The Hindu Business Line : Nokia working on low-cost handsets, cheaper network solutions

STATING that 80 per cent of the next billion subscribers are expected to come from the new growth markets and lower spending segments, Nokia has said that it will work towards making telecom services cheaper.

The company would make available cheaper network solutions for telecom operators to lower the total cost of service and cheaper handsets for subscribers, said Mr Urpo Karjalainen, Senior Vice-President, Customer and Market Operations, Asia-Pacific.

"India, apart from Vietnam and Indonesia, is showing the biggest subscriber growth in the Asia-Pacific region," he added. By 2005-end, the company expects the global mobile subscriber base to touch two billion.

"The key to this market is affordable total cost of ownership-handset plus the cost of service."'

One of the such moves by the company is launch of base stations that can be established anywhere and do not need any shelter, according to Mr Rajeev Suri, Senior Vice-President, Asia-Pacific, Nokia Networks.

"In a cell site, the cost of site, air-conditioning, etc., generally account for 60 per cent of the expense whereas the base station accounts for about 40 per cent of the cost. Thus, for servicing rural, new markets, we have launched siteless base stations that would provide vanilla telecom services like voice and SMS."

Between 2005 and 2008, the company forecasts an addition of over 300 million subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region, with about 150 million subscribers accruing from India.

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