Idea Cellular added 3701/6246 2G/3G sites in 2Q. 3G site count addition has accelerated from 3330 seen in 1Q. 5750 sites are
connected by fibre which works out to 14% of 3G BTS count (39867) and the company targets to increase this to 25%. We calculate that
daily throughput per 3G BTS (based on 2Q 3G data traffic and 3G BTS six months back) was 15.3GB. This has steadily increased from
8.6GB in 1QFY15 and it can almost double from current levels in the next 2 years considering Idea's 3G+4G holdings.
The data yield decline was mostly on account of 9% decline in 2G voice ARMB to 20.3p/MB. 2G data ARMB has fallen 20%+ in the past three quarters. It is a cause of concern that 2G ARMB has fallen sharply since it would put pressure on 3G pricing when data subscribers upgrade from 2G to 3G.
Management indicated that adoption of Single RAN technology and sharp drop in per BTS cost is limiting the increase in capex even as data rollout has been accelerated. As highlighted earlier Idea plans to add 30-35K 3G and 4G sites during FY16 and thereby double the capacity. Also, expansion of optic fibre network has been undertaken to support increased data demand.
Idea will roll out single-ran BTS, which currently works on two technologies (2G+3G) on 900 MHz or (2G+4G) on 1800 MHz by deploying
one carrier of 3.8 MHz in 900 MHz for 3G and balance 2-3 MHz for 2G similarly in 1800 MHz. It can deploy one carrier of 5 MHz for 4G and balance 3-4 MHz for 2G. However, we believe this will work in the short term, but with growing data usage spectrum bandwidth could pose limitation.
