4g-lte-coverage

How Reliance Jio will Mitigate Network Quality Issues with 800 Band Spectrum ?

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Reliance Jio Launch DelayedAkash Ambani led Reliance Jio Infocomm has created the required hype and expectations for a High Speed 4G Mobile broadband. However, like any other Telco, Reliance Jio has its share of woes to stabilize and achieve network coverage with the spectrum band its is operating in 2300Mhz and 1800Mhz thus pushing the big bang nation wide launch further ahead. In this backdrop, Jio’s boss Mukesh has smartly shed his ego and shook hands with his estranged brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications which owns 800Mhz spectrum, the best suite for 4G-LTE services.

Jio will manage launch well before December 2016

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Airtel 4G LTE PAN India Spectrum Complete, May Skip 700Mhz Auction

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Airtel 4G LTE PAN India SpectrumIndia’s Largest Telecom Operator, Airtel has acquired 2300MHz in 8 Circles from Aircel to complete Pan India 4G-LTE Footprint by virtue of combination of 1800Mhz and 2300Mhz contiguous spectrum blocks.

The acquisition of spectrum in three circles has been done at a total consideration of INR35bn (~4% of current net debt at the company). Aircel had paid INR 34bn for this spectrum in the 2010 auction, which implies a 47% premium that Bharti has paid when adjusted for residual life. The same spectrum has a reserve price of INR 44bn in the upcoming auction, so Bharti has only paid a 14% premium when adjusted for residual life vs this. The impending entry of Reliance Jio has

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How Vodafone and Airtel are vulnerable to Jio’s Public launch ?

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Vodafone IndiaAkash Ambai led Reliance Jio Infocomm is all set for public launch within the next couple of months. Before we dive into the details on how and why Airtel / Vodafone are the most vulnerable operators let us quickly look into data with ears on the ground.

Jio will launch with about 75,000 Cell Tower Locations and about 20,000 Small Sites / WiFi Spots. Target Locations of Launch – Metro Cities, Urban Centers and Semi-Urban Towns. Rural is excluded in the initial public launch and there are no Jio 4G signals in rural areas.

With such a Network Arrangement, Jio’s addressable market is 400 Mn Wireless Consumers in the above said geographical areas. How are these consumers stacked up ?

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Reliance Jio – Looking Beyond Network

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Jio-Lyf-MobilesOver the last 18 months Reliance Jio’s has been on infrastructure, technology, and rollout milestones, amongst others. With the soft launch for employees having started, we look beyond the basic infrastructure and into product strategies.

RJio’s 4G network ourselves, is on par with incumbents in the urban areas, but is lacking in rural areas (maybe have roaming arrangements). Importantly, VoLTE works seamlessly in interconnecting with regular mobile/fixedline networks. The speeds are quite impressive, but remember it is also an empty network! Reliance Infocomm was reaching to masses however this time the strategy is exactly the opposite – Reach High End Customers with Unmatched Mobile Broadband Offering.

The biggest difference in RJio’s business model

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How is Reliance Jio Powering Last Mile 4G LTE Broadband ?

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exclusive1Last mile connectivity is the biggest challenge for 4G since the tower density needs to be much better than 2G/3G due to signal strength concerns. This is complicated the number of agencies (municipalities, housing societies, offices, etc) Jio has to seek approval from for laying infrastructure with minimum disturbance to existing ecosystem and managing the rhetoric around radiations.

As we write this, large parts of Mumbai have seen the laying of optical fibre cables by Jio. Further, in congested areas where telecom towers are difficult to put up, Jio has put up mini-towers (see below). Since they can be put up on existing street-light poles, traffic junctions, footpaths, etc the entry-barriers are low, both in terms of

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Is Idea Cellular Challenged with 3G /4G-LTE Data Spectrum ?

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The just in time execution telecom specialist in India Idea Cellular owns 3G spectrum (900 or 2100 or both) in all of its top-5 circles and nine of its top-10 circles (except Karnataka, where it owns LTE spectrum). Idea owns LTE spectrum (1800 band) in four of its top-5 and six of its top-10 circles. It owns either 3G or LTE spectrum in all of its top-10 circles and owns 3G and LTE spectrum in five of the top-10 circles. Idea’s 3G spectrum footprint covers nearly 80% of its revenues, LTE footprint covers 61%, 3G or LTE footprint covers 87% and 3G and LTE footprint covers 53% of its revenues.

Having spectrum is important of course

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BSNL Tower De-merger to Help 4G-LTE Operators

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Telecom Towere Business IndiaThe Government is planning to hive off BSNL’s tower business into a separate subsidiary with estimated valuations of cUSD3.8bn. BSNL has a total of c60,000 towers with a good mix of towers in rural and urban markets. Furthermore our industry analysis suggests these towers have good fibre connectivity as well. With all telcos focussing on enhancing data coverage, BSNL’s focus on the tower business via a separate subsidiary will increase tower supply to the sector and key beneficiaries in our view will be 4G entrants.

One of the challenges for 4G entrants has been network coverage given their dependence on the 2.3 GHz spectrum. We highlight coverage issues can be resolved in two ways: (a) adding sub1 GHz spectrum and (b) adding more towers.

With not much clarity on possible auctions of spectrum

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Connected Cars Powered by 4G a Reality with GM

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General Motors(GM) announced pricing options for the new OnStar 4G LTE service. The service, which rolls out next month, first provides users with a three month or three gigabyte trial period, whichever comes first. Pricing for most data packages are comparable with AT&T’s 4G LTE services, with a 3GB monthly plan costing $30 and a 200MB plan costing $10 (enough for ~13hrs of internet usage). Current OnStar advisory services subscribers will receive a $5 monthly discount on plans less than 1GB.

Why Connected Cars ?
We are heading into an era of Inevitable

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What is the State of 4G LTE Globally ?

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State of 4G LTE GloballyAs we began the year 2014, 244 Wireless Operators have commercially launched LTE networks in 92 countries and 499 operators investing in LTE in 143 countries.

4G LTE can be deployed in two different combinations and the Relative Comparison of FDD LTE vs. TDD LTE is as shown below.
Deployment Frequency – TDD is offered primarily in the above – 2 GHz spectrum range whereas FDD is offered in the sub-2 GHz spectrum (700, 800, 900, 1800, 2100)
Paired Spectrum – TDD does not require paired spectrum as both transmission and reception occur on the same channel. FDD requires paired spectrum with sufficient frequency separation to allow simultaneous transmission and reception. TDD LTE ensures maximization of available bandwidth as the download to upload ratio are flexible.

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Idea – 2G Tariff Stable, 3G Expansion, 4G-LTE Not in Medium Term

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Idea Cellular 4G LTE StrategyIdea’s CEO suggests that voice tariffs are still rising and likely to stay firm over the next 3-6 months. In contrast with initial concerns, Idea appears comfortable with market share trends indicated by TRAI’s latest revenue data for the industry. Traffic growth is slower than before and competition from smaller operators has intensified in certain circles but these are unlikely to disrupt Idea’s marketing strategies.

Idea does not foresee any risk of new

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