Revenue Breakup of Indian Telecom Operators
This is the first time I am able to see the revenues of Vodafone India, which really is very impressive. Wireless operations account for the bulk of revenues for these Telcos as already seen from Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications results. Here is a quick comparison on how various verticals stack amongst the Top five Telcos in India. All figures in INR, Million for Q1-FY2009.
Vodafone India without operations in any of the Category – “C” Circles is managing to have the second largest pie in Wireless revenues. BSNL with highest spectrum in its kitty has put up a dismal performance so has Reliance Communications with one of the best PAN India telecom infrastructure.
Bharti Airtel has become the largest carrier of ILD / NLD traffic beating Tata communications, erstwhile VSNL and state owned BSNL. It will be really interesting to watch how this breakup will change post DTH, IPTV and 3G launch in India. Any guess ?
2G GSM Spectrum Allocation in India
Here is the latest 2G GSM spectrum allocation chart, circle wise and operator wise. BSNL and MTNL have the maximum 2G spectrum, at least 10 MHz in each circle. Karnataka the Billion Dollar [FY 09 Topline Expectations] Telecom circle for Bharti Airtel is the most sought after 2G Wirless circle with 69.2 Mhz of spectrum being collectively allocated to various operators. The following chart shows spectrum allocated to BSNL, MTNL, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular with Spice. [Grey areas cells indicate service not yet operational]
The following chart shows 2G GSM Wireless Spectrum allocation to New Operators. [RCom GSM, Swan, Datacom, Loop/BPL, Aircel and Unitech. 
Update: Complete 2G GSM and CDMA Spectrum Allocation Circle-wise Data is Available here
CDMA Vs GSM – Case for RCom to Migrate to GSM
I first pointed out last year that RCom was seriously considering to switching to GSM Wireless network when CDMA Operators talks with Qualcomm were deadlocked [supervised by then IT Minsister, Mr. Maran] However, Mr. Ambani himself has denied in the past two conference calls, that CDMA will be turned off . Surprisingly, mosts analysts [with/without interaction with the company] have been releasing reports making strong financial case for RCom and Tata Indicom to switch-over to GSM and completely switch-off CDMA networks.
Another strong case for RCom to consider complete switching to GSM is, the ARPU is sustaining very well and even increasing as time goes by for GSM operators[Bharti Airtel]. The lowering of voice tariffs has seen an increase in MOU, however the same is not true in case of CDMA, especially RCom because of the free On-Net calls as well as positioning the phone as poor man’s device. This clear divergence is hurting the CDMA companies and hence their desperation to eat the GSM pie.
With spectrum being a scarce resource, CDMA incumbents GSM dreams may not be a smooth take-off. In such a scenario I would say RCom and Tata Indicom will continue to run on dual networks with higher CAPEX.
Internet Telephony set to be Legal within India
TRAI has released recommendations [DoT is likely to accept them with some modifications] permitting ISPs to offer unrestricted internet telephony [permitting them to terminate calls on PSTN/PLMN networks]. Until now only international VoIP telephony was legal. NLD operators shall be permitted to connect to public internet and shall have mutual agreement for unrestricted telephony.
Telephone numbering scheme from identified blocks to be made available for internet telephony. Shortcomings of the recommendations are, Emergency Number calling and Quality of service are not mandated.
In 1999-2000, NLD / STD Tariff per minute was Rs 30 and today it is at Rs 1.0 which is likely to fall further with the introduction of VoIP telephones. By 2010, you will have unlimited / heavy calling plans [5,000 minutes or Night Weekend Free Calling] on your mobile within India 
Update: It is likely that most Telecom companies will introduce calling cards where they will route the traffic on IP networks thus enabling them to launch products faster into the market.
Toxic Writer Blog Vs Gremach – Where is Freedom of Speech ?
[I normally don't write about Freedom of Speech, but however I feel this topic is worth writing as we move forward how Indian citizens may lose their Right to Freedom of Speech on the only affordable and mass media - "Internet"]
The Indian media is flush with reports about court orders obtained by Gremach Infrastructure nailing down an anonymous blogger [blogging on Google's Blogspot] Toxic Writer for messages against the companies mining activities in Mozambique. Google has budged to the order already [well it has to do business in India and has to obey to the court orders] and removed the blog http://toxicwriter.blogspot.com [I believe this is where Toxic Writer blogged] I have two interesting screen shots [Skeletal remains in Google's own cache]
The following image describes an Investor trapped into the falling stock price of Gremach Infra. [Stock price has fallen by over 81% in 6 months, solid case for destruction of Investor Wealth]
From my research I have the following observations to make,
1. This blog doesn’t have any incoming links [None of the engines show this] Could that be GYM have purged cache and all links referring to it?
2. Doesn’t have any references anywhere [Not even in other engines (Ask, Archive, Exalead, Blogsearch, Digg, etc) no where, hard to believe] This tells me that the blog was not the popular but why would Gremach run after this individual ? Did he publish something extremely sensitive information like in the movie “The Deal”. There is no Oil, but it’ll be there [from where ? Confederation of Arab States]
Articles in the press paint the picture of corporate rivalry [I am not sure]. However, if it is case of investigative journalism, the Government and the Media should actively try to investigate the facts and do justice. Case of hate message cannot be ruled out either since the author prefers to remain anonymous.
Message For Toxic Writer:
If you have all the facts straight, why don’t you host the content of your blog or your own domain ?
Update:
Here is another solid case of FreeSpeech. The Polyester Prince, biography of Dhirubhai Ambani which was banned [gotten banned ?] is widely available on the Internet [PDF]. Will be interesting to see if his sons will start chasing those individuals to get these copies removed.
160by2 opens Mobile Advertising Platform for MSME + Classifieds
160by2 – Free PC to Mobile and Mobile [GPRS Enabled] to Mobile SMS service provider has opened its Mobile Advertising platform to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises as well. When the service was introduced a year ago, big brands were the major Advertisers. The most popular Advertise on their network was of “Cadbury”.
The company has managed to send over 70 Million messages with a user base of 1.5mn users. Buoyed by this success, the company decided to open the platform for MSMEs as well as Individuals to post daily classifieds. 80 characters is available for SMS content and 80 characters is reserved for the Advertiser.
Registered users have been given a Credit of Rs 5,000 to use it for classifieds. 160by2 will post your classified as an inline Advertisement in the SMS as shown above. 160by2 also takes care of Geo-targeting and context analysis to make the Ad more effective. In our Random test, we found a hit-rate of 50% for Ad relevance and there is certainly scope for improvement in their Smart Match Ad Server Engine. Looks like they are all set to become a big platform.
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