India's largest CDMA mobile Can't Compete w/ GSM

[jones]

Call divert: Infocomm plans GSM switchover

(Financial Express Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) India's largest CDMA mobile operator Reliance Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, has expressed a desire to exit CDMA technology and migrate entirely to GSM's 1,800 Mhz band, sources in the department of telecommunications (DoT) told FE. "We believe that Reliance may completely switch over to GSM services," a DoT official said. Reliance indicated this in its application to the DoT last week, seeking spectrum to start GSM-based services across the country, apart from Delhi and Mumbai. The DoT has asked Reliance to submit its entire GSM plans. In its response to an FE query, Reliance Communications said, "We are committed to pursuing the world's leading mobile technologies--whether CDMA or GSM--to provide the best and most competitive services to our many million customers." Telecom industry sources have interpreted Reliance desire to move to GSM in two ways. One, it is posturing on the company's part to exert pressure on global CDMA patents owner Qualcomm to bring down royalty charged on CDMA chipsets. This will enable the company to compete in the domestic market alongside GSM players that have been bringing down call rates consistently. RELYING ON GSM


Reliance Communications could be posturing to demand lower royalty on CDMA chip sets from Qualcomm Reliance Communications may want to migrate to GSM to reduce network operation costs in the future Telecom Italia, Cable & Wireless and Millicom International have migrated from CDMA to GSM Migration is possible since CDMA-specific costs are only 20-30% of overall network costs Losing Reliance could be a major blow to Qualcomm since it accounts for nearly 8% of the global CDMA subscriber base of 318 million. Reliance's 20 million subscribers are also nearly one-seventh of CDMA users in the Asia-Pacific region. CDMA's rival GSM has 2 billion subscribers world-wide. The second interpretation, however, is that Reliance has indeed decided to risk the cost of migrating to GSM to avoid a higher cost of operations in the future. Reliance, which has nearly 20% of the domestic mobile market, would find it increasingly difficult to compete with GSM players if it is not able to bring down handset and call charges when the domestic subscriber base touches 500 million in 2010. A rival CEO, however, believes Reliance will move to GSM and is likely to strike a network management deal with Nokia-similar to Bharti's deal with Ericsson and Nokia-which is based on revenue share on subscriber ramp-up rather than upfront investment in network capex.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-call-...14/1683339.htm

[Scrumhalf]

That's too bad if it is true.... I believe CDMA operators had it golden in India since the DoT gave them equal spectrum to the GSM operators, and this, combined with the lack of infrastructure, gave them a decided advantage in capacity and infrastructure installation costs. Tata Indicom for one has been very aggressive at pursuing RUIMs and other approaches to enable international roaming for their CDMA customers.

[COtech]

Scrumhalf, I didn't notice when India licensed mobile CDMA use. I remember reading of its use for Wireless Local Loop (WLL) perhaps six or eight years ago. Of course, the desk sets offered then were to be installed in a fixed position with connections for outside antenna and power.

COtech

[Scrumhalf]

I don't recall the dates either. I'll try to do some digging tonight when I get home from work.