The three telecommunication giants together account for over 90% of
India’s 1.18 billion mobile subscribers, with the market share of around
30% each split evenly among them.
The era of low tariffs for Indian consumers seems to have ended as
major telcos — Vodafone Idea Limited (VIL), Bharti Airtel Limited and
Reliance Jio — have hiked tariff by up to 40% for prepaid customers. While
VIL, and Sunil Bharti Mittal-led Bharti Airtel have decided to hike the
tariffs with effect from December 3, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio has
decided to effect the hike from December 6.
90% of market
The
three telecommunication giants together account for over 90% of India’s
1.18 billion mobile subscribers, with the market share of around 30%
each split evenly among them. “New plans will be available across India starting 00:00 hours of December 3, 2019,” a Vodafone Idea statement said. Bharti
Airtel’s statement read: “Airtel’s new plans represent tariff increases
in the range of a mere 50 paise/day to ₹2.85/day and offer generous
data and calling benefits.” Both Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel
announced new prepaid plans starting with options of 2 days, 28 days, 84
days and 365 days validity and prices starting from ₹19 and going upto
₹2,399. Reliance Jio is yet to announce its new plans.
pending on
telecom services and pay-TV will reach $1.63 trillion worldwide in 2019,
according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Telecom
Services Database.
IDC expects this figure to reach $1.65 trillion billion in 2020, representing an increase of 0.9%.
Despite the overall lack of growth, some areas of the sector have
seen a moderate increase and IDC is optimistic about 5G’s impact.
Winners and losers
Mobile remains the largest segment of the market, accounting for
52.8% of the total in 2019. The mobile market is set to post a compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) of 1.3% over the 2019-2023 period, driven by
the growth in mobile data usage and M2M applications, which is
offsetting declines in spending on mobile voice and messaging services,
IDC said.
Fixed data service spending represents 21.7% of the total market in
2019, with an expected CAGR of 3.3%, driven by the need for higher
bandwidth services.
Spending on fixed voice services will post a CAGR of negative 4.8%
over the forecast period and will represent only 8.5% of the total
market by 2023. Rapidly declining TDM (time-division multiplexing) voice
revenues are not being offset by the increase in IP voice, according to
the analysis.
On a geographical basis, the Americas was the largest services
market, with revenues of $630 billion in 2019, driven by the large North
American sector. Asia Pacific was the second-largest region, followed
by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The markets with the
fastest year-on-year growth in 2019 were EMEA, driven mainly by emerging
markets, followed by the Americas.
One billion 5G subs by 2023
IDC also forecasts that the number of mobile 5G subscriptions will surpass 1 billion by 2023.
“By introducing extremely high speeds and ultra-reliable low latency,
5G will create the infrastructural foundation for a smarter and even
more connected world," says Kresimir Alic, research director with IDC's
Worldwide Telecom Services.
He added, "It will also generate new opportunities for telecom
services operators. More than ever before, these companies will be
expected to create, innovate and educate — becoming true leaders of the
global digital revolution."
Europe has launched the second satellite in its space laser telecommunications network.
It will use optical beams to pull pictures and data from other spacecraft and then speed that information to the ground.
EDRS-C, as it is known, was sent into orbit on Tuesday by an Ariane-5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.
It joins the first node in the network, EDRS-A, which was put up in 2016.
That spacecraft was positioned over Central Africa to service Europe.
The new satellite will sit slightly to the east, where it will provide additional capacity.
The European Data Relay System is a joint venture between the European Space Agency and aerospace giant Airbus.
It
is used predominantly by the European Union's Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2
Earth observation spacecraft. These platforms take images of the
planet's surface.
Ordinarily, such satellites would have to wait until they pass over a
radio receiving dish on the ground before downloading their pictures,
which could mean a delay of over an hour as they circle the globe.
But the Sentinels were equipped to connect with the EDRS satellites' 1.8-gigabit laser links.
The
relay platforms orbit much higher in the sky - some 36,000km in
altitude - and always have visibility of a radio antenna on the ground.
The capability has particular relevance in the realm of natural disasters, such as major floods or big earthquakes.
Information
about the scale of these emergencies can be put in the hands of first
responders much faster than would normally be the case.
"We have
demonstrated that it's possible to get a Sentinel image on the ground
and ready to use after just 15 minutes of it being acquired," Magali
Vaissiere, the director of telecoms at Esa, told BBC News.
"The
launch of EDRS-C brings additional capacity to the network, obviously,
but it also provides redundancy, a back-up, which you need in an
operational system."
Between a third and a half of all image data
from Sentinels 1 and 2 is now routed through EDRS, and usage is certain
to expand with the second node now in orbit.
NEW DELHI: Telecom regulator Trai on Wednesday invited public views to review the January 1, 2020 deadline for service providers to end interconnect usage charges. A telecom operator
pays for connecting calls of its subscribers to the company on whose
network a call is made. Currently, an operator is required to pay 0.06
paisa per minute as mobile call termination charges, called interconnect
usage charges (IUC), which is proposed to be made nil from January 1, 2020.
Telecom
operators with large number of subscribers gain from IUC as most of the
calls are made within their network while net payout for service
providers with lower subscriber base is higher.
At present, Reliance Jio leads mobile market with 339.7 million subscribers followed by Bharti Airtel with 328 million customers. Vodafone Idea in July reported decline in customer base to 320 million in the first quarter of 2019-20. BSNL has mobile customer base of 116 million.
The
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said it has seen rapid
adoption of modern technology in the country's mobile networks since the
time it lowered ICU from 14 paise to 0.06 paise from October 1, 2017
onwards.
"Though the imbalance in the inter-operator off-net traffic is reducing over a period, it still exists," Trai said.
The
regulator said it has proposed a bill and keep (BAK) regime in which no
operator raises bill for IUC, after analysing that the regime will
reduce the inter-operator off-net traffic imbalance.
Trai said it has received representations from some interested parties about revision of the existing IUC regime.
The
regulator has sought public views on whether there is a need "to revise
the applicable date for BAK regime i.e. zero mobile termination charge,
from January 1, 2020".
Last date for comments on the paper is October 18 and for counter comment it is November 1, 2019.
MOSCOW: Apple is under investigation in Russia following a complaint from cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab and may be abusing its dominant position in smartphone apps, Russia's anti-monopoly watchdog said on Thursday.
Watchdog
FAS said it was investigating why a new version of Kaspersky Lab's Safe
Kids application had not been updated on the Apple operating system,
resulting in a significant loss in functionality for the app.
It
said Apple had released an updated version of its own app, Screen Time,
which had similar functions to the Kaspersky programme.
Sunday, 9 June 2019
The recent consolidation in the telecommunication space in India is a
big opportunity for global tech giant IBM, and the company will look to
leverage its acquisition of Red Hat to build more open source systems
that are more efficient and can handle vast amounts of data as the world
prepares for 5G rollouts, a senior executive said.
“There's no market on the planet which has gone through more
consolidation than the Indian market in the last three years. So if
there's a test case for how new architectural capabilities need to be
implemented it would be India," said Steve Canepa, global industry
managing director ( telecommunications, media and entertainment), IBM
Global Markets.
Last year saw the consolidation of the domestic telecom market into
three large private players — Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone
Idea. Together, the three account for more than 90 per cent of revenue.
IBM has deals to manage IT infrastructure of both Bharti Airtel and
Vodafone Idea.
“With Bharti as an example, we recently announced a very strategic
partnership around blockchain... (and) embracing blockchain and hyper
ledger as a new technology that can enable ecosystems to collaborate,
because data is secure and access to the same is done in such a way that
you can only see information you’re entitled to see. So, it allows
firms in the industry to collaborate when they might not otherwise
collaborate,” Canepa said.
With the Vodafone-Idea merger, it is working on a model to help the two
companies streamline their processes and get new services to market as a
combined entity much more quickly. IBM is currently focusing on its IBM
2.0 strategy for cloud across the globe, which centres around the idea
that in the first generation of cloud, only about 20 per cent of the
major enterprises work.
Moving the most critical work that an organisation has onto the cloud
has always been a big challenge, which is what IBM is trying to solve
with its new plan.
“And, we see this as a representation of a true trillion-dollar market
opportunity,” said Canepa. “This comes with some really different
requirements than what happened in the first generation of cloud, which
is why we’ve really pivoted our strategy to focus on creating what we
call a hybrid multi cloud capability,” he added.
In order to achieve the scale, effective data management, and getting
products and services to market more efficiently, IBM plans to leverage
its acquisition of open source software company Red Hat, which it bought
for $34 billion in late 2018.
With significant presence of both firms in India, Red Hat is likely to
be used in a big way to execute open source projects, which allow for
open architecture and better inter-operability between different kinds
of software.
In India, according to Canepa, there is “kind of an emerging class of
high-value consumers and enterprise services that are being put into the
marketplace. So, there’s really a number of market forces and these
require a highly efficient and agile platform,” which will be powered by
IBM'’s Cloud 2.0 strategy.
A critical element of the Cloud 2.0 Strategy is IBM’s cognitive intelligence platform, Watson.
In India, he said, telecom networks are moving towards better digital
engagement, in order to ensure a consistent omni channel experience and
prepare enterprises to be hybrid cloud-ready. Thus, the telecom network
is, in itself, becoming a cloud.
With telecom networks gearing up for deployment of 5G, or the fifth
generation cellular network technology that provides much faster speed
and the ability to make faster data-related decisions in real time.
Canepa said the open hybrid cloud capability will provide the base on
which these fast systems are built because “the network is a cloud
platform that can deploy both the IT and network services”.
China's global dominance in telecommunications networks could pose
security threats for decades, Britain's cybersecurity chief warned in a
speech in Singapore on Monday. As countries move to roll out ultra-fast fifth-generation -- 5G --
mobile networks, concerns are mounting that Beijing could use hardware
provided by Chinese firms to spy on Western governments. "The strategic challenge of China's place in the era of globalised
technology is much bigger than just one telecommunications equipment
company... it's a first order strategic challenge for us all," the head
of Britain's GCHQ cybersecurity agency Jeremy Fleming said. "It's a hugely complex strategic challenge which will span the next
few decades... How we deal with it will be crucial for prosperity and
security way beyond 5G contracts." In the last year, the United States has stepped up pressure on its
allies to block Chinese telecoms giant Huawei from building their 5G
networks, citing security concerns. While the company's presence has been severely restricted in the US,
Australia and New Zealand, Britain has launched a security review, which
is due to decide whether Huawei technology will be used in the UK's 5G
network. Huawei executives in December met senior officials from Britain's
National Cyber Security Centre where they agreed to a range of technical
requirements to meet British security standards, which Fleming said is
likely the world's "toughest oversight regime" for the firm. "We need a diversified market that is competing on quality and
security, as well as price," Fleming said, adding that the potential
risks of allowing Chinese firms into markets need to be fully
understood. Speaking in Singapore to government and military leaders from across
Southeast Asia, Fleming said that half of Britain's 1,100 cyber attacks
in the past two had a state actor behind it, naming groups from China
and Russia. "Our future security will be guaranteed not by the quality of our
coding, the design of our silicon, or the cunning of our cyber
operators, but by the bonds that tie us together and the relationships
that give us confidence to act decisively against common threats," he
added. Last year, Australia banned Huawei equipment from its future 5G
network while New Zealand has blocked its largest telecoms carrier from
using Huawei technology in its rollout. Both are members of the Five Eyes intelligence network, which also includes Britain, Canada and the US. US prosecutors are also charging the firm with stealing trade
secrets, saying it offered rewards to employees for stealing technology
from other rivals. Huawei is the world's second-largest smartphone vendor after Samsung
and the leading supplier of the backbone equipment for wireless mobile
networks worldwide which many countries are using to roll out 5G
networks. These will bring near-instantaneous connectivity, vast data capacity and futuristic technologies such as self-driving cars. Chairman Guo Ping said Sunday that 5G security standards should be
decided by technical experts, not politicians, and that Huawei hoped
each country would make its decisions based on "national interests (and)
not just listen to someone else's order".
