India unseated China as the country with the lowest level of high broadband adoption, though it grew 45 per cent quarter-over-quarter to 0.2 per cent. Both India and China are listed as having 0.2 per cent high broadband adoption – this is due to rounding – China’s high broadband adoption rate is, in fact, 0.009 per cent higher than India’s.)
Though it saw a nominal 2.7 per cent quarterly increase, the global high broadband adoption rate remained at 11 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012. Looking at year-over-year changes, the global high broadband adoption rate once again saw a very solid increase, growing 31 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2012. In the fourth quarter, the global broadband adoption rate grew slightly, increasing 2.1 per cent to 42 per cent. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

For the Quarter ending March 2009, India has a total of 492.72 million telephone subscribers of which 91% is wireless. Overall tele-density is at 36.98%. GSM still leads with 76% of wireless subscribers and CDMA has 24% of wireless subscribers.

Rural penetration is comparatively low at 28% or 120.29 million. 70% of India lives in rural areas which presents a huge potential for the telcos. The teledensity is at 14.8% for the rural areas and urban teledensity of 88% has brought the overall teledensity to 36.98%. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

India conducted its 4G auction in 2010. How many people do you know today who are on a 4G network? Stuck in the theatre of the absurd that is Indian telecom, where each day we see regulators and operators shadow-boxing with each other in newspapers and courts, its hard to remember how rosy things were just a few years back.
The toast of the global telecom world, India was seen as the “soney ki chidiya”. From profits to innovation to talktime usage to investments, there was no metric we weren’t totally killing. And in less than 5 years we’re the laughing stock of the world. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

By 2013, India is likely to emerge the third-largest adopter of personal devices at workplaces after Brazil and China, according to a Gartner survey. These findings find support in various news reports which cite an increasing number of companies embracing the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model.
Companies are adopting desktop virtualization as well as mobility management and security tools to deal with challenges thrown by BYOD. For instance, Thermax last month implemented Citrix’s desktop virtualization offering. The Pune-based energy environment major has five manufacturing facilities in India and abroad. Companies like NDTV, HDFC Bank, Genpact, Essar Group, Perfetti Van Melle, and Indraprastha Apollo Hospital are also stated to have deployed the software. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

India’s mobile services market will touch Rs 1.2 lakh crore (Rs 1.2 trillion) in 2013, an 8 per cent rise from Rs 1.1 lakh crore posted in 2012. Mobile connections will grow to 770 million this year, an 11 per cent increase from 712 million connections last year, according to a report by research and analysis firm Gartner.

“The mobile market in India will continue to face challenges if the average revenue per user (ARPU) does not grow significantly,” said Shalini Verma, principal research analyst at Gartner. “If the prevailing conditions do not change in the Indian telecom market, India will account for 12 per cent worldwide mobile connections, but just 2 per cent of worldwide mobile services revenue (in constant dollar) in 2013,” she added. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

India has proposed to set up three funds with a combined corpus of Rs.17,500 crore to boost local research and manufacturing of telecom products as it seeks to cut dependence on imports at a time when the current-account deficit has widened to a record and also to reduce security concerns posed by such imports, particularly from China.
The government will initially allot Rs.5,000 crore to the Telecom Research and Development Fund, Rs.2,500 crore to the Telecom Entrepreneurship Promotion Fund and Rs.10,000 crore to the Telecom Manufacturing Promotion Fund during the 12th Five-year Plan ending March 2017, according to an internal document of the department of telecommunications (DoT) Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

The National Security Council has underlined the need to indigenise the production of equipment used in telecommunication and other sensitive sectors. Its concern has been aroused by reports that some Chinese firms supplying telecom equipment have links with the Chinese military and this might compromise India’s security.
The world’s largest telecom company, Huawei, which reached the position by outgrowing Ericsson in 2012, was founded by a former Chinese military person. India is not the only country to fear this link. It is believed the technology the Chinese firms supply to other countries has inbuilt provisions to enable the Chinese intelligence and military authorities to obtain whatever data is contained in it. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

The number of telephone subscribers in India declined from 937.70 million at the end of Sep-12 to 895.51 million at the end of Dec-12, registering a negative growth of 4.50% over the previous quarter sep-12. This reflects year-on-year (Y-O-Y) negative growth of 3.35% over the same quarter of last year. The overall Tele-density in India has declined from 77.04 as on 30th September, 2012 to 73.34 as on 31st December, 2012.

Subscription in Urban Areas decreased from 595.69 million at the end of Sep-12 to 556.96 million at the end of Dec-12, and Urban Teledensity declined from 161.13 to 149.90. Rural subscription decreased from 342.01 million to 338.54 million, and Rural Teledensity also declined from 40.36 to 39.85. Share of subscription in Rural areas out of total subscription increased from 36.47% at the end of Sep-12 to 37.80% at the end of Dec-12.

With a decline of 41.90 million subscribers during the quarter, total wireless(GSM+CDMA) subscriber base registered a negative growth of 4.62% over the previous quarter and subscriber base declined from 906.62 million at the end of Sep-12 to 864.72 million at the end of Dec-12. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) negative growth rate of Wireless subscribers for Dec-12 is 3.26%. Wireless Teledensity decreased from 74.49 at the end of Sep-12 to 70.82 at the end of Dec-12.

Wireline subscriber base further declined from 31.08 million at the end of Sep-12 to 30.79 million at the end of Dec-12, bringing down the wireline Teledensity from 2.55 at the end of Sep-12 to 2.52 at the end of Dec-12.

Internet subscribers increased from 24.01 million at the end of Sep-12 to 25.33 million at the end of Dec-12, registering a quarterly growth rate of 5.49%. Top 10 ISPs together hold 95.42% of the total Internet subscriber base.

Number of Broadband subscribers increased from 14.68 million at the end of Sep-12 to 14.98 million at the end of Dec-12, registering a quarterly growth of 2.02% and Y-O-Y growth of 12.23%.
Share of Broadband subscription in total Internet subscription decreased from 61.16% at the end of Sep-12 to 59.15% at the end of Dec-12. 84.82% of the Broadband subscribers are using Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) technology.

Monthly Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) for GSM service increasedby 3.03%, from `95 in QE Sep-12 to `98 in QE Dec-12, with Y-O-Y increase of 2.25%

On an all India average, the overall MOU per subscriber per month for GSM service increased by 4.99% from 342 in QE Sep-12 to 359 in QE Dec-12. Prepaid MOU per subscriber increased by 5.21% (from 321 to 338), while postpaid MOUs decreased by 0.68% (from 960 to 953)

Monthly ARPU for CDMA – full mobility service increased by 2.8%, from `78 in QE Sep-12 to `80 in QE Dec-12. ARPU for CDMA has increased by 8.84% on Y-O-Y basis.

The total MOU for CDMA per subscriber per month increased by 2.15%, from 225.22 in QE Sep-12 to 230.06 QE Dec-12. The Outgoing MOUs (117) increased by 2.8% and Incoming MOUs (113) increased by 1.5%.

Gross Revenue (GR) and Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) of Telecom Service Sector for the QE Dec-12 has been `52858.39 Crore and `34527.50 Crore respectively. There has been a decrease of 0.15% in GR and a decrease of 2.67% in AGR as compared to previous quarter. The year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth in GR and AGR over the same quarter in last year has been 7.08% and 1.31% respectively. Pass-through charges accounted for 34.68% of the GR for the quarter ending Dec-12. The quarterly and the year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth rates of passthrough charges for QE Dec-12 are 4.96% and 19.94% respectively.

Average license fee as percentage of AGR is 8.15% in QE Dec-12. The quarterly and the year-on-year (Y-O-Y) growth rates of the average license fee are -2.42% and -0.68% respectively for the QE Dec-12
Access services contributed 75.19% of the total revenue of telecom services. In Access services, Gross Revenue and Pass Through Charges increased by 0.22% and 3.40% respectively, whereas AGR, License Fee & Spectrum Charges decreased by 1.15%, 1.22% & 0.51% respectively in the quarter ending Dec-12 vis-à-vis previous quarter.

Monthly Average Revenue per User (ARPU) for Access Services based on AGR increased from `99 in QE Sep-12 to `101 in QE Dec-12.

Total number of permitted private satellite TV channels registered with Ministry of I&B, as obtained from its website, is 823. There are 184 pay TV channels in existence, as reported by 26 broadcasters/their distributors, as on QE Dec-12.

Maximum number of TV channels (Pay, FTA and Local) being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 267 whereas in the conventional analogue form, maximum number of channels being carried by any of the reported MSOs is 100 channels.

Apart from All India Radio, Prasar Bharti – a public broadcaster, there are 242 private FM Radio stations in operation at the end of Dec-12.

Besides the free DTH service of Doordarshan, there are 6 private DTH licensees, offering their services to the DTH subscribers. As on 31.12.2012, 54.52 million subscribers are registered with these 6 private DTH operators.
(End)

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

Last month, India’s communications minister Kapil Sibal wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking for the formation of a special committee to look into the revival of state-run telcos Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL).

In the letter, Sibal drew Singh’s attention to his expectation that MTNL’s net worth may be completely eroded in 2013-14 while BSNL is likely to post a loss of around INR 100 billion (US$1.86 billion) in the 2012-13 fiscal year. The government has convened a group of ministers to recommend possible measures for the revival of the two state-controlled telecom companies. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com

Telecom Secretary, R. Chandrashekhar

The telecom commission (TC), the highest decision making body of the communication ministry, will meet shortly to work out the modalities on setting up a Telecom Finance Corporation, to help mobile phone companies support their network expansion, and also create three separate funds aimed at promoting indigenous manufacturing and research and development.

According to internal department documents, the TC will first consider setting up the Telecom Finance Corporation, a vehicle to access funds at competitive rates, that is modeled on lines of the Power Finance Corporation. Source

Courtesy: IndiaTelecomNews.com