Indian telecom industry prepares for new 3G regime

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Highlighting the current mobile content and services market shift, IAMAI organized the National Conference on Mobile Content & Services in New Delhi.

Industry experts came together and emphasized the need of their preparedness for the upcoming 3G regime for Indian telecom industry.

With the 3G spectrum auctions just round the corner, the event was a timely platform to have serious dialogue on how the industry sees a massive push towards data and services as opposed to voice.

TV Ramachandran, Secretary General, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), said: “Operators still have limitations with regards to 2G in addressing the consumer demands of new data usage patterns. Undoubtedly, 3G holds a lot of prominence for the consumer of mobile services. In order to support the upcoming growth from mobile value added services the industry needs a clear spectrum policy which should cover both 2G and 3G.” However, he also emphasized the need of affordable mobile broadband.

While highlighting the need of regional content based SMS services, Nadeem Akhtar, Senior Research Engineer Centre for Excellence in Wireless Technology said: “Looking at Indian mobile users context only 37 percent of urban population uses text messages. Some factors effecting the SMS penetration are: lack of multilingual content, secondly user friendliness of the mobile device with regards to text messages generation.”

Akhtar further emphasized on the need to define suitable mechanism of handling legacy devices and need to showcase a prototype of new technologies like Unicode Technology of text messages.

While acknowledging the fact of mobile broadband and wireless growth going to happen in near future, Sangeeet Chowfla, Executive Vice President, Comviva added: “Adoption of services like navigation, location based mobile services, mobile internet across the world where 3G services have already forayed. The revolution is about to come in India as well. All we need to do is to come up with India specific services which would also require services to be delivered in Indian regional languages.”

Debasis Chatterjee (CEO, Netxcell) reiterated that the key thought of the day is to understand the need of the customer at a greater depth and subsequently provide a mix of technology as per the needs and requirements of the consumer.

He also stressed on the importance of the ease of usage at an affordable price. For doing this a complete integration of the eco system by diff stakeholder is required.
The one day event was attended by the who’s who of the mobile content and services players, Mobile VAS companies and professionals from the industry. The forum highlighted the industry preparedness for the new 3G regime.

With the 3G spectrum auction almost coming up, the event has witnessed some key resolutions and takeaways for the industry to manage this new mobile technology arena.

New Executive Council takes over at COAI

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The COAI Annual General Meeting held on May 29, 2009 at New Delhi saw a smooth transition with the new Executive Council taking over the reins of the industry association.

The event saw the General Body ratify the nominations of Ms. Suneeta Reddy, Chairperson, Aircel Ltd. and Vice Chairperson, COAI as Chairperson, COAI, and Sanjay Kapoor, Deputy CEO, Bharti Airtel as Vice Chairperson of COAI for 2009-2010. The nominations for the Executive Council were also ratified by the General Body.

Outgoing Chairman, Asim Ghosh thanked the members for their unwavering support during his tenure as Chairman. He reminisced fondly about his long association with the industry and the several challenges that the industry had faced and overcome in the last decade.

He noted that 2008 was a landmark year for the Indian industry as it had reached global scale. He pointed out that the job was never done and there would always be challenges ahead. He thanked Ms. Reddy for her support as Vice Chairperson, the Executive Council and the Secretariat team for their efforts and contributions and wished them all the very best for the future.

Ms. Suneeta Ready, Chairperson Elect thanked the members for the trust and faith reposed in her. She emphasized that COAI had always stood for inclusive growth. She noted that the industry still had many challenges ahead.

She pointed out that the agenda for the industry for the next 12 months included ensuring availability of adequate 2G spectrum, an early auction of 3G and BWA spectrum to facilitate the leap to the next generation of services, bridging of the digital divide, improving the financial viability of the industry and making it globally competitive..

She added that with the imminent introduction of mobile number portability, the SIM card would become like a vote that could be exercised anytime by the consumers and the industry should make all efforts to ensure that mobile is viewed as a service that adds value to the consumers lives.

TV Ramachandran, Director General, COAI, presented the Annual Report of the COAI activities to the members. He pointed out that the Association had undertaken several landmark initiatives over the last 12 months. This included strengthening subscriber verifications processes under the aegis of ACT -- the apex Advisory Council; efforts to minimize unsolicited commercial communications through a joint working group set up by TRAI; engaging with the Reserve Bank of India through the Mobile Banking Payment Forum for encouraging the use of mobile as a payment platform; working with the Centre of Excellence in Wireless Technology in IIT, Chennai for developing coding for
SMS in vernacular languages; ensuring environment protection with the adoption of ICNIRP guidelines, introduction of Mobile Instant Messaging, etc.