India added 22.62 million mobile users in December

NEW DELHI: India added 22.62 million mobile phone subscribers in December, taking the total number of cellular users in the country to 752.19 million till Dec 31, official data said. 

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI )), the wireless phone user base grew 3.10 percent in December 2010, from 729.57 million in November. 

But the report said that in December the total number of active subscribers was only 529.22 million. 

The growth in wireless phone category was led by Reliance Communication with an addition of 3.3 million users, 14.54 percent of the country's net addition in December, taking its user base to 125.65 million. 

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel followed next with an addition of over 3.1 million subscribers accounting for 13.71 percent of the net addition in December, taking its total number of subscribers to 152.5 million 

Vodafone stood at the third spot with an addition of 3 million subscribers, taking its total subscriber base to 124.26 million. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 2.98 million subscribers and thus has 86.71 million subscribers. 

Other telecom players such as Idea Cellular performed remarkably well with the addition of 2.95 million users, closely followed by Uninor, which added 2.31 million users. This took their total subscriber base to 81.78 million and 18.51 million respectively. 

According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 1.88 percent from 10.71 million in November to 10.92 million in December 2010. 

However, the wireline segment declined marginally from 35.19 million in November to 35.09 million at the end of December 2010.

BSNL losing battle due to government policies

In the times of intense competition in the telecom sector, government policies and decisions are jeopardising the future of State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL). The case here is that of the allocation of non-standardised Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum to the BSNL, while private operators have got more efficient radio waves to launch their high-speed broadband services.

Moreover, despite getting inferior spectrum, the BSNL was asked to pay amount similar to what private companies paid after bidding. Pan-Indian BWA spectrum was sold for Rs.12,847 crore. While only one player opted for the bidding process last year due to high prices, the BSNL was given no choice to opt for circles and forced to pay Rs.8,000 crore for pan-India licence (barring Delhi and Mumbai circles where MTNL operates). And this is when the State-owned company suffered a loss of over Rs.1,800 crore in the last fiscal, a first in the company's history.

For BWA services, most private operators have shown interest in adopting LTE (long term evolution) technology due to its high-speed and greater efficiency. But the BSNL has been allocated band on which it cannot launch LTE services. While private operators can use both WiMax and LTE technologies, the BSNL will have no road map for LTE, which is being dubbed as the technology of future.

The BSNL has been allocated BWA spectrum in higher frequency range (2.6 GHz) against lower frequency radio waves (2.3 GHz) given to private players. Lower frequency means better services and less capital expenditure on infrastructure. Here too, the BSNL's position is being compromised compared to its competitors. Even if the BSNL uses allocated spectrum for WiMAX services, it will not get the advantage of economy of scale globally. With the telecom industry more focused towards LTE, its equipment are likely to be cheaper in future.

And it is not all. The Department of Telecommunications has found something amiss in the roll out of BWA services by the BSNL. Its top management has reportedly allowed “cheap access” to some “shell companies” to its precious resources, including costly BWA spectrum in metros (for which the BSNL paid Rs.8,000 crore to government), 50,000 mobile towers and 20,000 of its offices.

While ordering a detailed inquiry into alleged irregularities in the selection of WiMax franchisees in 2010, currently being conducted by DoT's Finance Wing, Communications and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal noted that “these shell companies are more interested in selling their stake to potential buyers rather than broadband network roll out.”

Welcoming the inquiry into the alleged scandal, Sanchar Nigam Executive Association General Secretary G.L. Jogi alleged that the BSNL top management changed rules and regulations after the bid was finalised.

“All these steps would not only hit the competitiveness of the BSNL, it would further deteriorate financial condition of the State-owned company. We have urged Mr. Sibal to scrap this deal and also give the BSNL choice to operate from circles of its choice for financial viability,” he said.

“We have informed about all these anomalies to the Minister. While the BSNL paid Rs.8,000 crore for BWA spectrum, these handpicked companies were gifted all prime circles for operations and given concessions for making payments. ,” Mr. Jogi added.

Aircel to launch 3G services by early January (India)

Aircel is planning to launch 3G services in the country by early January next year.

According to Aircel Chief Operating Officer Gurdeep Singh, the company will launch 3G services by early January 2011. Aircel had bagged 3G spectrum in 13 out of the 22 telecom circles. Singh added that Aircel will comply with all government regulations.

In recent times, Aircel had given contract for launching 3G network infrastructure to equipment maker Ericsson in six circles. Other telcos, who got 3G spectrum, like Tata Docomo, the GSM arm of Tata Teleservices had already launched the services. Besides, Tata, Airtel has also announced to launch its 3G services by the end of this year.

Aircel is a mobile phone service provider in India. It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout India. Aircel is a joint venture between Maxis Communications of Malaysia and Apollo Hospital Enterprise Ltd of India. UTSB has a 74% stake in Aircel and the remaining 26% is with Apollo Hospitals. It is India’s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider with a subscriber base of over 46.51 million, as of September 30, 2010.

Aircel Launches 3G Zones In Chennai

Aircel has launched 3G experience zones in Chennai, to allow customers to experience high speed data connectivity. The experience zones have been launched at four locations in Chennai: Atrium2, Spencers Plaza; Fun City, Express Avenue; Atrium Citi Centre; & Aircel Store, PH road. In terms of services on offer, Aircel is offering demos of IVVR (Interactive Video Voice Response), Aircel 3G PocketInternet portal and Video calls. I’m quite keen on taking a look at how they’re going to deploy mHealth with Apollo Hospitals.

Mobile VAS company IMI Mobile* informs us that they’re powering the Interactive Voice & Video Response (IVVR; Video Portal) and 3G PocketInternet service, and have inked a deal to power full scale deployment for the service once it is rolled out. The company says that the content published will be categorized, and made discoverable through full text search, apart from other discovery mechanisms such as automatic recommendations, top rated content and most viewed. Ideally, they should look to incorporate social recommendations and sharing via Twitter, Facebook and Orkut, as well as SMS, and perhaps even surface ‘most shared’ content. Discovery of content is the main challenge for mobile services, and has been for a while.

It’s particularly interesting to note that for users with 3G SIM’s, Aircel will direct users to a separate on-deck WAP portal which will surface high data consumption content like video streaming and video on demand services. 3G, it is expected, will be all about video.

Aircel has 3G spectrum in 13 circles, and has paid Rs. 6499.46 crore for the spectrum. Remember that apart from 3G, Aircel has also paid Rs. 3438.01 crore for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum in eight circles. In Chennai (and Tamil Nadu), they have both BWA and 3G spectrum.

So that’s at least one of the 3G deals closed. Remember that OnMobile Global had acquired Dilithium Networks in the hope of closing those deals.

Tata DoCoMo 3G Tariff Plans Announced

The first privately held company unveils Tariff Plans for 3G Services in India.

Tata DoCoMo had launched third-generation GSM telephony services dubbed as 3G Live in India last week. Now, the company has revealed the tariff details for Basic 3G Plans, Data Plans and even Voice+Data plans for consumers in nine Indian circles. 

Telecom Talk has put up the tariff plans for TATA DoCoMo's 3G Life services. 

Tata Docomo 3G services are available in all the nine circles where it has the 3G license-Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra-Goa. All plans announced would be effective from November 10 in the aforementioned nine circles. Now let's take a look at different 3G Life plans announced by Tata DoCoMo. 

For those who just want to try out 3G Data plans can look out for 3G Data Top-ups which are basic data packs. To begin or experience 3G, one can go for Data Top Up of " Rs. 90 that offers 100MB usage at 21Mbps with a validity of a week. Furthermore if you want to try it out for a month (30 Days) you can go for:

- Rs. 200 Top-up with 200MB usage at 21Mbps 
- Rs. 500 Top-up with 650MB usage at 21Mbps
- Rs. 2000 Top-up for unlimited usage at 21Mbps till 15GB of download and then the speed drops to 256Kbps.

Also, a typical Video Call would cost 0.66 paise per second which sums up to almost 39.6 paise per minute. We're sure you'd rather go for video chat over the Internet connection because Video calls over 3G would require more bandwidth. Unless you don't care for the bills, Video calling is going to be a costly affair.

Small Screen Voice and Data Plans:
Meant for 3G supporting smartphones, these plans are available for both Pre-paid and Post-paid Tata DOCOMO subscribers. Check out the plan tariffs below:

- In addition, there is also a plan available only on Prepaid for Rs." 350. This has 500 minutes (Local+STD) and 150 MB of 3G Data
- These minutes can be used for ALL local, STD and outgoing roaming calls-all calls are on a per-second pulse
- The options are designed at various price points to cater to different consumption levels
- The above voice call minutes and 3G Data plans have a validity of 30 days
- Plans available in both Post-paid and Pre-paid, so customers can choose their payment preference


Unlimited 3G Life:
Carefree Internet users who seek blazing fast browsing as well as download speeds without worrying about the bills should take a look at the Unlimited 3G Life Plans. 

High Speed 'Unlimited' 3G Data Card Plan for Rs. 2,000 has been announced wherein subscribers would get 15 GB of data usage at a speed of 21.1 Mbps and beyond 15 GB would be free 3G with lower speed of 128 kbps.

Tata DoCoMo certainly is bit costly as compared to the BSNL 3G Plans available today. Now we shall wait for other mobile operators including two telecom stalwarts - Airtel and Vodafone to roll out 3G services and reveal their 3G tariffs in the country. 

Internet Banking Risks In India

Online banking has become an essential necessity these days. It has many benefits but along with these benefits are also some problems. The biggest issue is to safeguard the customers from Phishing attacks and online frauds.


Cyber security of internet banking infrastructure of India is the need of the hour. Instances of theft of money through hacking of accounts of the accounts holders as well as by misleading them through Phishing attacks are fast becoming a trend in India.


India is also insisting upon a weaker encryption standard (40 bits encryption) for online transactions. This also applies to online banking. Surprisingly, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has not shown any protest against this weakening of online banking system of India.


According to Praveen Dalal, Managing Partner of Perry4Law and the leading techno-legal expert of India, the Information Technology Act 2008 has made most of the cyber crimes and cyber offences “bailable”. India has made its cyberspace a “free zone” and “safe heaven” for cyber criminals and cyber offenders. He says that now even after committing hacking in India a person would be entitled to “bail” as a matter of right. There is nothing that prevents such cyber criminals from committing cyber crimes in India in the absence of a deterrent law.


This has resulted in an increased spate of cyber crimes including hacking of the e-mail IDs of the Internet banking users and stealing of their money. Further, IT Act 2000 also does not deal with Phishing expressly.


India has also become one of the most endemic surveillance societies of the World. Confidential information is already vulnerable and with the proposed Indian plans of installing key loggers by law enforcement officers at cyber cafes, the same would exclude the use of cyber cafes for these purposes. Although cyber cafés are not a good place to transact confidential matters yet with a poor Internet penetration in India this may still happen, says Praveen Dalal.


With a weak cyber law, lack of cyber security awareness and increasing e-surveillance initiatives in India, Internet banking disputes are bound to increase in India. The government is least bothered about these issues and ultimately the account holders would have to bear the financial losses.


It is high time for the RBI to step in and do something constructive for protecting bank customers from hacking attacks and Phishing attacks. Till now RBI is escaping from its responsibilities in this regard.

BSNL starts fibre-to-the-home broadband services in Vadodara

After a month-long trial, the Bhartiya Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) on Friday launched the Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) technology in Vadodara. The new technology is expected to deliver high-speed broadband access without facing any technical problems and at considerably cheaper rates. Ramakant Sharma, General Manager of BSNL, Vadodara Circle, said the network has been built on the Gigabyte Passive Optical Technology (GPON) concept which will have the down-link speed of 2.5 Gbps and up-link speed of 1.25 Gbps.

“The single optical fibre will cater to 32 customers with high speed bandwidth. Now, BSNL will offer high speed broadband access up to 100 Mbps with facilities of multi-channel IPTV, video/audio on demand, interactive gaming, conferencing, high-speed lease line, voice services by using this technology,” he said.

He also added that the network is very useful technology to meet demands of new developing commercial and residential areas, corporate bulk demands. It is the latest technology and offers replacement to existing copper network with better reliability and high speed data transmission. When asked about the success of BSNL 3G services, Sharma said: “After we launched the services in July, we have given 3,500 new connections and converted more than 4,000 2G connections into 3G connections.”