Around the World

The Hindu Business Line…
Take Broadband to the Masses
In order for India to sustain the economic growth it has experienced over the last few years, broadband needs to be accessible throughout the country. Spreading broadband beyond urban areas ensures the efficient delivery of remote education, healthcare and government services.

Factors that previously prevented widespread adoption include affordability and lack of availability. However, while the latter is less of a hurdle today as service providers continue to embrace wireless, the former continues to be a challenge. Sustainable growth requires subscriber plans that are reasonable yet profitable. This is where OSS/BSS providers can help, by giving communications service providers (CSPs) the opportunity to make flexible plans while simultaneously reducing their costs.

FierceWireless…
Increased Network Congestion Requires Fresh Thinking from Operators
As the growing popularity of smartphones brings a boom in data traffic, operators are developing new ways to acknowledge network congestion problems and deliver a personalized customer experience. In fact, recent research from Current Analysis claims that social media and end-user forums have become a key part of identifying network issues and prompting operators to take action.

Additionally, many operators are training customer support staff to assess network failures and award credits to individual subscribers when needed. This is a step forward towards improving the customer experience, but as IDC analyst Andy Hicks recently said, the key to ensuring predictive and proactive customer service is implementing service and network automation, so that subscribers’ needs are addressed before end users call customer service.

CIOL…
LTE Won’t Stop Carrier Wi-Fi Momentum
Despite the growth in LTE networks, many CSPs are embracing Wi-Fi due to its massive footprint, low-cost and large presence on smartphones. In addition to deploying Wi-Fi access points in hotspot locations, they are integrating the technology into their core networks and extending OSS/BSS and customer management capabilities to Wi-Fi.

While the benefits of LTE are clear and the technology is continuing to gain momentum, ABI Research analyst Aditya Kaul observes that the true motivation for adopting LTE is for customer acquisition, competitive differentiation or being first to market. But the adoption and promotion of Wi-Fi still makes sense for many operators when it comes to retention, which could even be turned into a competitive advantage. Do you think Wi-Fi has a long term play, as new LTE services, products and packages continue to roll out?

Around the World

Light Reading…
A Brief Guide to India’s Telecom Market
In this article, Ray Le Maistre gives readers an overview of India’s telecom landscape. There is an insatiable demand for mobile communications services! By the end of 2005, about 80 million mobile lines had been activated, and just five years later, mobile connectivity had grown to a whopping 750 million users. This is a clear reflection of the desire for communication services from the Indian population, which is in line with a previous Around the World blog post we highlighted detailing a Frost & Sullivan report on India’s tremendous growth over the next five years.

Additionally, Ray notes that introducing Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services, which are likely to run over the world’s first large-scale Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE TDD) networks, should help deliver some of the tangible growth that the Indian government is looking for. However, the Indian government is concerned that not enough local telecom companies are benefiting from the operators’ combined annual capital outlay of more than $30 billion. As a result, there have been talks of introducing local manufacturing quotas. Ultimately, legislation will play a big role in what’s to come, and as Ray states, because India’s market is changing so quickly, it’s hard to predict what market-altering new legislation or regulation might come along next.

ZDnet…
WiMAX to Survive as ‘Niche’ Tech
WiMAX seems to have lost to LTE as the dominant mobile broadband standard, but it will survive as a “niche” technology, author Liau Yun Qing reports. According to In-Stat analyst Chris Kissel, the former may find a place to survive in under-developed markets such as Latin America or Africa, where technology can still be built in areas with little or no mobile service. There could also be room for WiMAX in small markets focused on wireless DSL and in the smart grid market. Chris notes that ultimately, the problem with implementing WiMAX is that mobile operators had to build it from the ground up since it’s not backwards-compatible to any existing UMTS standard. Despite WiMAX’s decreasing popularity, LTE is thriving in China, India and elsewhere. In fact, according to a Global mobile Suppliers Association report in May, there are 208 operators worldwide investing in LTE—98 more than in June 2010. Do you believe WiMAX will survive as a niche tech with this rapid rise of LTE, and if so, for how long?

Nation Multimedia…
More Plan to Buy Smartphones: Survey
The popularity of smartphones is both undeniable and rapidly growing. According to an online survey conducted by Nielsen, almost 42 percent of online customers in Thailand without smartphones said they will definitely, or are likely, to buy one in 2011. At the end of 2010, Nielsen survey research showed that Southeast Asia’s average smartphone ownership was 25 percent. Will Wang, director of the firm’s telecom practice, states that while Thailand still awaits the arrival of a full-scale commercialized 3G network, citizens are willing to buy a smartphone so they can integrate with social networks and enjoy gaming experiences via Wi-Fi or existing data services. However, it’s important to remain focused on what will keep smartphone users satisfied, especially as smartphone usage increases. As Oliver Suard points out, it’s critical that industry leaders remember to focus on customer satisfaction on all types of mobile users, and remember to also cater to those who do not own an iPhone or are heavy users of mobile broadband value-added services.