A Recent Survey Report on Data Cards: 2.5 Lakh subscribers Per Month
A Recent Survey Report on Data Cards: 2.5 Lakh subscribers Per Month
In India, although broadband targets have continuously been missed, yet CDMA operators have crossed 3 million subscriber mark with their hi-tech EVDO data cards providing high speed internet access.
As recently survey, the operators of CDMA are adding up around 2.5 lakh data card subscribers monthly. Moreover, CMDA data cards have proved themselves in the absence of 3G Data Cards. One of the biggest players in the list of data card business is Reliance with about 55 percent market share amongst the CDMA operators. On the contrary, Tata Indicom comes at the second place with close to 35 per cent share.
MTS, the new operator in the space, is on third position with 2.5 lakh subscribers. Public sector operators like BSNL and MTNL having CDMA networks are marginal players only. BSNL has upped the ante and hopes to capture a bigger market share in this profitable market.
Reliance and Tata Indicom are the great competitors of each other in terms of net addition every month. You won't believe that both subscribers are adding one lakh customers per month along with an additional 50,000 being added by MTS and the public sector operators.
On the other hand, the Chinese equipment manufacturers have captured almost the entire dongle market in the country. ZTE has 43 per cent market share whereas Huawei has close to 55 per cent. Both subscribers have been able to push more than 5 million dongles to operators.
The dongles business is very good for CDMA operators whilst their average revenue per user (ARPU) hovers at around Rs 111; ARPU for data cards is more than Rs 700.
Given the importance of the business each operator has already chalked out plans for expanding their EVDO network. RCom plans to expand its Netconnect (Its wireless internet brand) service to 600 towns and cities from the current 69 cities. MTS is also making a plan to take its MBLaze service to more than 100 cities. Currently, it is available in 84 cities; whereas Tata Photon plus is recently available in 76 cities.
CDMA Operators are also thinking of upgrading to next generation EVDO Rev B platform that will allow them to offer speed at up to 14.3 Mbps. Nevertheless, none of them have committed a time period for this upgrade.
Consequently, CDMA operators have no competition from GSM operators in data connectivity from. But with the launch of 3G in the offing, these operators will soon have to face the onslaught of HSPA data cards. Though HSPA data cards will offer similar speeds, being a GSM product can help their brand.
The director of Analysis Mason, Kunal Bajaj had a different perspective about them, "I don't think CDMA camp will face any threat from GSM camp in this space. It will in fact help in expanding the market. Moreover, 3G operators will also have to carry voice in this limited bandwidth available to them, so they will not be very keen on pure play dongle business, I think they will use 3G to provide better value added services."
Despite being successful, CDMA operators other than MTS refused to share the number of dongles sold by them. The possible reason for this might be the criticism from GSM Operators that CDMA operators are getting unfair advantage as they are able to offer 3G services (EVDO is a 3G standard) without paying for it, whilst GSM operators have to pay a huge spectrum fee.
5 Steps for Disaster Recovery What is Wireless Data Security? A Brief History of Data Communications Qualities Of A Reliable Data Center Data Visualization and Mashups Pedestrian's Wrongful Death - A Difficult Path to Recovery Male Enhancement Data In The Last Decade RF and wireless data transmission system SoCnRF9E5 implementation-nRF9E5, RF SoC, data transmission - Communications Industry No More Recovery Discs The Importance of Data Backup Online Data Entry: How Online Data Entry Useful in Business? Fingerprint scanner Time Attendance Access System with Data Recording BE Projects - Project Idea - Clustering of Research Papers Citation Data