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Thursday, March 29, 2007
Although fixed line infrastructure has been in India for a long time, the growth of fixed line (wireline) phones has not matched the rise in the number of mobile (wireless) subscribers in India. However, both wireline and wireless technologies are complimentary and work in conjunction. Broadband deployment by telcos and telecom service providers' push to focus on fixed line phones may boost the image of wireline infrastructure. The new thrust comes at a time when a couple of telecom infrastructure service providers reduced their focus in the wireline market.
For many telecom service providers in India betting on the wireline sector, the objective of our broadband and telephone business is to have presence in cities with high revenue potential. For them, the product offering in this segment includes supply and installation of fixed-line telephones providing local, national and international long distance voice connectivity and broadband Internet access through DSL.
Currently, in the broadband and telephone business, Bharti is present in 15 circles covering 94 cities and we plan to be anywhere near 100 cities by end of the financial year 2007. The company had 1,737,799 customers as on December 31, 2006 of which 31.6% were subscribing to broadband services. IPTV will be one of Bharti's major drivers to be launched sometime this year over the same copper which provides telephone and broadband services. IPTV services were successfully test launched in Gurgaon and are under trial with over 1,000 customers, IPTV services shall provide digital broadcast TV, time-shifted broadcast TV, video-on-demand and radio services.
India, where the dynamics of wireline service are changing, which also contributes to increasing pressure on revenue streams of telecos, is not alone in the world. Traditional wireline service revenues in the US remains on an overall negative trend, according to market research firm Research and Markets. Revenue shrinkage is primarily due to reduced consumer voice service spending. Business voice services also show negative growth, but not as much as consumer voice services. Long-distance revenues are decreasing at a much faster pace than local-service revenues, as users rely on their wireless service for long-distance calls. Growth in broadband wireline revenues remains robust, particularly in the DSL and cable modem arenas, but are not sufficient enough to offset the overall negative trend.
| Experts panel |
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Amit Laroya, MD, 3M Electro & Communication India
Atul Bindal, joint president (Broadband & Telephone Services) Bharti Airtel
JP Singh Sehdev, director, Metro Ethernet Network, Nortel Networks India
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NEW TECHNOLOGIES
In India, Metro Ethernet Networks are relatively new. But few infrastructure providers are committed in building on the market leadership in the growing Metro Ethernet market. Since proliferation of 3G, WiMax, IPTV, IMS will drive the network expansion in wireline, wireless and cable, few cellular service providers are looking at MEN for their future expansion.
Since it is a relatively new technology to Indian telcos, infrastructure providers are pushing hard to win critical new space in the market. Their strategy is based on the increasing reliance on Ethernet as the standard protocol for both LAN and WAN communications to break the bandwidth bottlenecks between high-speed fibre-optic networks and Metro networks serving customers and businesses. They are driving carrier-centric Ethernet innovation and have been a major driving force behind the standardization of Provider Backbone Bridging and new comprehensive Ethernet OAM (Operation, Administration and Maintenance) tools. New technology Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) allows service providers to deliver the communication and entertainment services of the future to consumers and companies across cities and countries.
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