Wireless India 2003

Wireless India 2003: Harvesting potential of the wireless world

Rajendra Prabhu

NEW DELHI -- Serious concerns of the existing wireless technology operators, and the potential of the emerging wireless technologies came to the fore at the recently held Wireless India 2003 conference, organised by Exhibitions India Pvt. Ltd. The participants scanned the entire range of wireless technologies and brought out the emerging opportunities for businesses and governments. The cellular service operators used the presence of Pradip Baijal, chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), who inaugurated the conference, to express their concerns at the regulator's move on unified licensing.

These concerns, according to Umang Das, managing director, Spice Communications, and Vikram Mehmi, CEO, Idea Cellular, affected the future of cellular mobile operations. The industry has invested Rs. 25,000 crores in the operations so far, and successfully covered most of the urban regions and highways of the country. Mehmi asked: "The mobile WLL is a violation of regulations but the regulator is silently watching this violation. Is that the march of technology?" (Please see our analysis of the consultation paper on unified licensing on page..)

Regulatory issues dominate

Unified licensing might lead to oligopoly, cautioned Das. He warned that instead of solving the inter-sectoral problems in communications, unified licensing would lead to other problems. This would affect the viability and financing of the cellular sector, and the entrepreneurial pioneers of 1994-95 might go under. Such a development would be a national loss, he added.

Baijal, however, chose to put out a powerful defense of the TRAI's decision, remove the apprehensions and place the problem in its proper perspective. He said the regulator had not taken a decision on the unified license; only the consultative process had been set rolling. The regulator might not even recommend the licensing if there was no need for it. The final authority was the govt. to whom TRAI would make its recommendations by August 30.

However, Baijal fresh from four years of battling multiple forces determined to block disinvestment in public sector units, recalled his experiences with the prophets of doom. The fear of problems should not deter us from taking new avenues. Other countries were already on the path of unification of licenses. The European Union had directed its constituents to proceed with unified licensing. Opponents of disinvestment had expressed similar apprehensions. However, the process raised the market value of PSU shares and post-disinvestment; all the privatised units including their employees were the beneficiaries. The introduction of the railways in 1853 raised protests from the carriage operators. "We reject the proposition that there should not be a change, just because someone or the other in the industry or elsewhere will be affected. This is a changing world, and regulatory policies must help us to grow," Baijal asserted.

Taking up the objections of the cellular operators by the two industry representatives, the TRAI chairman said, "There is no question of putting shackles on technology in the name of protecting entrepreneurial talent of Indian industry." Regarding protection of investments already made, the TRAI Act placed the customer above the interests of the industry. "If tariff does not come down, there is no growth. Lower tariff is not predatory pricing. Neither is making the service affordable to the maximum number considered as predatory pricing," he added. Explaining the impact of the changes, Baijal advised the industry to participate in the revolution instead of brooding over the problems.

The industry also had some words of assurance from P.K. Garg, the wireless advisor to the government of India. While it would not be possible to allot spectrum upfront, more allotment would come as the usage increased. He referred to the constraints on spectrum, and the demand to allot more spectrum as more services ride on the radio waves. Earlier, held once in 20 years, now the ITU's world radio conferences (WRC) are organised every three years to discuss the increasing requirements from different service providers. Technologies were also developing to share spectrum and to make maximum utilisation of it. On the issue of wireline and wireless carriers, Garg said these were complimentary. "Wireless alone cannot meet all of the requirements for communications," he added. Earlier, wireless services were considered elite. The situation had changed and wireless has become a common man's phone. According to Garg, wireline telephones are likely to become the privilege of the few.

The dominance of regulatory issues in discussions rather than market and business issues did not appear to be a healthy sign for Usha Rajeev, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers. "Regulatory processes should bring focus back on business concerns," she added. Rajeev enriched the inaugural conference with an analysis of the cellular service prospects. The rapid growth of the wireless phone service over the last 18 months was "The good news from the cellular front," said Prem Behl, managing director of Exhibitions India, citing the latest figure of 15 million cellular phone subscribers against six million at the end of March 2002. While outside the country, there was gloom in the telecom sector, "In this part of the world, the excitement is burgeoning every day," he added.

"Communications is maintaining a tryst with four words, namely, private, competitive, mobile and global, that sums up today's telecom market," Behl pointed out quoting the World Telecommunications Development report. He expected wireline subscriptions to reach 50 million at the end of the tenth plan (2007). He referred to the experimentation with wireless connectivity to laptops that MTNL and BSNL were seeking to provide. "It is certain that the emerging global village will be a wireless dominated village," he added. He welcomed the moves to lift the ceiling on foreign investment in telecom services.

Focus on WLAN, Wi-Fi

Different technologies and platforms, that are enabling wireless services to integrate our offices, homes and personnel into one entity, were the subject of discussion in the business sessions that followed. Presided over by the telecom commission member for services and technology, P.K. Chanda, the session on WLAN applications, technology and standards saw excellent presentations by experts in different aspects.

With CDMA becoming as common a feature of the wireless scene in the country as GSM, Anil Kripalani, senior vice president - global technology marketing, Qualcomm explained how a combination of WAN and LAN on the CDMA platform could provide a cost-effective service. He added that cdma2000/1x had now moved to cdma2000/3x. The 1x technology itself was a 3G enabler. Kripalani pointed out that India was in the forefront of CDMA. The 3x version was also on par with the 5MHz version of W-CDMA. CDMA, in its various avatars, such as EV-DO, EV-DV, etc., is broadband ready as well.

Wireless broadband technologies would drive basic and cellular telecom networks in India, said Vinay Patel, senior marketing director, Hughes Network System. Portal's networking architecture flew with the Boeing aircraft and penetrated 21 million households on the ground in the UK. The company's country manager for Asia-Pacific, Shailendra Singh, explained why Portal was a global major in these networks. The issue of WLAN security was the theme of Sanjay Jyotshi, Nortel Networks' presentation.

The buzzword in wireless is 'Wi-Fi'. It enables you to hook up your laptop to the Internet at airport lounges, hotel lobbies and other hotspots without having to connect to a telephone line. A panel chaired by Jagbir Singh, group CTO, Bharti Infotel and consisting of Ajay Goel, director, Sun Microsystems (India), Anil Chawla, senior consultant, Cisco Systems and R. Ravi, DGM, infrastructure services, HCL Infosystems, had a close look at the various aspects of Wi-Fi. Cisco's advice for those wondering which technology to choose is: "There is no need to get trapped into choosing among 802.11a vs. 802.11b vs. 802.11g. Use all of the indoor channels - three of them at 2.4GHz and eight at 5GHz." Cisco has dual-band access points and client cards making it into one seamless network, whether you use laptops, PDAs, tablet PCs or phones.

"Work anywhere, with access to your colleagues, your mobile applications adapted to your needs and independent of the type of access, yet all secure," said Ravi, HCL's executive. The one phone for different uses with one number anywhere and all features of an office extension were now at hand, he added. (More details on their presentations in the next issue).

R. R. N. Prasad, former TRAI member, presiding over the concluding panel discussion, said that end-to-end quality of service (QoS) alone could be the winning flag in the emerging competitive environment for wireless services. Different technologies such as WLAN, Bluetooth, etc., were competing but were complementary in nature. He also expressed concern at the drop in the performance in wireless services.

Mobile enterprise

If you are lost in a new city, do not worry. Mobile location services (MLS) would help you in locating friends, shops, menus, and many other things. Kapil Sood, general manager in services at Sun Microsystems (India), took the audience through a new world of location, where wireless would be your friend in need. Most of these services are already available, while others are on the way. Sun is offering the right platforms for operators to provide such services. "It is a great business opportunity," he pointed out.

"What do business processes need to increase the efficiency and productivity of people?" asked Anurag Kumar, production manager, HCL Infosystems in his presentation of the "Mobile Enterprise." The requirements included support for secure information whenever or wherever you are, integration with the back office, connection to the network, high degree of availability and open standards-based platform. He explained how to obtain cost reduction on investments, improved productivity and increased revenues from your business with the right application of wireless solutions.

Described as one of the 25 fastest growing technology companies by Forbes magazine, and one the top employers in Asia by Hewitt this year, UT Starcom has a global leadership in PAS, softswitches and DSLAMs. UT Starcom's Himanshu Goel explained how the new model of all IP networks differ from the old PSTN-based systems. As against the intelligent network model, the IP model enables the user to choose the applications and the service provider. The new world of IP networks is different from the old world of PSTN. "The future is today," said Goel about the IP networks, which could carry anything from wireline, GSM, CDMA, media gateways, to residential broadband.

Here are a few of the multiple presentations at the conference:

WLAN: Hughes Network Systems came up with how local multipoint distribution service (LMDS) could extend the reach of the fiber local loop and generate increased revenues for the operator. By using point-to-multi-point architecture, HNS's LMDS saves on one of the critical items, namely, the GHz range of radios as against point-to-point (PoP) systems. Vinay Patel, senior marketing director of HNS, had the details of the architecture, the equipment and the services. The company, based in Germantown, MD, USA has over 30 offices, design centers and manufacturing facilities worldwide. Its branded product 'Broadband Everywhere' is a satellite-based transmission service.

The deployment of LMDS helps in optimising-invested capital, building multipurpose, rather than application specific networks and increasing per subscriber revenues. Its advantages include quicker time-to-market with minimal planning, minimal right-of-way issues, no need to predict demand and is re-deployable. The one-platform-many-applications model means consolidation of different access technologies, and hence less over all cost for the operator.

LMDS extends the fiber footprint to two-km on either side of the fiber path, which means the operator can cover more buildings in the vicinity of the loop without having to extend the fiber to each one of them. All of these buildings could be provided broadband services. The applications include cell site connectivity whether GSM or CDMA moving up to UMTS or 3G, Wi-Fi, all basic telephone services and broadband access-based on fractional E1 or DSL, all of this on one LMDS platform.

On the WLAN as a revenue generating service, Shailendra Singh, country manager, Portal, gave a global picture. An onboard WLAN system on the high-flying Boeing aircraft uses Portal's technology, architecture and equipment. The company has won several awards. BT Retail, with communications services reaching out to 21mn residential and business customers in the UK, provides services on Portal's WLAN public access, wireless Internet connection, allowing access to the Internet at selected public venues or hot spots. It facilitates adoption of Portal's Infranet solution to quickly deploy services with faster time-to-revenue. Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile is building Wi-Fi 802.11b WLAN network that is the largest footprint of active broadband wireless sites. T-Mobile is able to target high-traff ic locations, it is the initial innovator of WLAN service providers in the US and end-to end billing solutions.

(More of the large number of presentations would be discussed in the next issue.)