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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (31691)	1/25/2003 9:05:58 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197139

TRAI chief finds it hard to justify hike Onkar Singh in New Delhi \| January 25, 2003 17:22 IST Rediff.com TRAI Chairman M S VermaM S Verma, chairman, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, had a tough time in defending his decision to raise basic telecom tariffs and offer major concessions to the cell phone and WLL users. While the telecom regulator announced a hike in the rentals for basic telephone services, it declared that all the incoming calls and on WLL would henceforth be free. Verma was taken aback when one of the journalists asked him if it was not true that TRAI was meant to protect the interests of the elite and business community as it has been passing the burden on to the middle class. "If that is the impression going around then all that I can say is that it is not very good. TRAI is a constitutional body and it has been created to protect the interests of the consumers. We would be failing in our duty if we did not do so," he claimed. Verma ducked under another bouncer when a scribe asked him to list the gains as a telephone subscriber and not as a chairman of TRAI. Verma just let the question pass without attempting to answer them. A senior TRAI official claimed that the fixed-line rentals were highly subsidised as a single 'copper telephone pair' costs as much as Rs 30,000 per subscriber. Another official of the TRAI admitted that most of the members were in favour of raising the long-distance calls marginally and thereby raising the revenue instead of raising the rentals of the fixed-line phones and reducing the pulse rate from 180 seconds to 120 seconds. "But some powerful people overruled this decision. Please do not quote me on this otherwise they would be after my life," he claimed. When asked how much revenue did they expect to raise through the changes that they have been announced, Verma refused to give a categorical reply. "I have the figures in my office. I do not remember them offhand," he said before calling off the informal discussion with the newsmen on the pretext that he has to rush out for a meeting. However, analysts feel that with the new charges coming into effect from April 1, 2003, the average increase in the basic telephone bills could be around 30 per cent. © 2003 rediff.com India Limited. All Rights Reserved. rediff.com

To: foundation who wrote (31691)	1/25/2003 9:21:34 AM
From: foundation	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 197139

Hutch, Airtel To Launch GPRS, MMS The Times of India January 25, 2003 Neeraj Saxena NEW DELHI: India's two main cellular telephony operators Bharti Cellular and Hutchison plan to launch high-end faster Internet access and picture messaging services over next few days. The two arch rivals are all set to make the announcement which will mark one of the largest GPRS and MMS launches anywhere in Asia-Pacific. Only a handful of telecom companies worldwide have so far launched general packet radio service and multimedia messaging services. In India, BPL was the first one to launch GPRS in February last year, followed by MMS last summer. This was followed by Idea Cellular launching its Delhi service in November along with GPRS and MMS. But while they launched selectively, Hutch and Airtel plan to launch across all their circles. While Hutchison and its associates operate services across seven circles, Bharti is operating services in 16 circles. Both firms have operations in the lucrative Delhi and Mumbai metros. Airtel has for long been claiming its network is GPRS ready. When contacted, Bharti Televentures' president (mobility) Anil Nayar said: "The scope is undoubtedly limited for these services. But it is a developing market and Airtel has to provide such services in order to stay ahead. We will launch very soon and price these quite competitively." Hutch had late last year awarded a contract to Ericsson to supply infrastructure and services for making all its seven networks ready with what is popularly known as the 2.5 G technology. This also included upgrade to multimedia messaging capability and integrations across all circles. Between Idea and BPL, the two firms have no more than 10,000-15,000 GPRS subscribers out of a total base of 10 million. Even though Bharti promises to price the two services "very competitively", the number of those using these services is likely to remain very small. Another concern is on the poor speed of between 14-16 kilo byte per second (kbps) offered by the present companies who have launched GPRS. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is considered the next generation in the GSM based mobile telephony for wireless Internet access on phone handsets and hand held devices such as personal digital assistants (PDA). However, what Hutchison mulled over, and decided not to go for now, is EDGE (enhanced data rates for GSM evolution), sometimes also referred to as 2.75G. Technically speaking, EDGE can achieve the delivery of advanced mobile services such as the downloading of video and music clips, full multimedia messaging, high-speed colour Internet access and e-mail on the move. In contrast, GPRS can also allow networks to offer an 'always-on', higher capacity, Internet-based content and packet-based data services. It also enables services such as colour Internet browsing, e-mail on the move, powerful visual communications, multimedia messages and location-based services, but the entire experience under the EDGE platform is promised to be akin to a 3G service. Such a service is still quite far on the horizon in Indian market as the operators are not too bullish about Indian market offering them enough customers for such high-end services. Besides, migration to 3G can be made by telecom companies only after the department of telecom takes a decision on whether to auction separate licenses for offering 3G. It will also require a substantial investment on infrastructure upgrade. Along with GPRS, Hutchison also plans to launch MMS across all the circles. Using MMS, users can send full colour pictures and backgrounds from one mobile phone to another as messages, along with attached text and audio. Hence, if you have a phone with in-built camera which comes with MMS capability such as the Nokia 7650, or Sony Ericsson T68i or P-800, you can send postcards from your holiday, or create a photo phone book or album. MMS is being touted by telecom companies as the possible killer application that can ride on GPRS networks and fetch them good revenue. But even while the two arch rivals plan to unveil such value-added services in order to attract higher revenue in view of competition from limited mobility players, it remains to be seen how much of an opportunity exists. ========== the poor speed of between 14-16 kbps offered by the present companies who have launched GPRS Now that's pathetic. No wonder Reliance is promoting data. "..but the entire experience under the EDGE platform is promised to be akin to a 3G service.." Now... is this the UMTS 3G experience where performance projections are presently around 80kbs... and dropping? Is this the EDGE platform where vendors failed to deliver on their hard promise for commercial quantities of handsets to US carriers last year?