3G and Mobile Data Services in Indian Market Place

3G services will be soon launched in India’s telecom marketplace where dynamics of the rollout and level of adoption are still being discussed. In the fiercely competitive Indian telecommunications space, operators will need to launch innovative value-added mobile data services to drive data revenues for a competitive advantage.

Today, India already has 149 million mobile data users, approximately 60 million 3G handsets and a broadband penetration of only one percent. According to Informate Mobile Intelligence, three out of four current GPRS users in the country would like to use 3G services in the future and close to 63 percent of mobile users in the 25-30 age group are “very likely” to use it in near future.

According to a research report by Goldman Sachs, the potential subscriber interest to adopt 3G services represents a potential market opportunity valued at US$3-4 billion for Indian operators who can increase their revenues by launching innovative mobile data services such as MMS, web browsing and video at higher speeds.

Indian operators, when considering strategies to roll out 3G services, will need to create a mobile services ecosystem that can handle the anticipated spike in mobile data traffic and quickly bring new services to market while ensuring healthy profit margins.

Operators will also need to manage costs while delivering a consistent quality of experience to subscribers and focus on:

• Service Control – Operators need to intelligently allocate network bandwidth amongst their customer base in order to maximize the amount of concurrent users the network can support. This requires absolute control over any service, such as messaging, browsing or video with full awareness of network type, location, network status, device type and any other relevant aspect of the service. Only then can a differentiated service be delivered in line with all relevant considerations of cost, revenue and quality of experience.
  
• Service Optimization – Delivering a mobile data service requires much more awareness of network and service conditions compared to a fixed line service, such as varying levels of available bandwidth, congestion levels and device type. Data compression levels, content size and format all need to be taken into consideration to ensure the highest quality of experience while minimizing the cost per delivered gigabyte.
  
• Service Differentiation – Operators need to enable the mobile data service to reach its full potential by leveraging the premium of mobility, insight into subscriber behavior and preferences, location, device usage, presence and universal reach. This requires an ability to easily add these aspects to the data services, enabling easy third party access to the core data service, giving consumers the ability to personalize and tailor the service to their individual demands and preferences.

The anticipated arrival of 3G in India heralds a challenging yet exciting time for operators, with the entire industry being summoned to deliver a lot more in terms of capability, performance, scalability and latency to enable the required quality of experience levels with a healthy profit. Only those who will achieve these objectives at sustainable levels of affordability will be able to survive in the competitive Indian market place and secure the lion’s share of the potential market opportunity.