3G + BWA Auction – Financial Readiness + Telecom Cabal in India
Insiders are confirming that the 3G auctions are likely to be held before the end of the current financial year, March-2010 even though there is no clarity on 2G license and spectrum for foreign bidders and the issue of incremental spectrum allocation. It is a bit surprising to me that despite the fact 3G and BWA auction proceeds are likely to fall short of initial estimates, Government is keen on the auction.
For Telecom companies, which are burning cash faster than ever in the ongoing Tariff war, having a sound Balance Sheet is a must as my analysis and channel checks suggest that there will be aggressive bidding in few select circles. However, on PAN India basis, for now assume no foreign telcos throw their hat, weak / overstretched balance sheets by Idea, RCom and new operators will keep the bids more realistic. Read more
Wireless Connections @ 500mn – Tata DoCoMo’s Per Second Billing Magic Continues
If you are from the Advertising & Marketing background, then you’ve gotta to love how Tata DoCoMo changed the entire marketing strategies of all the Wireless Operators in the second largest Market in the world [in terms of subscriber numbers] Tata DoCoMo continues to lead the number of Wireless Connections sold in India for the fourth consecutive month. It is a commendable job by a new operator [ most additions are on GSM and not in Tata Indicom, CDMA] The number of Wireless Connections added by Tata DoCoMo in the last 4 months are as follows – August – 3.41 mn, Sept-4.0 mn, Oct-3.86mn, Nov-3.32mn. TCS’ Ramadorai has already dropped the bombshell Read more
BSNL Karnataka Wireless Operations 42% below National Average
I happen to get access to BSNL Wireless Usage Data, of course 5 months old, its that of June-09 quarter. I just wanted to get the numbers on how Post-Paid customers usage compared to pre-paid and then with the National Average. 7% of the subscribers are post-paid while the remaining 93% are pre-paid. Post-Paid customers MOU was 613.5 while that of Pre-Paid was mere 230.83 for one month in the June Quarter. Thus, BSNL Karantaka Circle’s Wireless MOU Per Month in June Quarter was 257. Now compare this to the National Average of 454 MoU as reported by TRAI [Refer #10] and 478 as reported by Bharti Airtel – making Karnataka BSNL GSM Operations running 42% below the National Average. So where are the BSNL Employees / Unions now, who are directly responsible for the current state of affairs ? Read more
Abhu Dhabi Group Liquidating Warid Telecom Holding – Bharti Airtel bids
The Abu Dhabi group led by Sheikh Mabarak Al Nahayan is liquidating its holding in Warid Telecom to stabilize the new Epicenter of financial crisis, Dubai. Warid Telecom is a JV with SingTel and has services in Bangladesh and Pakistan as well. However, only the stake of Bangladesh operations is on the block.
SingTel the natural ally of Bharti Airtel is likely to let the deal through if all necessary clearance are obtained or the former may also raise its stake from the current 30%. Warid Telecom has mere 3 million subscribers compared to Airtel’s 116 mn.
How much is Warid Telecom Worthy of ? Bharti Airtel being the superior Wireless Carrier in India by all means Read more
Tata Photon+ TV – Triple Play towards Reality + Content Vs Network
In an interview to IT Magazine in Jan-08, I had said that Triple Play in India was more of Hype as it was mostly restricted to selected few. However, Tata Photo+ TV powered by EVDO based Wireless Broadband network and Apalya / Mimobi TV is worth looking at, though it’ll take sometime for them to match the quality of Dish TV service providers. It is available in 69 cities across India with roaming facility and that’s quite a good number, in my view 
Reliance, BSNL and MTS providing EVDO based wireless broadband services should start upgrading their networks as they are far behind Tata Photon+. Read more
Wireless Tariff War – Scope for More + Multi SIM a Mass Reality India
At the beginning of this quarter, Reliance Communications took a daredevil step from the incumbent pack and introduced the Simple Reliance Tariffs forcing others to have a re-look at their Tariff plans and thus began a full fledged Mobile Tariff War. I then told that Simple Reliance is a great tariff plan and their was scope for more innovative tariff structures. To satiate my judgment, I ran a small survey on this blog for over 2 weeks and broadly 128 voters think like I did
- 50% approved that Simple Reliance is their favorite plan
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