unique in the sense that hardly any other operator globally offers LTE over the less efficient 2300 Mhz band that carriers in the country are saddled with.
This has resulted in domestic operators choosing a 4G standard adopted only in China - a key point which many say is delaying Reliance Jio's plans. The company has had the necessary license and bandwidth for over three years now.
"It's (LTE) still at least three to four years away. 3G is just right to meet the current demands of users in India," where data usage is just starting to pick up, said Sistema Shyam Chief Executive Dmitry Shukov.
Top mobile operators such as Vodafone India Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd. have also previously said adoption of LTE in India is still about three to four years away.
"India is in an island as far as LTE over 2300 Mhz is concerned. If any other market, such as China, were to develop the LTE over the same band, that would be the ecosystem India could hope to ape," said a Mumbai-based analyst at a foreign brokerage.
Telecom gear maker Alcatel Lucent is betting big on LTE and voice over the technology to lead global growth for the next 10 to 12 years, and expects Indian operators to increasingly adopt the standard which improves the carrying capacity of airwaves, provides data at nearly 10 times the speed offered on 3G and significantly better quality voice, among other benefits.
"There is not doubt about the feasibility of the technology," Sandip Mukherjee, president, IP platforms, Americas, told ET in an exclusive interview. "From an economic perspective for the long term, it is beneficial because of its spectral efficiency." "It's not a matter of years, but in weeks or months", before some carriers in the US deploy VoLTE, targeting hundreds of millions of users, Mukherjee said, while speaking on the sidelines of company conference in the last week.
Some say that once the US adopts VoLTE, it will cascade to other countries such as India as the software can be adapted, but it's the hardware - under the 2300 Mhz band - which is the bigger problem.
Though pricey data services are expected to drive future growth in India, voice continues to be the dominant revenue earner for operators and will continue for the near future. So, any telecom service with just data won't make a business sense in the South Asian nation.
Analysts say spectrum in the 2300 Mhz band - which Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries Ltd., and Bharti Airtel, India's top mobile phone company won to offer 4G services - emits weak signals which mean bad service quality, especially indoors. The problem is magnified when it comes to voice, they added.
Jio, with broadband wireless access (BWA) permits and airwaves across all of India's 22 service areas hasn't yet launched services yet. Bharti - with BWA spectrum in eight circles - on the other hand, has launched 4G data services in four cities, but hasn't had much success mainly due to quality issues and device lock-ins.
Alcatel-Lucent's Mukherjee said that farming spectrum could be an answer. "In Europe, for instance, where some of the spectrum allocated is in the higher bands - 2.x, what you see people doing is farming spectrum. They have plans to deploy LTE, then as more and more users adopt LTE, they take spectrum which is doing 2G, 3G and give it to LTE," he explained.
In Europe, LTE now operates mainly in the 700MHz band which has a wide and penetrating reach. The most successful deployments are in a standard called FD-LTE. Yet in most cases the technology is only used to offer high speed data services and not voice.
India and China have adopted a standard called TD-LTE which, due to a lack of global scale, makes equipment more expensive and choices more limited.
Manufacturers were counting on large deployments in China and India to provide that scale but the economic slowdown and turmoil in the Indian telecom market have made them step back a little.
So, Indian operators could have to adopt the European model but for that, they would need to buy additional spectrum either through auctions or through bandwidth trading or sharing.
The two analysts and SSTL's Shukov say such refarming however is easier said than done and could take anywhere from three to five years, and will be an extremely cost affair.
Reliance Jio, which along with some other Indian operators have been holding trials for LTE and VoLTE for some time now, and Bharti Airtel didn't respond to requests for comment.
Mukherjee dispelled a notion that LTE doesn't support good quality voice, adding VoLTE offers all the services which 2G or 3G offers like local, international roaming, interoperability, network continuity. While cost of 4G services and handsets could be a "consideration" in India, it's unlikely to be a "hindrance" in the long term.
"The top (economic) segment in India won't be any different than in any other country. Faster data speeds, more spectral efficiency, and you get more modern phones," he explained, adding people in this segment change handsets every 18 or 24 months anyways.
As for the more cost sensitive rural markets, 4G would be better able to support e-governance initiatives such as rural banking, etc. "And given that spectrum is technology neutral, operators have the flexibility to offer whichever network suits a segment," he said.
Read more: ETTelecom.com
The US will shortly see the deployment of voice over the LTE technology (VoLTE) by some of its mobile phone companies, becoming among a few markets in the world to offer such 4G services.
Telecom companies and analysts in India however belie any hopes that this development in the US - widely considered the world's benchmark market - would act as a catalyst for Indian mobile phone companies like Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. to speed up starting 4G LTE services in the country.
India is unique in the sense that hardly any other operator globally offers LTE over the less efficient 2300 Mhz band that carriers in the country are saddled with.
This has resulted in domestic operators choosing a 4G standard adopted only in China - a key point which many say is delaying Reliance Jio's plans. The company has had the necessary license and bandwidth for over three years now.
"It's (LTE) still at least three to four years away. 3G is just right to meet the current demands of users in India," where data usage is just starting to pick up, said Sistema Shyam Chief Executive Dmitry Shukov.
Top mobile operators such as Vodafone India Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd. have also previously said adoption of LTE in India is still about three to four years away.
"India is in an island as far as LTE over 2300 Mhz is concerned. If any other market, such as China, were to develop the LTE over the same band, that would be the ecosystem India could hope to ape," said a Mumbai-based analyst at a foreign brokerage.
Telecom gear maker Alcatel Lucent is betting big on LTE and voice over the technology to lead global growth for the next 10 to 12 years, and expects Indian operators to increasingly adopt the standard which improves the carrying capacity of airwaves, provides data at nearly 10 times the speed offered on 3G and significantly better quality voice, among other benefits.
"There is not doubt about the feasibility of the technology," Sandip Mukherjee, president, IP platforms, Americas, told ET in an exclusive interview. "From an economic perspective for the long term, it is beneficial because of its spectral efficiency." "It's not a matter of years, but in weeks or months", before some carriers in the US deploy VoLTE, targeting hundreds of millions of users, Mukherjee said, while speaking on the sidelines of company conference in the last week.
Some say that once the US adopts VoLTE, it will cascade to other countries such as India as the software can be adapted, but it's the hardware - under the 2300 Mhz band - which is the bigger problem.
Though pricey data services are expected to drive future growth in India, voice continues to be the dominant revenue earner for operators and will continue for the near future. So, any telecom service with just data won't make a business sense in the South Asian nation.
Analysts say spectrum in the 2300 Mhz band - which Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom unit of Reliance Industries Ltd., and Bharti Airtel, India's top mobile phone company won to offer 4G services - emits weak signals which mean bad service quality, especially indoors. The problem is magnified when it comes to voice, they added.
Jio, with broadband wireless access (BWA) permits and airwaves across all of India's 22 service areas hasn't yet launched services yet. Bharti - with BWA spectrum in eight circles - on the other hand, has launched 4G data services in four cities, but hasn't had much success mainly due to quality issues and device lock-ins.
Alcatel-Lucent's Mukherjee said that farming spectrum could be an answer. "In Europe, for instance, where some of the spectrum allocated is in the higher bands - 2.x, what you see people doing is farming spectrum. They have plans to deploy LTE, then as more and more users adopt LTE, they take spectrum which is doing 2G, 3G and give it to LTE," he explained.
In Europe, LTE now operates mainly in the 700MHz band which has a wide and penetrating reach. The most successful deployments are in a standard called FD-LTE. Yet in most cases the technology is only used to offer high speed data services and not voice.
India and China have adopted a standard called TD-LTE which, due to a lack of global scale, makes equipment more expensive and choices more limited.
Manufacturers were counting on large deployments in China and India to provide that scale but the economic slowdown and turmoil in the Indian telecom market have made them step back a little.
So, Indian operators could have to adopt the European model but for that, they would need to buy additional spectrum either through auctions or through bandwidth trading or sharing.
The two analysts and SSTL's Shukov say such refarming however is easier said than done and could take anywhere from three to five years, and will be an extremely cost affair.
Reliance Jio, which along with some other Indian operators have been holding trials for LTE and VoLTE for some time now, and Bharti Airtel didn't respond to requests for comment.
Mukherjee dispelled a notion that LTE doesn't support good quality voice, adding VoLTE offers all the services which 2G or 3G offers like local, international roaming, interoperability, network continuity. While cost of 4G services and handsets could be a "consideration" in India, it's unlikely to be a "hindrance" in the long term.
"The top (economic) segment in India won't be any different than in any other country. Faster data speeds, more spectral efficiency, and you get more modern phones," he explained, adding people in this segment change handsets every 18 or 24 months anyways.
As for the more cost sensitive rural markets, 4G would be better able to support e-governance initiatives such as rural banking, etc. "And given that spectrum is technology neutral, operators have the flexibility to offer whichever network suits a segment," he said.
Read more: ETTelecom.com
