4G Mobile Network First Time in South Asia

Sri Lanka auctioned a block of airwaves to become the first country in South Asia to roll out a full nationwide mobile fourth-generation (4G) network, a top official said Friday.

Anusha Palpita, the Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, said he allocated the airwaves to Sri Lanka's largest cellular operator Dialog Axiata for $26.25 million on Thursday.

He said Dialog, the Sri Lanka unit of Malaysia's Axiata, will roll out a 4G mobile network that will allow users to download content from the Internet at speeds four to five times faster than the currently available 3G.

Cheapest 4G Internet Plans at Rs 512 per 10Gb

Are you irritated with the slow 2G plans and the high tariff plans by 3G ??  Here I have discussed the cheapest 4G plans by any company. It is cheaper than 3G tariffs, don't be amazed its true.

The Mumbai based Tikona company is all set to launch the  cheapest 4G plans in Ahmedabad and Surat in 2013. The 4G service will be on 2 to 5 paisa per Mb plan. The 4G services will be rolled out using the TDD LTE technology. Airtel is using the same technology for offering 4G services in Kolkata, Bengaluru and Pune. Reliance Industries will also use TDD LTE for rolling out its services.

Tikona would be targeting Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh (east and west) and Himachal Pradesh circles, where it acquired mobile broadband airwaves for Rs 1,058 crore in 2010. "These tariffs will disrupt the market. We will be able to do this since we're already offering data plans at a price point of 2-5 paise per MB for broadband on Wi-Fi which gives speeds of up to 10 Mbps," said Prakash Bajpai, chief executive, Tikona Wireless.

Tikona will not get into content side as that is being taken care by a separate industry altogether and the company believes that no operator can match that in terms of scale or variety. Ranade said that the company sees itself as a data pipeline provider and would like to focus on that. It is worth mentioning here that all the 4G service providers have to cover 100 per cent of the urban areas and 50 per cent of the rural areas in their respective circles by 2015.

RIL will reportedly roll out its 4G services starting from Delhi and Mumbai in 2013. Airtel is also likely to launch its 4G services in Delhi, Mumbai and Chandigarh soon.   

So here is a overview:

2-5 paisa per Mb
here are some calculations for it being the cheapest 4G plan.... let us take 5 paisa per Mb.

1Mb = 5paisa
1024Mb = 5120 paisa = Rs 51.2 

1Gb = Rs 51.20
10Gb = Rs 512

So isn't it the cheapest plan than 3G, now we pay around Rs 900 for 5Gb in 3G. So Tikona is giving the cheapest 4G tariffs 10Gb at just Rs 512.

No boom for mobile equipment firms in 4G revolution

STOCKHOLM: With data traffic from video downloads and on-the-go web surfers clogging up telecoms networks, mobile equipment makers such as Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks should be booming.

But while iPhone-maker Apple Inc's shareholders are waxing rich on a communications revolution driven by smartphones and tablet computers, those who make the infrastructure for the information superhighway are being squeezed.

Telecoms operators have to spend billions to upgrade to super-fast, high-capacity, fourth-generation (4G) networks designed for video and data traffic, but the overall equipment market could actually shrink as they trim budgets for the slower 2G and 3G networks designed mainly for voice traffic.

This unhappy paradox of the telecom equipment sector has chased away shareholders and could force further consolidation to eliminate some of the current five global players.

The impact of low-cost Chinese competitors Huawei and ZTE is partly to blame, such that 4G technology commands little price premium, and struggling telecoms operators are wringing harder bargains from suppliers such as market leader Ericsson.

"Ericsson's 4G sales are going to expand very strongly in the coming years, but the drop in sales in GSM and 3G will be bigger than the growth in 4G," said Martin Nilsson, analyst at Handelsbanken.

Handelsbanken reckons spending on 2G, 3G and 4G network equipment combined will shrink to $45 billion a year by 2020, down from around $59 billion in 2011, even as 4G spending grows to more than half the total.

DATA SURGE Data traffic overtook voice in early 2009 and is expected to be 15 times today's level by 2017, according to Ericsson, when there will be 3 billion smartphones in use, up from 700 million.

To cope, operators are expected to spend $15 billion this year on upgrading networks to make them 4G ready,  according to Exane BNP Paribas. Next year, spending will reach $26 billion.

But as with the evolution of personal computers, each new generation of network does more for less.

Cut-price Chinese competition and technological advances have pushed prices down 10-15 percent a year in recent times, cancelling vendors' volume growth and efficiency gains.

As a result, the mobile network infrastructure market is hardly any bigger than the roughly $55 billion it was in 2000, despite huge increase in mobile phone subscriptions, mobile broadband use and smartphone sales.

Aircel plans to launch 4G services later this year

Thanks to Aircel for looking towards 4G........

After Bharti Airtel, Aircel is reportedly gearing up to launch its 4G services in India. The telecom operator, which holds the spectrum licence for eight circles, will begin rolling out 4G services between October and December this year. Aircel is reportedly going to spend approximately $500 million (roughly Rs. 2,757 crore) to set up the network.

Aircel, which recently slashed its 3G tariff prices, has spectrum licence for Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam and North East. Currently, Aircel is offering 3G services in 13 circles including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Kolkata and Bihar.

According to a Business Standard report, Aircel isn't just looking to offer 4G services through dongles and devices but also via broadband internet, video on demand, education and health care services and broadcasting. The telco has already starting working on creating a fibre optic backbone for this purpose.

Sandip Das, CEO of Malaysian telco Maxis Berhad (which controls a majority stake in Aircel), says Aircel does not intend to become an all-India player in 4G, but will prefer to become a major data player in certain circles. He also hinted that Aircel's 4G tariff prices will be similar to its current 3G services. “We have already equalised our 2G and 3G tariffs and have over a million subscribers. With China and India dominating the LTE market, we’ll see prices of devices fall,” Das is quoted as saying.

Bharti Airtel earlier this year became the first telecom operator in India to launch 4G services in the country. Also, it kicked off a 3G price war by slashing tariff prices by up to 70 percent. Apart from Airtel, Tikona and Reliance are planning to launch their 4G services this year.

It would be interesting to see the 4G war between the operators.....isn't it????