MY BLOG : My experience 2010: Friends , Social Networking and Always ON

2010 for me has been year of being always online anywhere and anytime with information and my social freinds.

This has been enabled by :

- Mobile phone curently using Blackberry and wish to have iPhone this year. I wish one of u will present me this year.

-Access to always on Internet

-Access to applications ranging from email accounts , instant messengers (yahoo, msn), social netwokring sites (facebook, Linkedin, twitter).

Facebook has been interesting experience for me and I have been keenly following how powerful connected network of people can be . This social network if used smartly can provide one both social and professional edge over others.

This also brings to some key issues of being always on anywhere is addiction and this is one area where i believe i need to work on.

As parents its also important for us to handle information flow when our kids will be be part of social network .

- Give them exposure at correct age. All sites have recommended age to be part of facebook etc. Do adhere to it , dont think your kid will become smarter.

- Content control is most important , keep watch on contents accessed from computers and phones.

- Keep kids away form phone as much as possible.

- Even as parents we need education to handle information flow to our kids

Content creation has changed over years . facebook is an example of user created contents through wall post, pictures sharing . I have always been prudent to share relevant stuff as there is very thin line between personnal and public information.

Yes phones , social netwokorking are now part of our life and we must use it to best of our use rather then just to kill time. I aim to use facebook in 2011 to drive social work towards society which i have been planning to do for long. You will soon hear from me on this and appreciate support of all.

I look forward to conect to more friends , convert special fringe friends to special one and look forward to personally meeting friends , thanks to facebook which has helped in connecting to childhood , school, college, professional and old crush :)

JAI HIND and HAPPY 2011 TO ALL OF U

My BLOG: Wishing all a happy New year. Future 2011 Telecom & IT Watch

Year 2010 has seen many changes in the way Telecom and IT has evolved and year 2011 will be interesting to look forward. This blog focuses on Hits and misses for year 2010 and way forward for year 2011.

Hits for 2010
- Mobile Phone : Shift from featured phone to smartphones , leading the way with iPhone and now challenged by Google android.
- Mobile broadband penetration with anywhere and anytime access to Intenet driven by coverage and speed to access information.
- Customer Experience : Enhance user experience of content viewing on screens led by iPhone,iPAD revolution.
- Cloud computing adoptation by IT within enterprise realizing pay per use resources scalability.
- Software as service (SAAS) by small medium enterprises with salesforce.com leading the way.
- Popularity of user created contents demostrated by facebook popularity and recent Wikileaks controversy.
- Adoptation of mobile penetration for rural applications like crop market price, weather report , crop advice , rural insurance and financing.

Misses for 2010
- Sporadic Growth of mobile internet traffic resulting in capacity contraint on radio network impacting end user experience.
- Fall of Nokia in innovating with market and customer needs.
- Spectrum issues worldwide and high price of spectrum on 3G/4G.
- User experience and security on cloud computing .
- Apple undermining potential of developing economy resulting in Samsung and LG exploiting the market.

2011 will be the year of break and changes in business model . Some of the interesting things to look forward are :
- Pressure on mobile revenue and profits.
- Roll out of 3G and smartphone penetration in developing countries.
- major Adoptaion of cloud computing and SAAS by big enterprises. Major software vendors will have SAAS model as part of offerings.
- Evolution of LTE , clarity on WIMAX vs LTE postioning and roll out plans.
- Succes of chinese equipment players like Huwaia . ZTE over European and American. This year may have high impact.
- Leveraging mobility as enterprise workplace strategy.
- M2M proof of concept for smart grids, cities.
- Debate on freedom of information with Wikileaks controversy.

India has been forefront runner in adopting technology and evolving business model:
- Mobile broadband (3 G) penetration and evolution of products offering- Video calls, TV on mobile
- Adoptation of smartphones led by Samsung and unfortunately iPhone missing the trick.
- Pressure on average revenue per user (ARPU) for operators.
- New operators business level sustainability .
- Adoptation of cloud computing SAAS by enterprise.
- Clarity on long term telecom policy.

Wishing all my friends a happy new year and looking forward to your comments, suggestions .

My BLOG : Flexible Worksplace is the need of hour for creating competive edge , It requires organization culture change and IT readiness

We have been hearing about flexible workplace.
What is flexible workplace :
- Ability to access information from any geographical location .
- Ability to use any device ex laptop, desktop, tablets , mobile phones, smart phones. Earlier IT used to dictate devices used by end user , now employees dictates.
- Application availability and experience from any location .Applications used are changing from e-mail to access to sensitive information on ERP, CRM , Billing etc and video , voice conferencing to desktp sharing.

All the above is must to create virtual organization which offers flexible workspace.
Following advantages are seen of creating flexible workspace:
- Better work life balance
- Better attrition and ability to retain skilled manpower
- Better productivity
- Better collaboration across geography , skilled set and diverse teams.
- Infrastructure on space better optimzed

Not to forget traffic on street which kills productivity by killing travel time.This has seen one of the key reason of employees preferring offices to be nearby. Attrition due to trave time has become critical.

Challenges for organization:
- Shift in culture where hierarchy dictates physical presence
- Outcome/result oriented culture , trusting outcome being important as against when work is done.
This is more applicable to Indian organization.

Technology challenges:
- Borderless Access to information based on privileges form trusted and un trusted network. This could be critical applications within organization.
- Adoptability of applications to different access devices ranging from laptop , tablets to mobile phones (Feature phones and amart phones)
- User experience across geography on applications
- Adoptive behavior of applications whether changing codes for voice or video to adoptation on screen ranging from laptop to mobile phones

Flexible workspace has bigger impact on environment and society by :
- Reducing traffic thereby fuel consumption
- Load on infrastructure (roads, commercial space , trasportation)
- During HINI , organization with flexible workplace is better prepared , also during disrutive weather conditions.
- Not to mention helping in curbing spread of infectious disease and public safety

Even more is worklife balance , I know being in NCR how frustrating it is it is to live at one end of Noida , work in Gurgaon and vice versa. Its torture of new age lifestyle which takes away health and peace.
This may not be applicable to all type of work but some workplace flexibility is possible in all organization. Some organizations have become 100% virtual.
Need of hour is flexible workplace when technology can enable it then why not ?

My Blog: Wikileaks,Facebook etc are consumer created contents :News,status,photos etc !!! Is there need to regulate them or sensitizing users !!!

Success of Internet has been driven by freedom to access information. Intitial internet era was about contents being pushed to consumers.
Over couple of years this trend has changed a lot , no more contents are pushed to consumers but consumers have been creator of contents itself. This shift from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 is dominating Internet.

Success of Facebook and recently much in News Wikileaks is testimony to the fact that consumer has evolved in adopting Web 2.0 with contents created and shared by them.

This also brings interesting aspect of consumer sensitivity :
1. Wikileaks have been an open media with news generated by individuals and though it provides freedom to report and express but on other hand could be used to expoit if not authentic information published.

2. Facebook provided freedom to post on Wall , photos etc, its consumer who has to decide information to be shared.
There was example of cases where one was forthcoming in puting his travel plans and it ended up robbery at home.Similarly personnal issues if shsred , sometimes can be exploited.

As we move to new age of Internet where consumer created content , its pertinent to groom young generation in understanding issues . This requires special curriculum in schools and parenting.

Going beyond suggesting laws and punishment against someone enticing with wrong information needs new types of regulation .These new issues are beyong cyber crimes .Their is need to undersand complexity arising due to consumer based contents.

My Blog : Mobile phones can help save a farmer’s livelihood !!! Make better use of mobile phones in fight against poverty !!!

In more and more low income contries farmers have used mobile phones to improve livelihood. Over past few years penetration of mobile phones has surged from 2 to 25 per 100 inhabitants. Mobile is simple and affortable to be used by poor.

How Mobile can change life of poor farmers
1. Overcoming lack of information : Poor people often lack information that is vital for their work. This include current market price, weather conditions, advisory tips.

- Fishermen may have time to visit only one port while their catch is fresh. If buyer at the port are paying less money they must sell their. Mobile phones can provide information to select best option while still at sea. In southern India this has increased 10 % fishermen profit.

- Researchers in Phillipines use mobile to provide farmers with right information related to right amount of fertilizers resulting in maximising yield saving money and environment. Fertilizer represent 20 % of total cost. Too little use of fertilizer results in low yield and too high leads to wastage. Farmer can DIAL M and provide details of field size to get corrent usage of fertilizers.

2. Insurance and Payment through phones
- Imagine u own a small farm kenya and invested most of money in fertilizers and seeds. Draught sweeps and and you loose whole crop. Large farm has insurance but its expensive and requires assessment and inspection. Small farmer can nor efford this. To address to them following system was implemented : When u buy seeds, fertilizers use mobile to capture picture of barcode. Send this as MMS it registers seeds etc purchased against farmer mobile numebr.Solar power weather stations monitor condition. This determines if weather is severe to impact crops. If crop fails because of draught and u have registered fertilizer etc then insrance is paid bypassing costly inspection and assessment process.

Government Role
Government of India has to take full advantage of mobile technology and bring innovative usage of mobile in rural India. This includes correct- timely information, Insurance , Direct seeling to markey , mobile phone as bank/payment system.
Its an opportunity to lift poverty and livelihood of people but it requires innovation , proper policies and strategy . Government has to act as enabler.
There would be no harm in having separate commitee like UID team whose focus is to enable mobile adoptation and applications for rural population.

My Blog : Whats Mobile Number Portability !!! With MNP in India on cards Customer and Operators perspective !!!!

Mobile Number Portability also known as MNP allows mobile subscribers to retain mobile number and change operator.

Government has been proposing to launch MNP for quiet long and finally looks like protoype will be launched in Haryana in Nov 2010 and pan India launch by Dec 2010.

Customer Perspective

Customer has the advantage of choosing operator based on service experience , service features and service tariffs to suite his requiremnets.
There will be cost of shifting from one operators to other , currently assumed to be Rs 19, and also there will be minimum time one has to be with operator before one can shift.

Customer has to be very clear about what he wants from service provider , before deciding to shift. There are key considerations for customer based on which he decides to shift:

• Price of all services : Voice local , Voice STD, Voice ISD, Internet access, Blackberry, Hello tunes , SMS , Voice Mail , Roaming . Subscriber has to be clear about his usage pattern to evaluate.
• Service quality : This includes quality in terms of network coverage , service availability , service speed ex download , picture quality , customer care experience and accurate/easy to understand billing.

Most of subscribers are not aware of their service usage and tend to change subscriber for short term goals. This is true for low ARPU (Average Revenue per subscribers) who keeps on changing operators.

In service quality - network quality coverage is key issue and subscriber has to be very clear as new operators will have coverage as major concern. If u travel pan india , better watch.

Operator Perspective

Its opportunity for both old operators and new operators.

New operators will come with innovative schemes and will definitely drive more price war. Old operators need to retain existing customer particularly high ARPU .

MNP has been implemented in countries where markets are saturated with no scope of subscriber addition. Market segmentation and customer analytics beocomes key. Operators need to start focussing on differentiated services based on segmentation.

Telecom Market Perspective

• Customer retention and services will be key focus , particularly for high usage customers.
• Segmented offering will be on cards
• New entrants may spoil market with price war , here government has to regulate as unviable plans could lead to unviable business for new entratnts and spoiling market as whole.
• Undertstanding customer needs away from price , coverage will lead to innovative products in market.

MY Blog: 2G Spectrum Scam : Government projecting to be focussed on development has led India Down !!! Its collective responsibility

Spectrum is allocated by government to operators to carry voice and data traffic from mobile handset to operator network.
Spectrum allocation and utilization are prime important concern for any government worldwide as this is always limited .

In Indian context this is more important we have more population to cover and spectrum needs to be treated as national resource and requires long term proper policy in place.
It has been seen that where ever mobile penetration has increased economic development has increased ten time.

What has happened in last 2-3 years is :
1. Spectrum allocation policy is not clear in a country where maximum subscribers are added. TRAI and government has only one role that is regulate interest of citizens and nation by drafting policies which has long term perspective and regulate same. Is government still puppet of few business houses?
2. There is no tag on operators per circle , you need more operator to make pricing competitive. In India prices offered is lowest in the world. Was there any need to have more than 4 operators per circle?

This has created ambiguity in shining telecom industry which was offering best prices with 4 operators per circle .
When spectrum was allocated:
1. Top circles were already having high penetration
2. Rural and low end was focussed by existing operators

By allocating spectrum to new operators, government has :
1. Allowed entry of operators with no business viability
2. Most of them are doing bear min roll out and are looking for offloading equity at premium price.
3. Scarcity of spectrum created valuation of license and spectrum

End result of above decision have been:
1 Existing operators are hanging on to market . Drop in share prices of these operators are reflection of impact of policies of government.
2. 3G prices have been so high as existing operators required spectrum . By not allocating spectrum and licenses to new operators . existing operators would have paid for it and this could have been win win for both operator and government.
3. With 3 prices so high, government objective of cost effective wireless broadband and expansion into rural areas will have big jolt.
4. No single operator could take PAN India 3 G license and BWA was taken by one operator .

Impact on Nation
1. Mobile broadband penetration will have biggest impact .
2. Telecom business may bleed for some time and have indirect imapct on associated manpower

Who is responsibe
1. Its collective responsibilty of government as Telecom is backbone of country economi growth
2. By making single person resign , shows lack of accountability and reviews
The same have been issue with Common Wealth , its time for PMO to sit and examine how such big tickets deals are done with PMO sleeping.

My Blog : Save our Child from Monitor , Gadgets

We all are excited about innovations in access to information any where driven by high speed wireless access and smart phones .
We take pride in information and communication technologies. Homes with PC, laptop , TV and mobile phones are struggling to keep children away from these gadgets.
Addiction and dependency of young generation on using above is a big concern. These is no control on content acccessed , risk of exposure to unknown person and equally important is Health.
Results have shown that average number of kids with glasses are three times and who are overweight are four times compared to nineties.
Who is to be blames for :
1. Parents : Most of the couples are working and busy but needs to ensure and control content exposure.
2. People like Bill Gates , Steve Jobs . These people have done great job by bringing technology but what after then. They have made big money but do not have solution to how technology is impacting kids and future generation .

Reports suggest activities of kids in days :
1. 1-2 hrs TV with rich media
2. 1 hr on video games
3. 30-40 min on social networking sites
4. 3-40 min on unnecessary phone
This on average takes 4 hrs and there is no place for him to interact with nature and with weekends spend on Mall.

Is it not future generation is becoming slave of technology and their lifestyle will have huge impact on thought process and health.

There is no solution to this problem but this is the right time to start discussing.

My Post : Mobile Application !!! Fear of Google !!! Is there battle between Google/Yahoo and Telecom Operators or Coexistence is the way!!!

Industry analyst have been talking a lot about Mobile Value Added Service (VAS) and applications as key focus for telecom operators in order to increase Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and mobile data services has been forefront to this.
Telecom operators are competing with media company and are also suspicious of application providers on mobile likes of Google , Yahoo etc.

If you look at ecosystem of mobile VAS and content/application delivery , chain needs to be stictched in sequence well starting from :

1. Contents and applications creation
2. Content aggregation and distribution
3. Network Operator
4. Mobile phones and operating systems

1. Conetent and Application creation :
Here you have big players like Google , Nokia and small players in different countries. Developing killer application requires undertsanding market needs and long period of mass adoptation.
Big players have patience enough to look at launching applications , testing and waiting for long period for adoptation.
Telecom operators have focussed on providing delivery platforms with open platform and testing capabilties to small player, hoping that killer applications will be delivered. But have been lacking in collaborating with small players in providing market insights and proper revenue share model. Also Telco lifecycle for returns is max 2 years.
This has been big learning from success in Japan for local applications and contents whereas other contitents even Europe and North America failed.

2. Content Aggregation and distribution providers
These are players who purchase contents like Hello Tunes, Music songs, video clips etc from multiple content creators and tie up with Telecom operators on revenue model . They may directly reach market through Mobile Internet accessibility.
Google , Yahoo , facebook and Skype provides contents directly. Some operators are actively engaged in this sphere.

3. Network Operators
Without any doubt teelcom operators need to invest in network to provide coverage and mobile data connectivity.

4. Mobile Phones
Manufacturers have to provide open operating system (OS) for applications and provide conveniece of use to end user at appropriate price value.

What Telecom Operators should Focus on :
1. Billing : Telecom has biggest point in providing billing both post paid and prepaid. End subscriber would always want to make transcations through mobile with bills being part of mobile services. Operator should leverage this, and even big content providers would partner for this.

2. Subscriber Insight: Who better than operator have insight on subscriber behaviour. Operator should invest in tools to capture real time subscriber usage and buldling multiple products customized to user needs. This will encourage content aggregators to partner with operators to provide customized offering . Operator can himself act as content aggregation provider.

3. Location Based Services: Not all phones support GPS , operator has the beat visibility of customer location . Operator should leverage this capability to develop customized location related services for segmented markets.

4. Enterprise Segements: Enterprise will be key user of mobile applications be it Mobile Helath, mobile education , M2M applications like smart grids . Operator should develop end to end ecosystem to deliver and manage industry vertcal solutions.

5. Mobile data Network: There is no double mobile broadband will explode and operator need to invets in network to leverage benfits. Network optimization and customized plans will be key so that return on per byte transferred is maximize.

Both telecom operators , content providers and mobile manufacturers have to work jointly as part of ecosystem exploiting each strenght and weaknesses to create win win situation.

My Post : Role of Government - Key question on being Service Provider (BSNL/MTNL), Policy Maker, Strategist? Illustration Telecom Sector

Government role and responsibility is always debatable during different phases of growth.
- After independence government focus was on self reliance.
- After 40 years of independence liberalization has been the way.
- Providing support : Protecting interest in areas which are not capable to compete at global market but livelihood of many people depend upon ex : agriculture sector.

Government should make its role clear by understanding:
- Which industry should we support : This has to have overall big picture where government should see in terms of Jobs it can create and India can be competent to be in top 5 global market. Ex : Software industry, small automobile manufacturing and not Health sector .

- Which industry to protect : Government also need to have clear policy on long term which industry in wants to protect ex Agriculture as livelihood of 50% popoulation is dependent. But this does not mean protection can be life long , govt needs to have involvement to develop them to make self reliant.

- As regulator : Define policies which provides safeguard of interest of its citizens at any cost. Hot discussion is Bhopal case of Carbon carbide where foreing investment was there but policy to protect citizen interest was missing . Similar are related to health and environment safely standards.

- Its own responsibility : Provising Infrastructure , Health , education , employment, environment safely. Government can not run away from its responsibility by simply privatizing. As education , health privitization will benefit rich and middle where as poor will not get any benifit as business is not vilable unless government provides incentives at some areas and cover poor under obligation.

Telecom has been an area whose success can be seen from penetration , subscribers which has resulted in profits for business and created this industry to be viable. Telecom has played direct role in contribution towards GDP of India.

Some policies which government has done totally lacked long term focus are:
- Too many operators and licenses has resulted in redution in revenue growth and profits of top 5 players. Also business vilability of others is unknown.

- Spectrum is national resource which need to be used effectively and efficiently by government while distributing to operators and ensuring its utilization to best by operator.

- Lack of policy in extending success storing of urban/semi urban to rural India in mobile voice and mobile broadband by involving all operators.

- Role of BSNL /MTNL which is run by government in long run, If too much delay is done there will be no taker.

- Big opportunity lost in creating areas linked to telecom like mobile handset manufacturing , telecom equipment manufacturing . Ex Huwai , ZTE are now international player but where supported by chineese government . Look at situation of C-DOT. No one manufactures hansdet in India except assembly why ? All due to lack of vision.

- There is fund government collects from all operators to develop rural market for telecom penetration but collecting fund and startegy are totally different.

What government should do now:
- Decide whether it wants to run BSNL/MTNL and not fool nation in the sake of rual development.

• For Mobile : BSNL is big company and no one can buy BSNL . Therefor either sell circle wise or zone wise.
• Wireline : Unbundle copper as BSNL is the one which has copper in India. By unbundling BSNL can provide infrstrastructure on which private operators can create services
• Convert BSNL to infrastructure and maintenance organization which will ensure that mass retrenchment is not required

- Create common and sharred passive infrastructure for rural/semi rural areas on which MVNO(Mobile virtual network ) concept can be applied where operators can provide services without building infrastructure. Funds which it collects from operators for rural developemnt should be used.

- For low end mobile handset , it should encourage in terms of cost , duties to make local manufacturing viable option to businsess community. This still has potential.

- Govern usage of spectrum and ensure it is not wasted.

- Let market drive cost , we are already offering cheapest communication services in the world. Ensuring all operators offer desired quality of services to citizen of India.

- Use money collected from 3G spectrum on development of country rather then on reducing its fiscal deficit and covering its inefficiency

Look at CommonWealth Games CWG2010, what was government expecting by spending 25,000 crores :
- Building infrastructure for Delhi
- Building image of India

Some may argue that spending this money on building education and health for poor would have been right.The above two any how government has to ensure.

My Independence Day Post !!! Nation above all !!! Should Blackberry services Stopped due to security concern !!!

Wishing all friends a happy independence day.

My sincere tribute to all people who have sacrificed life for independence. Its time we look for another vision of being superpower in next 2-3 decades. This vision requires commitment of people and more above love for country. Over period of time we have started taking country for granted.

We need to change and start asking few questions:

1. What I am doing for my country and fellow citizens?

2. What I am doing for building image of country? What i speak about my country matters ?

3. Am I contributing to social work directly or indirectly ?

4. Am I creating values in my kids as parent and providing good citizen?

5 Do I respect asserts of my country ?

6. What means i use to achieve my goals?

I was on my flight from Amsterdam to New Delhi. At Amsterdam airport I saw Indians boarding flights in proper queue when going to destinations outside India and same Indians rushing to flight ignoring announcements when departing for India. Most of Indians were settled in USA and working in software industry. Not to critize them , we all take country for granted. Nations are build by people and not by politicians or industrialists.

I have been reading in news paper about Indian government intention to ban blackberry services as mails and messenger applications can not be decrypted . This pose security threat as it can be misused. I support Government in banning all such services , provided they disclose way to read data flowing through them. Blackberry may claim that its their unique selling point being secured and banning may impact business customers. So be it , we all should be ready to make sacrifice for protecting security of country . Only point is government should be proactive and have clear policy in place.

The core issue is we take India for granted and always ask only one question - what this nation has given us rather than asking what we have given to nation. Its time for all citizens whether living in India and abroad to respect country and take forward positive points rather than looking into negative aspects.

No other country has diversity like India and no country is so beautifull like India.

Yes we have issues in hands but fact is only country which can compete globally with might of USA, China , UK is India. Lets make India Super Power by being good citizens and above all good human being.

JAI HIND !!!

Why confuse consumer with 2G , 3 G , 4G , LTE , Wimax ? Consumer want value for money , convenience !!!

Just to give background on mobile data technology evolution as categorize by International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT):
- GPRS/Edge : 2.5G , which is offered by GSM Mobile operators in India
- IMT-2000 systems : This is known as 3G today for example UMTS and cdma2000.
- Enhanced IMT-2000 systems: The evolution of IMT-2000 system, for example HSPA, CDMA 1xEvDo. This is offered by CDMA operator and GSM mobile will offer it as part of 3G.
- IMT advance systems - systems in this category are considered to be 4G systems. LTE and WIMAX are competing in this space.

I have seen advertising of one of the CDMA operator mentioning 3G like speed. Is end user really bothered about 3G , 4G what end user need is following:
- Value for money : Cost of mobile broadband vs benefits.
- Speed of connectivity and mobility : This is perceived speed of using applications and ability to use mobile broadband on move or at any place. coverage is important.
- Quality of handset: Display , battery life , ease of use.
- Applications : Consumer segment will be dominated by social networking, music downloads, video clips. Enterprise segment will have email usage and access to enterprise applications. There is high business potential in enabling enterprise applications like inventory check, sales orders, on time delivery update etc through mobile handset. This will definitely increase productivity. Specialized segments for m-Health, m-education etc .

Mobile broadband penetration in word over has taken approx 5 years to reach to 30% penetration. It needs to be seen how fast penetration will happen in India. Rate of penetration will depend upon:
1. Tariff plans : We all know that India is the most elastic market in terms of penetration with effective cost price changes. Also whether it will be fixed , usage based or variable needs to be seen. High bandwidth consuming could be charged premium fees compared to other applications.
2. Quality of Service and Coverage: This will be the most challenging during initial phase of launch and will take time to address.
2. Cost per byte: Operator needs to spend huge money to build networks. Already cost of 3G auction has put tremendous pressure on balance sheet of operators which may force them to focus on high ARPU (Average Revenue per user) customers, thereby offering mobile broadband at high cost to start with and slowly penetrate other segments. Therefor , operator need to have low cost per byte business model the way they have been able to do for voice minutes.
3. Availability and cost of handset : 3G enabled handset and cost price for same.
4. Content providers applications : Availability of segmented application by content providers

All the four ecosystem as mentioned above need to work together to make mobile broadband a success in India.

We must also learn from undeveloped countries like Bangladesh, Nigeria etc where simple mobile applications have been helpful in enabling rural population. This will require participation of both government agencies, industry and operators to take benefits to rural.

Those who have 3G/BWA spectrum and those who have opted out will play active role in offering data services. CDMA/GSM operators who have not got spectrum can compete effectively in data service as network will evolve in terms of coverage and speed will be key in relation to perceived quality of user and contents being used.

On LTE and Wimax , looks most of mobile operator will adopt to LTE . LTE still need 3-4 yrs to mature to have all ecosystem in place. Till then Wimax and LTE deployment will coexist. Wimax will rule segmented markets like smart grids etc and may be used by mobile operator to backhaul LTE in future when LTE matures.

Broadband penetration has direct like to GDP of any country. Its a big opportunity to contribute towards GDP growth and we should ensure that Telecom policies drive broadband penetration.

Battle of SmartPhones Blackberry, iPhone, Palm, Microsoft Windows Mobile . Is Google Android threat and Microsoft loosing race?

Mobile lifestyle is driven by smartphone. Operating System battle has shifted from laptop, desktop to smartphone. Battle for dominance is between:

- Apple iPhone

- RIM Blackberry

- Goodle Android

- Microsoft Windows Mobile

To compete in such a crowded market, manufacturers need to tightly integrate hardware, user interface, and cloud and social networking services if their solutions are to appeal to users.

Just adding a qwerty keyboard will not make a device fit the communication habits of today's various customer segments.

From the data below it looks Nokia is loosing dominance in mobile handset and operating system. Microsoft is not able to put strong inroad in crowded market. Looks Apple and RIM will dominate niche market whereas early to say Google Android will be mobile operating system similar to Windows operating system in desktop , laptop market .


Below are data related to mobile handset and operating system share:

	RIM		Apple	Microsoft		Palm	Google
Sept 2009	42.6 %		24.1 %	19 %		8.3 %	2.5 %
Oct 2009	41.3 %		24.8 %	19.7 %		7.8 %	2.8 %
Nov 2009	40.8 %		25.5 %	19.1 %		7.2 %	3.8 %
Dec 2009	41.6 %		25.3 %	18 %		5.2 %	6.1 %
Jan 2010	43.0 %		25.1 %	15.7 %		5.7 %	7.1 %
Feb 2010	42.1 %		25.4 %	15.1 %		5.4 %	9.0 %
May 2010	41.7 %		24.4 %	13.2 %		4.8 %	13.0 %
Mobile Handset	2010	2009		Operating System	2010		2009
Nokia	35.0 %	36.2 %		Symbian	44.3 %		48.8 %
Samsung	20.6 %	19.1 %		RIM	19.4 %		20.6 %
LG	8.6 %	9.9 %		iPhone OS	15.4 %		10.5 %
RIM (Blackberry)	3.4 %	2.7 %		Android	9.6 %		1.6 %
Sony Ericsson	3.1 %	5.4 %		Microsoft Mobile Windows	6.8 %		10.2 %
Motorola	3.0	6.2 %
Apple	2.7 %	1.5 %

Telecommunication penetration for voice and mobile broadband key to Indian GDP growth. Is policy makers pulling it down?

Past 7 years has seen Indian economy growing at rapid pace and being rated as most stable market. Companies have taken global outlook and no company can survive being regional specific without exploiting economies of scale and efficieny by integrating global resources. Taking the lead most IT companies , TATA Motors, TATA steel, Mahindra and now telecom giant Airtel has taken giant step in being global players. Indian companies have shown they can compete globally.

Telecom sector over this period has seen massive price reduction and telephone connection has become effortable to common people . This penetration in telephone connection has been driven by widespread availability of low cost prepaid connections and mobile handset. Creadit must be given to business model of Indian operators led by Airtel in moving to outsourcing model and paying per capacity used. This low cost model in offering voice minutes has credited to deep penetration of mobile connections.

India is one of the country where cost of mobile communication is least. From user perspective there has been no demand to reduce this further but need to have customized product packages catering to their requirements.

All these factors have made telecom business very lucrative and has been envy of other industries.

There has been lots of changes in past one year which is concern as citizen of this country:

1. Too many licenses were given to new operators at low cost , leading to short term unrealistic cost of services , making business unviable for most of them . No where in the world more than 3-4 operators are permitted to operate in same region. Some of them have taken licenses and sold equity at exhorbitant rate.

2. This also led to precious spectrum being unavailable for major operator who needs it due to higher subscribers but being unutilized by new entrants as subscribers are less.

3. Price of 3G spectrum has been very high as existing operator needs spectrum to support voice in key cities where their spectrum is choked to address subscriber addition. This will have impact on data penetration.

4. Broadband wireless access (BWA) license and spectrum is virtually own by one company which is not good for consumers and country.

5, Regulatory and policies have become major risk factor in teelcom business as compared to technology becoming outdated or customer taste changing .

All the above will have following impact:

1. Operators will start refocussing where money can be generated rather than pushing for rural penetration which they have been focussing.

2. Data reachability to rural and semi urbal will be slow against anticipation and government goal for broadband penetration will suffer.

3. Opportunity to extend eHealth , eEducation and eGoverance to rural and far distance locations will have huge imapct

4. Money collected from auction of spectrun will be used for covering country fiscal deficit which is easy way to do rather then bringing effiecieny in goverment spending.

With none of the policies pro commuincation infrastructure development and exhorbitant prices of licenses will have definite imapct on overall GDP in long run and bridging urbal - rural gap.

Need is to have policies which provides low cost communication to people of this country and at same time telecom industry should be attractive to investors.

"View expressed above in this post are individual assesment"

With Wireless broadband driving penetration of data access in India , Machine to Machine Communication will have huge impact on society

MACHINE TO MACHINE COMMUNICATION

M2M is about enabling the flow of data between machines and machines and ultimately machines and people. Regardless of the type of machine or data, information usually flows in the same general way -- from a machine over a network, and then to a system where it can be reviewed and acted on.

There are four basic stages that are common to just about every M2M application. Those components are:

• 1) Collection of data
• 2) Transmission of selected data through a communication network
• 3) Assessment of the data
• 4) Response to the available information

1) Collection of Data

The intelligence of a monitored machine may be as simple as a temperature sensor,water level indicator, electricity meter reading , weather , under sea condition, traffic conditions etc.

The goal of the M2M hardware is to bridge the intelligence in the machine with the communication network.

2) Transmission of data through a communication network

There are several good options for transporting data from the remote equipment . The cellular network, telephone lines, and communication satellites are all common solutions.

In India with low penetration of telephone lines and remote areas to capture data wireless media will be key. This will be cost effective solution.

3) Assessment of the data

Data from machines usually shows up in one of two places: in an enterprise software application the company already uses, or in a standalone system designed specifically for M2M.

Still, the vast majority of opportunities for M2M center around taking data out of machines and integrating it with operational data. For example, remote monitoring data can be incorporated into customer-relationship management systems for logging service and maintenance history.

4) Response to the available information

Whether the application is standalone or part of a larger system, the common goal is to automate a business process by automating the flow of data to the people and systems that have a need to know. The technology should enable sending the right data to the right place in the right way depending on the circumstances. It should also present data to individual users based on their specific function in the business process.

Some uses of M2M communication are:

1. A modern farmer who has automated irrigation systems operating in different locations can now be constantly aware of their operation based on short messages that are relayed cell phone.

2. Electricity meter reading from households and offices by electricity supplier.

3. Monitoring water level to avoid floods.

4. Monitoring appliances like washing machine, microwave etc at home and operating them over mobile phones.

M2M is not only receiving data from machine but sending actions back to machine to act upon.

There are unlimited opportunities to harness raw data in machine and integrate them into system to enable analytical decisions and control

Mobile broadband Pricing usage based or unlimited usage. AT&T in USA changed its offering from unlimited to usage based.

With mobile internet access to contents and applications through smart phones and laptop on exponential surge, mobile operators are put to task on planning capacity.

According to stats 10% usage of traffic is to social networking sites facebook, twitter and 15 % is to Youtube downloads. Skype accounts for 5% traffic.
Applications like facebook and twitter are not bandwidth hungry whereas video downloads from Youtube consumes bandwidth. Imagine if facebook adds video and bandwidth hungry applications.

Application and mobile phone behaviour becomes important on mobile networks. Improper application and low cost handset in market are not optimized to provide effective utilzation of resources. This will be big challenge in developing market in india. Providers of mobile handset like Blackberry claim their handset provides optimized performance with effective utilization of limited resources.
Should applications and mobile handset who have optimized performance be penalized against applications and mobile handset provides who are not optimized in performance.

AT&T in USA launched unlimited plans and exlusive iPhone. iPhone provides true touch screen experience to end user in using smartphones. This created explosive growth of traffic on AT&T network. With AT&T announcement to remove unlimited plan and introduce usage based plan any indicator for future tariff plans. Sprint and T Mobile has not planned to change its plan. At the same time AT&T plan has benefit of low price.

Is exclusive iPhone with AT&T at risk and Apple strategy to offer exlusive with operators right startegy ?

Usage based tariff plans will mean educating customers on handset and application behaviour. This will be bonus for applications and mobile handset which are efficient.

Handling unlimited offers needs to be evaluated in developed market whereas developing market will start with unlimited and will mature in tariff plan as explonential growth will happen.
Other way is to provide unlimted offering on less hungry application and usage based charge on hungry applications.

Will You buy iPad or LapTop ? Who will win the battle and when to use iPad or Laptop?

iPad is planned to be launched in India and it is anticipated that it will cost around INR 35,000.

The Apple iPad is a curious device that is not quite a phone, not quite an iPod and not quite a laptop.

But can it replace your desktop or laptop computer?

The truth is that the iPad could adequately replace the computer depends upon what you want to use for. In many homes it may replace desktop , but whether or not it can replace your desktop or laptop depends entirely on how you use it.

Many people simply use their computer to look up information on the web, check their email, connect with friends on social networking sites like facebook , twitter , YouTube and play games, listen music.

Not only can the iPad do all of that, but it actually provide superior experience non comparable to laptop/desktop.

Gift it to your parents and you will realize. Ease and superior experience is non comparable.

And the iPad can do a lot more than just bringing the web to your .

The iWork suite means you can a bit of work done as well, and with office software moving online, you can simply use the Safari browser to create a new presentation or type up a letter. But with iPad you can not print.

Why wouldn't you replace your computer with an iPad?

iPad has 1 GHz customized ARM processor which is very nothing compared to lowest Atom based processors in laptop. It offers 256 MB RAM whereas 2GB is normal in laptop. Same goes with storage. Screen and keyboards for creating documents is superior in laptop.

If you want to use for creating lots of documents ,writing programmes or creating graphics iPad is not the one you are looking for. It may not replace your office laptop.

The iPad home computer: we are getting close.

As you can see, one of the big hangups with using the iPad as a true computer replacement is the inability to print. Let's face it, most of us find that ability rather handy. Beyond that, power gaming is moving from the PC to the console and the trend towards hosted applications means that more and more of the software we need will be available through a web browser.

iPad is not a replacement for a laptop or desktop computer. But for some, it very well could be the perfect choice.

Watch if your consumer of content or you create lots of content. iPad provide unmatched experience in consuming contents.

2012: Year of the Universal Mobile Charger. Mobile manufacturers agree to universal charger to harmonise chargers in a bid to reduce waste.

The days of drawers full of chargers for mobile phones you no longer use could soon be over after manufacturers agreed to use a universal model.

Currently, when consumers buy a mobile phone they are provided with a new charger even if the old one still works.

Not only will the proposed Micro-USB chargers help reduce waste, but, according to the agreement they’ll also consume (up to 50 percent) less power and provide much greater convenience (and subsequently, less headaches) for consumers. Imagine being able to leave your charger behind, knowing that most anywhere you travel you can find a compatible charger, be it a friend’s place or a random hotel on the other side of the world.

The primary goal of this new agreement is to cut down on the environmental impact created by trashing old chargers.

User will be able to charge mobile phones anywhere from the new common charger. This also means considerably less electronic waste because people will no longer have to throw away chargers when buying new phones.

This is a sensible solution to an everyday gripe for mobile phone users, which will reduce frustration and confusion for consumers as well as cutting down on waste products.

So far, 17 companies have agreed to the pact including 3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, mobilkom austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone.

The new charger will only work with data enabled phones but the commission said it expected most phones bought from 2010 will be compatible.

Why FMC is called Fixed Mobile Convergence and not Wireline Wireless Convergence? Is it convergence or substitition?

Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) has been talk of the town in most telecom operators. Each operator has its strategy for FMC.
Why its called Fixed , Mobile convergence and not Wireline, Wireless convergence?
Lets understand the terms carefully:
1. Fixed : This means ones inability to move around and use services. Being nomadic at one place . Maintain its physical location relatively constant.
2. Mobile : This means ones ability to move around and use services. Move from one geographical area to another.
3. Wireline: This means type of communication requiring propagation of signals over solid media like copper , fiber.
4. Wireless: This refers to type of communication that is conducted untethered media such as air for cellular or vaccum in space for satellite.
A Fixed communication service is also provided over wireless media for example point to point microwave, fixed flavor of WIMAX, even WiFi at airports, hotel rooms can be considered Fixed although media is wireless.

It is clear that Fixed and Mobile are service attributes whereas wireline and wireless are technology attributes. Both wireline and wireless technology can be used to deliver fixed or mobile services.

Is it convergence or substitution?
Convegence means use of same services seamlessly over fixed and mobile. Which means a user making video conferencing call over cellular network when coming from office to home switches to WiFi or DSL seamlessly maintaining same state.
But who needs fixed services if all can be delivered over mobile. So is substitution is the right word as bulk of communicaton is shifting form one communication method to another. Mobile connections has been growing at high rate whereas fixed connections are either substituted.This trend is mainly applicable to voice communication.
While mobile data is is on rise with 3G, WIMAX , LTE but is nowwhere close to fixed broadband DSL and Cable.
The decision to use Fixed or Mobile is tradeoff between cost, functionality and convenience.

Mobile as Lifestyle. Trends on mobile users usage of Mobile handset .

Mobile started as device for making voice call followed by SMS. Earlier mobiles were bulky and have black & White graphics.With advances on chip technology mobile size and cost was reduces along with Prepaid options , mobile penetrated deep into masses.
Mobile usage have been going change in last 2 years with introduction of colorful graphics, radio, camera , bluetooth, WIFI etc. Most of mid range mobile offers above features. Smartphone has revolutionized use experience on mobile devices with soft touch display and bigger display . Major focus of mobile device manufacturers has been not on size but screen which makes end user comfortable to browse and veiw photos, videos.
Competition is happening on Mobile device from 3 fronts:
1. Hardware Chips : ARM and Intel are competing. ARM has been build for mobile devices is facing competition from Intel which is taking destop x86 design into mobile. This also provides desktop application moving to mobile devices.
2. Operating Systems : Symbian , Android , Window Mobile and Linux are competing for share.
3. Applications: Web 2.0 has already revolutionized how contents are shared. Its not market where few are creators of contents and many are receivers. With blogs, social networking , Podcasting, Media sharing , WIKI is changing content creation and distribution. Any one can create content and any one can consume. So its not few to many but many to many

Users usage of mobile phone is changing over time:
1. Earlier 80% mobile was used for voice and 20% SMS.
2. Now this trend is changing :
- 40 % used for Voice
- 10 % SMS
- 10% EMAIL
- 15 % Social networking (facebook , twitter, you tube)
- 10 % clicking photos.videos and sharing real time moments
- 10 % music listening
- 5 % search , maps , mobile banking and others

Mobile has become part of our lifestyle. Users in developed countries use mobile for voice 20% time and its the last this they use mobile for.