Monday, July 30, 2012

Emerging Technologies in TELECOM


Growth encourages more growth. This has been the typical phenomenon for telecom industry. Recently I came across few of the emerging technologies which I thought to share with all.

Wireless charging is one such technology. It is being said that companies like Samsung and HTC have already started using this feature in their handsets. This wireless charging includes two charging units-the transfer unit and the receiving unit. The transferring unit uses non-radiative magnetic field to get charged and charge the transfer to the receiving unit. However the distance of this kind of power transmission is limited and some amount of energy is even lost during transmission.

Augmented Reality is to enhance the computer generated sensory inputs by sound and graphics. It can add value to the reality by adding details and presenting those details to the end customer. It had a market size of 2 million dollars in 2010 and is expected to reach 2 billion dollars by 2015.It can be particularly very helpful for the medical field and space field.

Dash 7 is an emerging Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) designed for security and asset monitoring applications. DASH7 is an open source wireless sensor networking standard for wireless sensor networking which operates in the 433 MHz unlicensed ISM band. DASH7 provides multi-year battery life, range of up to 2 Km, indoor location with 1 meter accuracy, low latency for connecting with moving things, a very small open source protocol stack, AES 128-bit public key encryption support and data transfer of up to 200 Kbit/second. It can penetrate deep into water and concrete. It is a complement to Near field Communication (NFC) technology.

Location Based Services is another emerging field and is one of the largest enterprise revenue generating applications along with AR and Games. It involves finding the location of the mobile device .The various technologies used for LBS are Cell ID, Enhanced Cell ID, GPS etc. LBS could be used in:

·         Maps and Navigation like maps, routing etc
·         Tracking Services like Vehicle Tracking, Friends and family finder etc
·         Information Services like yellow pages, city guides etc
·         Application like social networking, context advertising etc




Neelima Agrawal
SITM (Class of 2013)






Monday, July 23, 2012

Telco & Cable - VYING for the same pie


No other industry touches as many technology-related business sectors as telecommunications. Telecom is also deeply intertwined with entertainment of all types, including cable TV systems, since cable companies are now aggressively offering local exchange service and high-speed Internet access. The relationship between the telecom and cable sectors has become even more complex as telcos are now selling TV via IP (Internet protocol) services, competing directly against cable.
With the hypercompetitive Indian telecom market the only aim is growth in number of new subscribers, less churn & increase in ARPU. The mandatory digitization of the Cable TV sector has opened avenues for the establishment of an ‘All Digital Ecosystem’ and has led us to the era of ‘Convergence’.
Technological convergence will affect not only technological developments and solutions but it will move beyond its technological nature towards markets, industries and corporations. It will shift and/or remove barriers between markets and industries. This will result in an increasing trend of mergers and acquisitions among corporations within the telecom & media related industries.
Several major factors are creating changes in the telecommunications sector today, including:
1.   A shift in business and commercial telephones to VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services, that is, telephone via the Internet.
2.    A shift in residential and personal telephone use from wired services to wireless.
3.    Intense competition between cable and wired services providers.
4.    Steady increases in Internet usage for communications of all types.
5.    The continuing evolution of advanced wireless technologies.
Through the convergence of telecommunications, media & entertainment and IT, the way in which consumers experience (home) entertainment will change from 'push' to 'pull' or from 'availability based' to 'on demand'. People will be able to access the content (digital text, audio, video,) where and whenever they want it. Smart, (in-home) applications will propose relevant content in real-time to users based on their activities and preferences.

Telecom Industry in India

The  Indian  mobile  industry  has  been  successful  in providing affordable telecom services, thereby empowering the common man and has also driven wider economic  growth  across  the  country  and  contributed  to government finances.
India has the world's second-largest mobile phone users with over 929.37 million as of May 2012. It has the world's fourth-largest Internet users with over 121 million as of December 2011.
India has come to be regarded as the world's most competitive and one of the fastest growing telecom markets.

Cable TV Industry in India

Indian TV Distribution industry, world’s second largest with 105 million cable & satellite (C&S) homes, is set for a makeover as the long-awaited ‘digitization’ becomes a reality. As of 2009, there are 22 million digital homes with 18 million of these on the DTH platform.
Cable players are now equipped to utilize and operate set-top-boxes (STBs) and would look to lock-in customers, given the threat from DTH.
The total digital homes tally is set to rise by 4x to 86 million by 2015E, and address the biggest concern of ‘under-reporting’ in its wake. In the backdrop, the expectation is of a 6.5x increase in the organized pie to Rs.340 billion even on a modest 14.5% CAGR in industry revenues to Rs.480 billion by 2015.
India’s digital C&S base is set to expand to 86m by 2015E with 48 million DTH (18 million as of 2009) and 38 million digital cable (4 million) homes. Digitization is no longer a ‘choice’ for cable operators and assumes a sense of urgency in the face of increasing threat from DTH
Also Indian C&S market paralysed by rampant under-declaration and poor yields. While cable industry did not deliver on digitization expectations in the past three years, DTH garnered 18 million subscribers (subs) as of 2009.
SHRIKKANTH GOPALAN
CLASS OF 2013