4G LTE to Account for Over $1 trillion in Revenues over 5 Years

According to Juniper Research, 4G LTE mobile broadband service revenues over the next five years will account for over $1 trillion, representing approximately 17% of the cumulative operator billed service revenue from all mobile services. Nitin Bhas in the Report says, Along with the 4G network roll-out, the 4G/Wi-Fi combination will continue to provide a … Read more

Reliance Jio Advances Launch of 4G LTE With Airtel Deal

Reliance Jio Infocomm has entered into an agreement with Bharti Airtel under which the latter will provide a dedicated capacity to RIL’s telecom arm on its i2i submarine cable linking India and Singapore. This deal along with the infra-sharing deal with RCom announced earlier this month provides RIL with access to significant infrastructure, both at … Read more

How is 4G LTE Different from GSM ?

We’d like to draw parallels and compare and show to readers How 4G LTE is Different from GSM. The underlying multiplexing schemes in both 2G (GSM) and LTE appear similar: in both cases, multiple users are handled by ensuring that no two users send messages on the same frequency bucket at the same time (i.e., both technologies use a combination of frequency division and time division).

However, GSM is quite rigid in its resource allocation: a user is assigned one frequency bucket at the start of the session and he gets to send messages within that frequency bucket once in every eight time slots. Further, the allocation is frozen at the beginning of the session and remains fixed throughout the session.

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Will Reliance Jio Infocomm & RCom – Ambani Brothers Manipulate Policy for Larger Telecom MarketShare ?

Reliance Jio Infocomm a 95% subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd controlled by Mukesh Ambani and Reliance Communications controlled by Anil Ambani have joined hands at the beginning of FY 2014. Anil is meeting Mukesh every fortnight to discuss co-operation in business. Ambani’s have manipulated Government policies to suit their needs and what are the chances that they may do it again ?

The following chart shows the Spectrum Spread of Reliance in GSM / CDMA / 3G and 4G LTE Bands

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Reliance Jio Infocomm + RCom Network = Easy Time to Market

Reliance Jio Infocomm announced on April 2, 2013 a telecom infra sharing deal for its telecom venture with Reliance Communications (RCom) of Anil Ambani Group. The deal entails payment of Rs12bn by RJI as indefeasible right to use (IRU) fees for lifetime usage of 120,000 kms of nationwide inter-city optic fibre network owned by RCom. It also gives RCom reciprocal access to RIL’s future fibre network.

It gives some visibility on Reliance Jio’s 4G LTE telecom venture,

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Reliance Jio Infocomm – Data Only Strategy Reaches Small Market Segment

If Reliance Jio Infocomm launches with a data-only dongle priced at ~Rs5,000 (US$91), it could target the high-end subscribers who currently contribute 5% of industry revenues (and hope to win only the data spend of these customers). The total addressable market for RIL Infotel is restricted to ~US$750 mn upon launch share) not big enough to build a business case considering the US$2.5 bn paid for spectrum by the company in 2010.

Addressable market with a data + voice handset strategy
However, by launching a handset [LTE Capable with CSFB] priced at Rs7,500 (US$136), the addressable market upon launch becomes the subscribers who account for 20% of industry revenues worth US$8 bn (and the company has a chance at capturing the entire spend of these customers, including voice). This compares with ~US$4 bn the company may have to spend on 2G and LTE spectrum

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Whats Stopping Reliance Jio Infocomm from Nationwide 4G LTE Launch ?

It is widely believed that Reliance Jio Infocomm will do to data what Reliance Infocomm did to voice a decade ago – democratise the product by taking the price points low enough to have mass appeal. The strategy we have outlined above is seemingly elitist, in that the focus is not on the bottom of the affordability ladder but on the top end.

Apart from the absence of a Robust Network combined with Mukesh Ambani’s ego problems to strike a Passive Infrastructure Sharing Deal with Reliance Communications, we believe that the key hindrance for Reliance Jio Infocomm to launch a truly mass-market strategy is the weak device ecosystem and hence high prices. In voice, the company tried to resolve the problem by offering upfront cash subsidy on device costs. However, we believe

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Reliance Jio Infocomm Tower Sharing with RCom – Positive for RCom

Reliance Communications has acknowledged that it is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to rent or lease towers from RCOM for the latter’s rollout of its 4G TD-LTE network. RCOM has a portfolio of around 55,000 towers with no external tenancy. It will be an impossible task for Reliance Jio Infocomm to rollout a Nationwide … Read more

Reliance Jio Infocomm 4G No Threat to 2G Voice Operators

Newspapers are buzz with 4G perceived as a game changer technology which will once again open the floodgates of competition. However, we believe the technological backbone for providing voice services on 4G network is still in nascent stage of evolution and should not pose any substantial threat in the near term (at least 18 months).

Currently, Reliance Jio Infocomm has a pan-India 4G LTE licence and Airtel has started 4G services in Kolkata, Pune and Bengaluru. We believe operators can launch 4G services via three options.

Roll out data services only

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