Week at a Glance

NewsSupreme Court cancels 122 telecom licences, foreign investors shocked CIBIL to include mobile bill payment history to check credit worthiness Operators cut 3G rates in India to entice users 2G: Ten facts on Supreme Court's big verdict on Chidambaram and telecom scam Reliance Communications names Das as Head of Wireless Division 2G spectrum auction will be open to new players RIL to be the biggest beneficiary of 540 MHz- 2G airwaves auction, say analysts Idea, RCom, Tata DoCoMo, Videocon, and Vodafone floats LBS RFP BSNL may outsource tower Airtel appoints Gopal Vittal as Group Director TrendsWhy CDMA phones aren't dominating in India Airtel releases manual setting for GPRS Surfwhile you wait for your train Telecom sector in India hiring NRIs and expats Google dominates Indian Android app space Consolidation to happen in mobile sector: Analysts LG to launch a Triple-SIM Mobile Amazon.com launches India specific shopping service Nimbuzz Ping brings push notification to feature phones MNP likely to see more takers following SC ruling on 2G licences InsightIndian Telecom Equipment Manufacturing A Guide To Mobile Platforms Factors Affecting High Data Usage in Mobile Networks Developing an App for Windows Phone 7 The Mobile Print Enterprise

News
Supreme Court cancels 122 telecom licences, foreign investors shocked Economic Times The Supreme Court has cancelled 122 licences awarded by former Telecom Minister A Raja, a ruling hailed by anti-corruption campaigners but one that has left investors, banks and vendors fretting about the prospect of billions of dollars going down the drain. Foreign investors, notably Norway's Telenor and Russia's Sistema, have claimed they had only followedgovernment policies in place at the time. Both operators had entered India through joint ventures with companies that had been awarded licences by Raja. While some analysts feel that the the apex court's verdict, at least in the short term, could dent investor confidence,Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said, "Protection of interests is not the function of the government. Any party that feels aggrieved can approach the courts." CIBIL to include mobile bill payment history to check credit worthiness Economic Times Default on your mobile bill and you may soon become ineligible for a home loan or a car loan. Non-payment of telephone bills will also rule out the possibilities of getting a new credit card or even another mobile number. Credit Information Bureau of India Limited (CBIL) the country's credit information bureau, which tracks credit history of consumers, is taking steps to include mobile and telephone bill payment history to calculate the credit worthiness of an individual. Once the tie-ups with telcos are in place, Banks such as ICICI, HDFC, SBI, and others may see an individual's phone bill payment history to deny or approve a car, credit card or housing loan. It hasalready launched a pilot initiative with Vodafone's post-paid customers and is in talks with the country's largest telco by customers, Bharti Airtel, for a similar project.Other telcos are also set to come on board soon. Operators cut 3G rates in India to entice users Real Time News, India Six months after India's telecom operators launched their 3G services, operators such as Aircel, Airtel, Idea, and BSNL have cut rates by half in an effort to drive demand for mobile data, and doubled the data allocated to each scheme. The cheapest rates on prepaid 3G data are still offered by BSNL under its 3-month promotional scheme. MTNL continues to be the only operator in India to offer a truly unlimited 3G plan.

2G: Ten facts on Supreme Court's big verdict on Chidambaram and telecom scam NDTV The Supreme Court is scheduled to deliver three important verdicts on different parts of the telecom scam on February 2. Justices G S Sunghvi, and A K Ganguly will announce whether Home Minister P Chidambaram should be investigated by the CBI, which is handling the 2G scam. Other verdicts to be given are: whether the 122 licenses issued during Mr Raja's tenure as Telecom Minister should be cancelled; and whether to sanction Prshant Bhushan's request for a Special Investigating Team to monitor the CBI's inquiry. What has escalated the case against Mr Chidambaram, is the note sent by the Finance Ministry in March 2011 to the Prime Minister's Offices suggesting that theFinance Ministry headed by Mr Chidambaram could have done more to insist that Mr Raja conduct an auction of valuable spectrum. The government has staunchly defended Mr Chidambaram so far. Reliance Communications names Das as Head of Wireless Division 4-traders Reliance Communications Ltd., said on Wednesday that Shamik Das, Chief Operating Officer of its wireless business, will head the division replacing Syed Safawi, whose contract as the president of the company's largest arm is not being renewed. The flagship company of the Reliance Group, headed by billionaire Anil Ambani, is merging its three geographical units with all heads reporting to Das, who is also a joint president in the company. 2G spectrum auction will be open to new players Hindu Business Line The Telecom Commission has taken a decision on crucial policy issues, including opening up the proposed auction for 2G spectrum to new players. The Commission has also agreed to recommendations given by the telecom regulator on spectrum sharing and unified licensing. The Department of Telecom is planning to hold 2G spectrum auction in a bid to determine market price for airwaves. Price from this auction will be used to fix the one-time fee for existing players. On the issue of spectrum sharing, the Commission has said that spectrum sharing will be permitted to 2G airwaves alone, as long as both the players have airwaves.The operators will have to pay spectrum charges on the combinedquantity, as well as abide by the other riders in 2G sharing given by TRAI.

RIL to be the biggest beneficiary of 540 MHz- 2G airwaves auction, say analysts Economic Times Telecom regulator TRAI plans to allow all companies, including incumbents and olderplayers, as well as new firms to participate in the auction for 540 MHz of 2G airwaves that will be freed up after cancellation of all licences issued since January 2008, an official in the know said. Analysts say the biggest beneficiary of the move could be Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd., ( RIL) enabling it to make a strong comeback into the telecom sector by becoming a full spectrum telecom operator offering both vanilla voice services as well as advanced 4G services. Idea, RCom, Tata DoCoMo, Videocon, and Vodafone floats LBS RFP Voice & Data Online Large operators like Idea, RCom, Tata, videocon, and Vodafone have floated LBS (location based services) Request for proposal (RFP) pilots. RCom and Tata are planning a single LBS system which will take care of their GSM and CDMA infrastructure, whereas others will deploy GSM LBS system. It is expected that operators will take 4-6 months for deployment, integration and testing of pan India operations before it becomes commercial. All the operators are in a hurry to meet the deadline set by the Ministry of Communications & IT of May 31, 2012. Initially, the details will be provided for specified mobile numbers but within three years, the location details shall be part ofCDR for all mobile calls. BSNL may outsource tower Livemint Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), the loss-making state-run telecom services provider, has finally decided to follow the outsourcing model adopted by private sector rivals such as Bharti Airtel Ltd., asit seeks to lower costs and return to profitability. BSNL is looking at outsourcing the operation and maintenance of almost all its 60,000 telecom towers before the new fiscal begins on 1 April, a senior official with the telco said. The telco plans to increase revenue by around Rs 1,000 crore in the coming fiscal from such tower-sharing agreements. Airtel appoints Gopal Vittal as Group Director Economic Times

India's largest telecom company Bharti Airtel has appointed Gopal Vittal as Group Director for Special Projects effective from April 3. He is rejoining the company after moving out in 2008. He

will be responsible for Airtel's international strategy and to build world class data business. Bharti Airtel is a global mobile phone operator with presence in 19 countries across Asia and Africa.

Trends
Why CDMA phones aren't dominating in India Moneycontrol.com An overview of the mobile market shows that seemingly GSM, has a much larger share of the pie compared to CDMA in India. As of October 2011, India had a subscriber base of over 851 million subscribers, with GSM having 80 percent of the market, while CDMA ladded at 20 percent.CDMA phones are believed to be focused on rural regions, where the purchasing power and users demands aren't high, but the price point definitely matters. Flexibility, too, is one of the main factors that has been affecting CDMA usability in India. Airtel releases manual setting for GPRS The Mobile Indian In a bid to help customers with devices that have known issues in downloading automatic GPRS settings, Airtel has issued guidelines for manual settings for some devices such as BlackBerry handsets, Apple iPhone devices, HTC'sdevices, and Samsung devices. These settings are also made available on Airtel India Facebook page for reference. Surf while you wait for your train The Hindu The Bangalore Division of the South Western Railway (SWR) is all set to launch Blue-Fi, a combination of Bluetooth application as well as Wi-Fi connectivity at the entire City Station, facilitated by RailTel Corporation of India, the Railway Ministry's telecom arm. Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) Sudhanshu Mani said that Blue-Fi was one of SWR's several initiatives to enhance passenger comfort. The facility is free for passengers while the Railways plans to get revenue through advertisement. Telecom sector in India hiring NRIs and expats Times of India Companies in sectors requiring a certain level of skill and experience that are not available within India, are looking at hiring from outside India. The top five are: Healthcare, Infrastructure, Telecom, E-Commerce, and Information Technology. "The telecom sector in India has seen an explosive growth in subscriber base andvolumes. However, margins in voice

based service are thin and companies are looking beyond voice. They are looking at value added services (VAS) and the availability of high bandwidth, upgrades and rollouts of technologies (especially 3G) is making that possible," says Aseem Juneja, a cross border talent expert and Founder of Indbound.com. Google dominates Indian Android app space IBNLive.com Google's Android platform has turned out to be the most budding platform. Apple's iOS-based iPhones and iPads are still pretty expensive for mainstream consumption in the Indian market, but it's not the case with Android. Nielsen, a research company states that Google also happens to dominate the mobile app terrain inIndia. The report states that Indian smartphone users tend to spend roughly 40 percent of their time using data apps. Out of all the apps on the market space, the majority of 25 percent are made by Google. Consolidation to happen in mobile sector: Analysts Times ofIndia The Supreme Court's order cancelling 122 telecom licences issued by the UPA government will result in consolidation by existing players and freeing of pricing power to the incumbent players, say sector analysts. "The Supreme Court's decision is positive to for the sector on the whole and there is bound to be consolidation as some of the players may not go in for the auction route stipulated by the apex court," Ankita Somani, Research Analyst (Telecom) with Angel Broking. LG to launch a Triple-SIM Mobile Techtree LG wants to make a splash in the entry-level mobile segment with its new A290. To make its offering unique, the Korean company has added three SIM card slots to the device which are likely to be GSM only. While it is expected to be launched in Russia as early as next month, considering the high demand for such devices in Indiait is likely to hit the Indian markets in the near future. Amazon.com launches India specific shopping service Zee News Global online shopping giant Amazon.com launched a new service for Indian consumers, on February 2, offering 1.2 crore products from both local and international retailers. Amazon.com

Vice-President Amit Agarwal said the service would be offered under the brand Junglee.com. Amazon is set to offer more than 14,000 Indian and global brands across more than 25 product categories, which include mobile phones, books, and music, among others. Nimbuzz Ping brings push notification to feature phones The Mobile Indian Nimbuzz which is famous for its instant messenger app, has launched a new application that brings push notification feature to the feature phones. The new app, named Nimbuzz Ping, is available for devices irrespective of operators.Nimbuzz Ping allows feature phone users to appear online to their friends and receive free SMS alerts when someone in their Nimbuzz community wants to get in touch, even when the user is offline. Nimbuzz Ping was initially been made available to its users on Idea Cellular and Aircel networks in India, but it also works across all 400 million (Nokia) Symbian smartphones and Java phones. MNP likely to see more takers following SC ruling on 2G licences Economic Times A mass switchover by mobile users is likely in the telecom sector as customers would now plan to port in to different networks following the Supreme Court's order cancelling 122 licences of operators such as Idea Cellular, Uninor, Tata Teleservices, Loop Telecom, and Videocon. "The move is likely to affect less than 5 percent of users as the current operators other than the ones whose licences have been cancelled control almost the rest of the market," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Chairman J.S. Sarma said.

Insight
Indian Telecom Equipment Manufacturing Knowledgefaber This paper attempts to showcase the Indian telecom equipment manufacturers. These include home grown active, core infrastructure companies or mobile device players. A Guide To Mobile Platforms MoBank Group The smartphone world is a fragmented one, with a number of major players each with strengths and weaknesses. This paper attempts to provide an overview of the key platforms for which brands can build mobile solutions. These include mobile websites and native applications for ecosystems (a broad term for aligned handsets, operating systems and software application markets) created by organisations like Apple, Google and Microsoft.

Factors Affecting High Data Usage in Mobile Networks Telcovision Dramatic changes in the mobile industry and high-tech mobile phones have given the opportunity for users to experience a whole new range of services. Furthermore, usage of smartphones and new devices with mobile broadband connectivity to access Internet has become very popular during the last few years. These new services and devices have accelerated data usage resulting in significant data demands from todays mobile networks. Development of data hungry applications together with mobile devices such as smartphones has significantly increased the demand for data services in mobile networks. Currently mobile operators are finding it difficult to meet the demand arising from higher data usage. This is a major challenge for the global mobile industry. This article presents some of the reasons behind the increased data usage in mobile networks. Developing an App for Windows Phone 7 Wiley This paper briefly discusses the steps involved in developing apps for Windows Phone 7 and ways to take care of your customers once the app is in their hands. The Mobile Print Enterprise Quocirca The consumerisaton of IT, due in part to 'bring your own devices' initiatives, is accelerating the adoption of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices in the workplace. Today's dynamic and mobile workforce is now relying on personal devices in their professional lives and expect anytime, anywhere access to corporate systems - including printing. This paper discusses how IT consumerisaton is driving anytime, anywhere printing.