Alcatel is the latest entrant in the Indian mobile handset industry. Alcatel’s handsets will be launched as the result of a partnership between TCT Mobile (which will operate in India under the brand name Alcatel) and Dutch company ICE Mobile Network Systems, hence the handsets will be co branded Alcatel ICE. Hong Kong-based Alcatel has debuted in India with its handset named Alcatel ICE3 which comes with social networking features. The phone is priced at Rs 7,000.
MS Malik, director, ICE Mobile Network Systems told Telecom Yatra. “We are planning to launch three new Alcatel handsets in the next two months and reach a total of five handsets in our portfolio by July.”
The company is targeting a presence of at least a million handsets in the Indian market within a span of six months. Malik added, “We are targeting young people who are tech savvy and are looking for latest technology and style statement. The handsets would be priced starting from Rs 3,000 up to Rs 15,000. We will also be including 3G handsets in our product portfolio.”
Talking about Alcatel’s presence in the handset market, Praveen Valecha, country manager, Alcatel Mobile, said, “Alcatel has been in mobile business for a long time. Globally we are among the top 10 vendors in mobile telephony.”
Valecha said that the company intends to be aggressive in its marketing campaigns. It aims to rank amongst the top three mobile handset providers in Qwert, email and multimedia handset categories in India, by 2012.
The company has signed on actress Kangana Ranaut as its brand ambassador. “Kangana has a special appeal which is fashion and style and definitely she matches coolness of ICE… We are promoting our product 360 degrees and it will be available via 10,000 counters in next three months,” added Valecha.
TCT Mobile is a Hong Kong based mobile phone design house and manages two brands: TCL and Alcatel.
ICE Mobile Network Systems has been in the Indian market for 25 years and has a wide distribution network for fixed lines, wireless phones, data cards, reverse logistics and mobile phones.
Alcatel to enter Indian handset market with three models
MTNL launches 3G mobile TV streaming service
Alcatel-Lucent, the French communications solutions provider, and Aksh Optifibre, a Delhi-based IPTV service provider, have announced the launch of India’s first 3G-based mobile TV streaming service. The new service will be offered exclusively by MTNL to its subscribers in Delhi and Mumbai.
To enable the mobile TV service, Alcatel-Lucent will provide its Packet Video Streaming Server, which is a solution to launch video services on 2.5G and 3G networks. The solution also helps monetise the mobile TV service by providing open interfaces that enable ad insertion for any mobile video application.
A spokesperson from Alcatel-Lucent told Telecom Yatra, “This is the first time that a 3G-based streaming service has been launched in the country and Alcatel Lucent is providing the platform for this service.”
He added that Aksh will be working on ad insertion solutions with its existing IPTV service i-control, which allows multiple ways of ad insertion. “Ad insertions in live TV will not be possible as broadcasters will not allow it but in video-on-demand, classified ads and location-specific ads can be placed,” the spokesperson said.
Aksh Optifibre is an optical network solution provider with presence in Fibre to the Home (FTTH) solution, broadband, IPTV and VoIP services.
Motorola in trials to launch SIMs that support multiple numbers
Motorola, the USA-based communications company, said it is in discussion with operators in India for trials of iSIM (intelligent SIM) solutions. The Motorola iSIM platform enables a phone to support up to four IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) profiles or phone numbers, without changing the SIM card. These numbers could be of one or many operators. iSIM also has a smart dialer feature which allows each button on the keypad to be programmed to dial a particular phone number. It can also be used for sales force automation and for Messaging within an enterprise.
In an email response to Telecom Yatra, Tarvinder Singh, director of marketing and product management, networks enterprise mobility solutions and networks, Motorola India, said, “Motorola iSIM is a flexible and powerful platform that helps mobile operators and enterprises to enable mobile lifestyle experiences effectively and efficiently. It is based on a flexible wafer that can be attached to the subscriber’s original SIM providing additional services that can be controlled via SIM tool kit (STK), allowing third party developers to build applications and services.”
iSIM comes with a parental control service that can be used to restrict the usage of facilities on the phone at any particular time. The restriction can be extended to particular websites, numbers etc. It also enables secure mobile banking and can be used as a credit card as it has built in secure ID, and also NFC (near field communication) capability.
Singh said, “iSIM provides significant value proposition for end-users and also to various industry verticals like enterprises, banks, financial institutions, telecom, retail etc. It makes it easier for end users to have a seamless experience without replacing mobile device or SIM card.”
Motorola’s iSIM is compatible with all SIM cards and is a 0.4 mm thick wafer added on a SIM.
Commenting on the response that Motorola has received for iSIM, Singh said, “Overall, responses are positive. It is an innovative way to drive new applications with lower subscriber acquisition cost and low replacement cost while supporting multiple business models.”
The company recently announced the commercial deployment of iSIM with Bipper, a Norwegian mobile web solutions company, in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region and it is also running active trials in China.
Airtel brings live aarti to mobiles
Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of Live Aarti service for its subscribers. Airtel subscribers will now be able to listen to live prayers from some places of worship in India which include Tirupati Balaji, Sidhi Vinayak, Shri Shirdi Sai Baba and Bangla Sahib.
In a press statement, the company claimed it was the first service on mobile offering live puja. Users need to call on different numbers from their mobiles for subscribing to different shrines and have to pay Rs 5 as a onetime membership fee along with a daily subscription charge of Rs 2 per shrine. Through the Live Aarti, Airtel users can listen to the Kalyanotsayam Tirumala, Arjita Brahmotsavan and Sahasra Depalankarana from Tirupati Balaji; Kaakad Aarti and Shaam ki Aarti from Sidhi Vinayak and Kaakad Aarti, Abhishek and Satyanarayan Puja from Shirdi Sai Baba.
Devotional sermons from temples such as the Golden Temple, Vaishno Devi, Kashi Vishwanath, Har ki Podi, Nathdwara, Patna Sahib Gurudwara and Puri Jagannath will shortly be included in the service. The press release stated that the operator would soon include all other religions and cover other places of worship across India.
Airtel was earlier offering a similar service wherein subscribers could select devotional songs available in multiple languages, to set them as wake-up call alerts on their landlines or mobile phones. The company also provides content on spiritual gurus and institutions such as Iskcon and Art of Living foundation.
Currently, operators such as Vodafone and Reliance Communications are also offering devotional VAS either directly through voice or through their WAP sites using dial-in and subscriptions.
Vodafone provides devotional alerts through SMS and voice in the form of verses from the Bible and shlokas from Hindu scriptures. Vodafone users can also dial certain service numbers to listen to Gurbani, devotional songs, prayers and Osho’s philosophy. They can also get quotes by the Pope.
Reliance Communications also has a portfolio of devotional services on offer. The company provides prayer alarms and other voice based services such as Geeta Sar (verses from the Bhagwad Geeta), Gurbani, Bible, Mukhwak, Nineam, as well as packs which include complete festive darshan from temples on mobile phones.
RCom launches story voice portal for children
Pan India GSM and CDMA services provider Reliance Communications has announced a new value added service (VAS) where it would make children’s stories available on a voice portal. The story portal will retell some popular Indian stories which include Tenali Raman, Panchatantra ki Kahaniyan, Vikram aur Betal, Ramayan, Shri Krishna Bal Leela, Mahabharat and Tale Toon.
Customers can listen to stories at Rs 3 per minute. They can also set these tales as their caller tunes for Rs 10 per story. The portal offers stories in various languages including English, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Gujarati and Punjabi.
Anil Pande, head, value added services, Reliance Communications, said in a press statement, “It is always a happy and delightful reflection for any individual who has been associated to these tales as a child. The essence of these stories lie in their timelessness as, even today, they can be enjoyed by kids and adults alike. We are pleased to recreate this experience on our voice portal and let them (our subscribers) take a trip down memory lane.” Pande was not available for further comments.
Although, mobile users already have access to these stories in the form of mobile comics, with this story portal RCom users can listen to the stories as well. Mobile comics are offered by various operators including Vodafone, Tata Docomo and Airtel.
Uninor to launch services in 5 more hubs within 3 months
Uninor, a joint venture between Unitech and Norway’s Telenor, said it is planning to start services in five more hubs (each hub includes a few circles), within the next three months.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Allan Bonke, executive vice president, Delhi hub, Uninor, said, “Since we operate as hubs, we are planning to get five more hubs within the next three months.”
The company holds a pan-India unified access service license to offer mobile telephony service in each of India’s 22 circles. It has also received spectrum to roll out these services in 21 of the 22 circles. At present, its services are available in the eight circles of UP (West), UP (East), Bihar, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.
Uninor has been active on voice but has not been doing much on the VAS front. Bonke said, “In the future, you will see a lot of VAS coming from us. We have VAS already, but it is very small. We will be doing a lot but I can’t tell anything right now. It will be a surprise for both our customers and competitors.”
The operator has not followed its competitors to launch per second and per minute billing. Bonke says, “Our tariffs have been a big success in India. We did not take to per second billing as we thought that it is not going to be a differentiator for us. We want to be competitive but we would like to do it at a fast speed and cost effectively. We want to have competitive tariffs.”
Uninor currently has more than 200,000 retailers across India and says that over 90 per cent of its retail presence is complete.
The company is targeting an eight per cent market share in India by 2018. Uninor has recently received the fourth and final investment of about Rs 2,000 crore from Telenor. In all, Telenor has injected more than Rs 6,000 crore of new equity into the company.
Nearly 14 mn additions take GSM subscriber base to 421 mn
As per the figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) on GSM subscribers for March, almost 14 million new subscribers were added in the month, taking the GSM subscriber base to 421.86 million.
Maximum additions came from Circle B with close to 5.8 million GSM additions. Circle B had shown maximum GSM subscriber addition in the month of February as well with 5.5 million additions. Circle A registered about 4.6 million additions while circle C and the metros added 2.4 million and over 1.2 million subscribers, respectively.
The figures also show that UP (East) registered maximum additions at almost 1.5 million new subscribers. This was followed by Tamil Nadu (excluding Chennai) with over 1.1 million additions and Bihar with a million new subscribers. Bihar had registered the highest number of additions in February with nearly 1.3 million additions.
Among operators, Vodafone registered the maximum number of additions at over 3.6 million, taking its subscriber base to almost 101 million. Bharti Airtel, with an additional 3 million subscribers remained at the top with a total subscriber base of about 127.6 million. BSNL, Aircel and Idea Cellular added nearly 2.5 million, 2 million and 1.7 million subscribers, respectively.
While S Tel, a new entrant, added about 280,000 subscribers to reach the one million subscribers mark, Uninor, which is also a relatively new operator, had 700,000 additions as compared to 1 million subscriber additions in February.
According to TRAI, Circle A consists of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Maharashtra and Goa. Circle B comprises Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), West Bengal, Sikkim and Lakshadweep. Circle C comprises Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Assam, the North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. The metros are Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
Mobile TV: The global experience (Part 2)
The mobile TV market has witnessed significant growth, globally, over the past few years. Apart from India, mobile TV is currently offered in South Korea, Japan, Africa, USA, Europe, China, Malaysia and Brazil, among other countries. Mobile TV services have been launched in a limited area around the world and only to a targeted audience.
As per a February report by market research company RNCOS, the number of mobile TV subscribers in the world is expected to grow by 45 per cent between 2009 and 2013 and it is predicted to touch 450 million by the end of 2013. The report also says that Asia Pacific will dominate the global mobile TV market and constitute around 67 per cent of the global mobile TV subscriber base by 2013.
South Africa’s Vodacom had launched the first mobile TV service on 3G handsets in December 2005. In June 2009, Nokia Siemens Networks started offering UAE-based mobile TV provider DM TV with a digital video broadcasting handheld (DVB-H) solution in Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and Nigeria.
In South Korea, mobile TV is largely divided into satellite digital mobile broadcast (DMB) and terrestrial DMB. Although satellite DMB initially had more content, terrestrial DMB has gained much wider popularity because it is free and is included as a feature in most mobile handsets sold in the country today.
Japan started offering mobile TV services in 2006 and broadcasters Nippon Television, Fuji Television and TV Asahi were among the companies that signed partnerships with mobile operators. According to Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Crampton, “In Japan, regulation saying that broadcasts to mobile must be the same as those on TV was lifted in 2008. Thus, a key driver for new media platforms is exclusive content that people can’t get anywhere else. There is another Japanese law that stops people recording (TV) programs in their homes, but allows them to do so using their mobile phones. While broadcasters transmit their channels live, many people are watching TV on their mobiles in a non-linear way.”
In April 2007, broadcasters in the USA joined together with the intention of introducing a single standard for device manufacturers to deliver mobile TV. This move brought Samsung and LG together in a partnership. In May 2008, the two companies announced their plan to take a possible mobile TV standard to the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ASTC), which establishes standards for digital TV transmission. In December 2008, the ATSC published ATSC Mobile DTV as a possible standard and after six months, this standard was made final. As of now, some TV stations in Chicago, Washington DC and other States are broadcasting ATSC Mobile DTV as trials. The group has announced it will perform consumer trials in Washington DC, and more tests will take place in 2009 and early 2010, with products expected to hit the market in 2010.
Recently, some broadcasters in the USA announced that they are forming a joint venture to develop a national mobile service, including live and on-demand video, local and national news and entertainment from both TV and print companies, and that they will pool spectrum to be able to reach about 150 million USA-based consumers. Their goal is for broadcasters to be able to transmit the same TV signals that they do today, to mobile devices such as phones, cars and portable consumer electronics, without much financial investment. This is expected to further assist the growth of mobile TV there.
Samsung launches handsets integrated with mobile TV
The Korean handset manufacturing giant has announced two new variants of its Corby CDMA and Metro series phones – Corby TV and Metro TV. Both the handsets are CDMA devices and will support SIM cards of all CDMA service providers.
The devices also come integrated with Broadband mobile TV capabilities, hence the name Corby TV and Metro TV. The handsets come with an application MimobiTV which will allow users to watch live or recorded video content. The App has been developed by Apalya Technologies, a mobile TV provider in India.
Corby TV supports mobile TV streaming of both CDMA 1X and EVDO 3G mobile technologies. The handset is OMH (open market handset) enabled and supports all CDMA network providers who support the service. Corby TV and Metro TV support over 40 live channels and over 10 other on demand channels enabling the user to watch their favorite channels even while they are mobile.
In a press statement, Ranjit Yadav, director, mobile and IT, Samsung India Electronics, said, “Consumers can even watch the ongoing cricket matches live on their Corby TV.”
In fact, for Corby Speed users Samsung also offers free software upgrade to Corby TV. Metro TV boasts of mobile broadband capabilities of up to 2.4 Mbps and multimedia downloads directly to the Micro SD, or memory card.
While the Corby TV is priced at Rs 9,699, the Metro will be available for Rs 6,999. Other than this, Samsung has also introduced some promotional offers for Tata Photon Plus and Reliance Mobile users who wish to buy the latest devices.
Tata Photon Plus users can avail free Mobile TV subscription for 3 months from the date of activation plus 15 GB free data usage per month, up to 2 months for postpaid and 10 GB data usage free for 2 months on prepaid.
Reliance mobile users will be offered free mobile TV subscription for 2 months from the date of activation plus up to 15 GB free data usage per month, up to 2 months for postpaid and up to 10 GB free data usage for 1 month for prepaid users.
With 3G round the corner, hopes up for mobile TV (Part 1)
The Indian telecom industry is awaiting 3G rollout this year and many services are expected to gain traction once the advanced network is in place. Mobile TV is one of these.
There is no better illustration of the mobile TV opportunity in India than the interest generated by the Indian Premier League (IPL). The cricket tournament attracted over 500,000 subscribers on the IPL mobile site in less than 15 days with over 30,000 users accessing it simultaneously. Apalya Technologies, a mobile TV service provider in India, feels the industry is poised for the big leap. Sathyajit Divakaran, vice president, sales and marketing, Apalya Technologies, says, “The action is already on. Over four million views have happened in this short time.” Apalya is the exclusive live mobile video provider of the IPL for three years.
The Indian government recently gave approval to 74 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in this industry and has also accepted the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI’s) recommendation that the service provider should have freedom to choose the technology for this service. Moreover, 3G auctions have begun and telcos will soon start rolling out their next generation networks.
These new developments have made the industry quite optimistic about the growth of mobile TV in India.
Divakaran is of the view that if there are any constraints, they are purely network related. “The launch of 3G by private operators is going to make all the difference. The hockey stick curve is waiting to take off. Content partners also need to understand the huge scope of this technology and the advantages of reaching the customers early on this platform,” he added.
A player in the digital pay TV space, UK-based NDS Group, echoes this. Alan Dishington, general manager, NDS India, says, “The advent of 3G in India is for sure going to heavily drive mobile TV in India and will make this market quite attractive not only for service and content providers but for technology enablers too. Mobile TV will emerge over the next few years to grow to a value of more than $50 billion globally by 2013. The rapidly growing 3G market and continually declining operators’ average revenue per user ( ARPU) from conventional services will be the key factors in propelling the growth of global mobile TV market.”
On the future of mobile TV in India, Dishington said, “At the outset, Indian metros and urban cities would be the target with the gradual penetration to other semi-urban towns and cities. Precisely after overcoming primary obstacles related to 3G policy; spectrum allocation; cost of mobile TV enabled handsets; content management for mobile TV and speed of video streaming, the technology is projected to be a huge success in India.”
An Idea Cellular spokesperson told Telecom Yatra, “Mobile TV service is gaining popularity in India but there is still tremendous scope of better user experience which can be enabled with high speed mobile broadband. The off-take of mobile TV service is likely to go up in India with increased awareness, coupled with expansion of network. The introduction of 3G services will further strengthen the delivery capability of mobile TV services.”
Mobile TV enables transmission of on demand, recorded and live television content to a mobile phone. It can either be through broadcast or by streaming of content by a mobile operator on a user’s handset. In streaming, low Bandwidth causes the mobile TV experience to be hindered if multiple handsets are accessing the same programme at the same time. In a normal scenario, there are several players who work in the mobile TV business such as content and broadcast companies, mobile service providers, infrastructure providers, handset manufacturers and technology providers. All these players work together to enable TV viewing on mobile phones.
Speaking on mobile TV technologies suited for India, Dishington said that video streaming technology has been identified as one of the key factors driving the growth of mobile TV in India. The fact has also been stated in Global Mobile TV Forecast to 2013, a report by Indian research firm RNCOS. According to the report, the number of mobile TV subscribers globally using streaming technology will constitute around 53 per cent of the total mobile TV subscriber base by the end of 2013, up from around 46 per cent at the end of 2009.
“Several technologies such as DVBH (digital video broadcasting – handheld) and RTSP (real time streaming protocol) ) support mobile TV service. However, a lot is dependent on the handset being used to access the service. Since the display capabilities of mobile phones is not the same as traditional TV screens, the content needs to be formatted before delivery. The service is restricted to high-end handsets, so far, which support live video streaming capabilities. Capabilities of the network and handset are equally important for a rich consumer experience,” added the Idea spokesperson.
Among telecom operators, mobile TV services are currently being offered by Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Tata Indicom, Aircel, BSNL and Airtel. Idea TV by Idea Cellular works on the GPRS network and allows both prepaid and postpaid subscribers to watch channels such as Times Now, Zoom, TV9, MaaTV, India TV and CNBC. There are three rental plans – Rs 10 per day, Rs 50 per channel per month and Rs 150 for all channels per month.
Another key operator, Vodafone, provides TV clips on mobile phones through Vodafone Live, the operator’s mobile site, and also allows users to receive TV listings on their GPRS-enabled handsets. Aircel offers 31 channels through its mobile TV service and subscribers are required to pay a monthly rental of Rs 49 for unlimited usage. BSNL, along with Apalya, provides TV to those of its EDGE/GPRS customers who use a GSM phone, at the same tariff as Idea does. Apalya has tied up with media companies like NDTV, AajTak, Cartoon Network, Times Now, Zoom, Bindass, ETV, TV9, India Vision, MaaTV, India TV and CNN-Mobile to deliver content for an end to end mobile TV and video solution to BSNL’s customers. It offers both live TV and on demand video services.