A battle between incumbent GSM and CDMA operators has broken out, with Marten Pieters, the managing director of Vodafone Essar, the country's second-largest telecom operator, lashing out at comments made by a competing operator, saying it was ridiculous to imply that incumbent GSM players like them were hoarding scarce spectrum.
In contrast to the stand by GSM operators, CDMA players like RCom and Tatas hailed telecom regulator TRAI for its "balanced, progressive and transparent" spectrum proposals.
The service is functional over 11 CDMA and 340 GSM networks across the world.
Tata Docomo, the mobility and business services brand of Tata Teleservices, on Tuesday launched a mobile advertising application 'GET' that allows users to get free voice minutes for viewing ads on their handsets.
Intensifying the ongoing tariff war, Tata Teleservices on Thursday announced half a paise per second tariff for domestic long distance (STD) calls for its CDMA prepaid users, making it cheaper than locals calls.
RCom, which launched its nationwide GSM services in January last year, currently offers telephony services on both the GSM and CDMA platforms.
Targeted at the growing young audience, Samsung India vice-president-HHP division Hendrick Lee said the phone has direct access to social networking websites. It also enables the users to access website at a speed of 2.4Mbps data speed on CDMA operators.
A crown of thorns awaits the next telecom minister at Sanchar Bhawan as the new incumbent will have to address a host of tricky issues like industry infighting, tariffs and improving financial health of the Rs 2.3 lakh crore industry.
Reliance Communications on Wednesday announced 1,000 free minutes of usage for GSM subscribers for calls to any other Reliance mobile in the Delhi-NCR region.
Mobile user base, both GSM and CDMA, went up to 3.4 crore during April this year with GSM based cellular operators capturing 2.71 crore subscribers and CDMA based operators like Reliance and Tatas 74.16 lakh.
Currently, subscribers pay 50-60p for an SMS. By comparison, Tata Teleservices charges a paisa per word, for up to 15 characters.
The initial euphoria over reduction in mobile termination charges (MTC) seems to be dying down, with telecom service providers now alleging that the process is completely "flawed".
The long-validity all-India Reliance CDMA to Reliance CDMA calling packs are encouraged to increase STD usage from this segment -- which brings down Reliance to Reliance effective calling tariff to 30 paise per minute or even lower. On Rs 2,222 recharge, 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for 12 month would be offered, while Rs 4,444 recharge pack gives 500 minutes of free STD/local talktime per month for lifetime.
But Tata Tele's latest offer fails to excite competitors.
In what can be termed as the biggest write-off by an Indian firm, CDMA service provider Tata Teleservices is planning to restructure the company to offset losses of around Rs 5,141 crore (Rs 51.41 billion) by way of capital revamp.
ADAG company offers one-time subscription charge of Rs 25. To capture its share in the fast-growing GSM subscriber base, RCom has focused on the segment that provides less than Rs 300 as average revenue per user and launched its services at competitive prices.
Tata Teleservices has accused Trai of favouring the GSM players in spectrum allocation.
Rival operators' lobby to approach Delhi High Court.
Two regional CDMA players - HFCL in Punjab and Shyam Telecom in Rajasthan - have deposited fee for their GSM spectrum as per the dual technology permitted by the government. HFCL deposited Rs 151.75 crore (Rs 1.51 billion) for Punjab circle, while Shyam gave about Rs 32 crore for the Rajasthan circle.
Anil Dhirubhai AG company Reliance Communications became the first CDMA telecom service provider in India on Monday to launch Blackberry, the push mail smart phone from Canada-based Research in Motion.
Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications, which offers GSM and CDMA mobile services, said it added 1.62 million new mobile users in March.A company official said the net additions from January to March this year stood at 4.83 million. RCom, the country's largest CDMA operator, added 1.6 million mobile users each for the first two months.
The department of telecommunications has referred the issue of using multiple technologies under a single unified access services licence to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Telecom equipment maker Ericsson said on Thursday it had signed a deal to supply a CDMA mobile network to India's Shyam Telecom.
The Tata group's tryst with mobile services, with either CDMA or GSM technology, did not really fly, forcing it to close operations and write off losses. Now the group is back in the big game, this time straddling the telecom equipment, network and technology space in India as well as the global market. To this end, it is leveraging the opportunities that flow from 5G technology through open radio access network, or O-RAN. Recently, the Tata Sons' subsidiary Panatone Finvest acquired 43.3 per cent in Bengaluru-based telecom equipment manufacturer Tejas Network for Rs 1,850 crore and announced it would buy another 26 per cent of the voting capital through an open offer.
US-based Qualcomm, the dominant supplier of the chips that drive code division multiple access mobile phones, and Reliance Communications have agreed to expand the use of the technology in India.
Tata Teleservices along with Samsung recently launched a dual phone called Samsung Duo that supports a CDMA and a GSM SIM connection. Spice, too, has introduced its own rendition with the Spice D88 model that supports both GSM & CDMA connections.
The telecom industry is divided over the policies of former Communications Minister Dayanadhi Maran, who resigned on Sunday.
After Tata group chief Ratan Tata criticised the spectrum allocation criteria announced by the government, GSM cellular operators on Tuesday took potshots at the guidelines, which they said was 'lenient' towards CDMA operators.
In a move that could bring down prices of CDMA handsets further, Qualcomm Inc has licensed Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd to manufacture 3G CDMA2000 mobile handsets, fixed-wireless phones and line modem cards.
Even before the real 3G mobile services takes off, competition at the trial level is hotting up with Reliance Communications applying for the radio waves for testing of interface for both GSM and CDMA based services.
Shares of CDMA technology pioneer Qualcomm have come under tremendous pressure over the past one month, losing a market cap of $11.7 billion on the back of Reliance Communication, one of its major customers, mulling the option of switching to GSM.
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