Data service of Citycell, overall market scenario and WiMAX technology

Ahasanul Kabir, CSC, MBA

Abstract
This Paper explores opportunity of diversified data services for the expansion of business and present overall idea about WiMAX technology which is a threat to Citycell and other operators data service. This endeavor gives a clear picture of forthcoming business competition and idea of weapons to play in the market. Citycells position is not that strong at data service in terms of number of subscribers in telecommunication industry. Nonetheless Citycell has the opportunity to grab good number of unauthorized ISPs dissatisfied internet subscriber and new acquisition by offering exclusive service. Right initiative should be taken to attain target market share.

Key words: Data Service, WiMAX , T1, E1.

Citycell is the pioneer telecommunication company and the sole CDMA operator in Bangladesh, starts its operation in 1993. Besides providing voice, Citycell has been offering data service for the last couple of years. It is the data service which has changed the image of Citycell in the industry. With the process of time the opportunity to generate good amount of revenue from voice service has been constricted. Citycell is the sole operator which is providing intranet solution by assigning Fixed IP address through PDSN. Upgrade and diversify of existing data service can explore new horizon of business for Ctycell.

New Services:
Provide connectivity to run software in online for banks and other organizations:
Requirements to run Software in online High speed uninterrupted dedicated bandwidth. Commitment to up the network or link if there is any technical glitch.

Currently most of the organizations getting this service from some ISPs but still Citycell has the opportunity to penetrate the market since its solution would be much better than that of the ISPs. Citycell is far ahead than competitor ISPs for its existing network infrastructure. Citycells nationwide BTS are added advantage for providing connectivity at any point. Connectivity can be provided directly by fiber or by radio from the nearest POP. Migration from one vendor to another service provider is comparatively tough if existing service is up to the mark and satisfactory. Nonetheless quality service and reasonable cost can be very effective for migration. Level of service for migration: Instant act, provide prompt service would change the image of Citycell, increase reliability on it which would ultimately help for the proliferation and grab of new business. Cost: Competitive cost with satisfactory level of service will force the organizations to give a second thought for Citycells service initially.

Wireless internet service for home users: Around 500 unauthorized Internet Service
Providers (ISPs) are in business whose quality of internet services for the home users is very poor. A total of 70 authorized ISPs, out of 200 licensees, are operating mainly in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet. The country's total internet home use subscription level is around 7.5 lakh, of which around 6 lakh connections are provided by unauthorized ISPs. Authorized ISPs usually provide internet connection through fiber optic cable, modem cable or digital subscriber line by which subscribers can get good quality services. On the other hand, unauthorized ISPs usually connect their customers by low quality Ethernet cables, and provide of excessive connections from a single hub slows the speed

drastically. Citycell has very good chance to grab a significant portion of unauthorized ISPs market share by ensuring quality service as subscribers are highly dissatisfied with existing service.

Level of Internet Subscription for Home Users

700000 Number of Subscriber 600000 500000 400000 300000 200000 100000 0 Unauthorized ISP Authorized ISP Type of Service Provider

Market Share in Percentage

20%

Unauthorized ISP Authorized ISP

80%

SMS Banking:
Banks are heading towards prompt technology based service for satisfying customer needs and to be competitive in the market. SMS banking is one of these highly sophisticated services. The opportunity is very high for us to provide banking service through SMS to all third generation banks.

SMS Service:
Banks and other organizations send invitation to its clients in various occasions like AGM, which could be replaced with SMS at a cheaper rate. So bulk SMS at cheaper rate could be a good service of Citycell.

Bill payment through SMS:

Utility (Electricity, Gas, Water, Phone etc.) bill can be paid through SMS. This service has already been launched by GP. Citycell can provide this opportunity to its subscribers by utilizing and upgrading of existing infrastructures.

Internal office network infrastructure solution:

Besides giving internet and intranet solution Citycell can promote total internal office network infrastructure solutions by taking the help of third party which will give Citycell better opportunity to strength its stance in the industry. This could be an initiative of business diversification and bring the opportunity of effective Co-branding.

Overall scenario of Data Service in telecommunication industry:

Though other operators do not have any dedicated data service like ours but GP is now doing very good in this segment. GP has increased its bandwidth significantly. I had experience of seeing data service performance of ours and GPs at National Bank Limited Premise in Motijheel some 4/5 weeks back, where our maximum speed was 6.11 KBPS and minimum was 3.75 KBPS whereas GPs peak and lowest point was 16.5 KBPS and 15.05 KBPS consecutively. This is not only the scenario of Motijheel but it is prevailing in other areas of the country as well. A test on performance of data service was jointly conducted by ASA, National Bank Ltd., and Citycell at Dhamrai and Shaturia in Saver in between 12:15 pm to 4 pm on 12th August, 2008. The comparison test reveals GPs superiority in speed over Citycells data service.

Dhamrae
20 Speed - Kilobyte/Sec 15 10 5 0 Citycell Operator GP Avg Speed Max Speed

Shaturia
20 Speed - Kilobyte/Sec 15 10 5 0 Citycell Operator GP Average Speed Max Speed

Grameen Phone is expecting to get 3G license soon. After having the approval, GP will be able to improve its data service dramatically. Recently I have received some complains on deterioration of our data service. GPs number of data service user is highest in the industry which is around 2 million followed by BL 1 million. After launching of AKTELs edge on 30th May08, number of subscriber has increased. AKTELs total data subscriber is roughly 25000. Warid Telecoms data service is becoming popular for its quality and aggressive marketing strategy. Around 0.1 million subscribers are sticking with Warids data service. Citycells 10,000 subscribers are availing this service currently.

Market Share of Data Service

WARID 3.18% AKTEL 0.79% BL 31.89% GP CITYCELL BL CITYCELL 0.31% GP 63.79% AKTEL WARID

Threat on Citycells Data Service:

Three companies (ISPs) are going to get license of WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) by December08 at first phase. This number will be increased with the process of time. The chance for BracNet, Grameen Cybernet is very high to get the license. After launching of WiMAX, competition would be fears and that will be a big threat for data service of Citycell. Square Infotech and BracNet are going to invest TK. 2500 crore jointly for the implementation of WiMAX project. BracNet has already laid fiber as backbone throughout Dhaka city. 200 base stations will be established to cover the whole city for providing service to subscribers.

WiMAX Technology
WiMAX at a glance: Range : 6 miles, covers a small city with one base station Throughput : 72 Mbps Security: Multi-level encryption Qos: Dynamic bandtwidth allocation Good for voice + video

Strength of WiMAX: It has the potential to replace a number of existing telecommunications infrastructures. In a fixed wireless configuration it can replace the telephone company's copper wire networks, the cable TV's coaxial cable infrastructure while offering Internet Service Provider (ISP) services. In its mobile variant, WiMAX has the potential to replace cellular networks. Application of WiMAX: It is so exciting for its broad range of applications such as broadband internet access, *T1/E1 substitute for businesses, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) as cable TV substitute, backhaul for Wi-Fi hotspots and cell phone towers, mobile telephone service, mobile data TV, mobile emergency response services, wireless backhaul as substitute for fiber optic cable.

Type of WiMAX:
Fixed WiMAX

Figure: Fixed WiMAX offers cost effective point to point and point to multi-point solutions WiMAX provides fixed, portable or mobile non-line-of sight service from a base station to a subscriber station, also known as customer premise equipment (CPE). Some goals for WiMAX include a radius of service coverage of 6 miles from a WiMAX base station for point-to-multipoint, non-line-of-sight service. This service should deliver approximately 40 megabits per second (Mbps) for fixed and portable access applications. That WiMAX cell site offer enough bandwidth to support hundreds of businesses with T1 speeds (1.544 mbps) and thousands of residential customers with the equivalent of DSL services from one base station.

Mobile WiMAX

Figure: Mobile WiMAX allows any telecommunications to go mobile Mobile WiMAX takes the fixed wireless application a step further and enables cell phone-like applications on a much larger scale. For example, mobile WiMAX enables streaming video to be broadcast from a speeding police or other emergency vehicle at over 70 MPH. It potentially replaces cell phones and mobile data offerings from cell phone operators such as EvDo, EvDv and HSDPA. In addition to being the final leg in a quadruple play, it offers superior building penetration and improved security measures over fixed WiMAX. Mobile WiMAX will be very valuable for emerging services such as mobile TV and gaming.

Wireless architecture: point-to-point and point-to-multipoint

There are two scenarios for a wireless deployment: point-to-point and point-tomultipoint.

Figure: Point-to point and point-to-multipoint configurations Point-to-point (P2P): Point to point is used where there are two points of interest: one sender and one receiver. This is also a scenario for backhaul or the transport from the data source (data center, co-lo facility, fiber POP, Central Office, etc) to the subscriber or for a point for distribution using point to multipoint architecture. As the architecture calls for a highly focused beam between two points range and throughput of point-to point radios will be higher than that of point-tomultipoint products. Point-to-Multipoint (PMP): As seen in the figure above, point-to-multipoint is synonymous with distribution. One base station can service hundreds of dissimilar subscribers in terms of bandwidth and services offered.

Line of sight (LOS) and Non-line of sight (NLOS)

Figure: The difference between line of sight and non-line of sight Earlier wireless technologies (*LMDS, *MMDS for example) were unsuccessful in the mass market as they could not deliver services in nonline-of-sight scenarios. This limited the number of subscribers they could reach and, given the high cost of base stations and CPE, those business plans failed. WiMAX functions best in line of sight situations and, unlike those earlier technologies, offers acceptable range and throughput to subscribers who are not line of sight to the base station. Buildings between the base station and the subscriber diminish the range and throughput, but in an urban environment, the signal will still be strong enough to deliver adequate service. Given WiMAX's ability to deliver services nonline-of-sight, the WiMAX service provider can reach many customers in high-rise office buildings to achieve a low cost per subscriber because so many subscribers can be reached from one base station.

T1: Type of broadband telecommunications connection used especially to connect Internet service providers to the Internet's infrastructure. The T-carrier systems offer entirely digital, full-duplex exchange of data over traditional wire, coaxial cable, optical fibre, microwave relay, or other communications media. T-Carrier T1 Total Speed 1.544 Mbps No. of 64 KBPS Channels 24

The fundamental frame Organization of T1

E1: Wide-area, digital transmission scheme, that carries data at a rate of 2.048Mbps

LMDS : Local Multi-point Distribution System

MMDS: Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service is a broadband wireless point-to-

multipoint specification utilizing UHF (Ultra High Frequency) communications. Reference: The Daily Star www.wimax.com www.t1-bandwidth.com I would like to thank Sabbir Bhai, DGM, Product Marketing for providing data on market share of competitors Data Service and Rashid Bhai, Manager, Corporate Sales for the encouragement.