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While many phone users in India are still contemplating a move to 3G services, service providers are already planning to launch 4G and one of the reasons why it will become popular will be the desire of users to share the content that they have generated.
“Traditionally, India has been using voice services and SMS, which don't need a fat data pipe. However, data consumption has been increasing and is driven by social media and the ability to share user-generated content — for example, shooting a video and posting it on YouTube — will drive the migration from 3G to 4G,” Mr Mrinmoy Purkayastha, who heads sales and marketing at the communications business unit of Tata Elxsi, told Business Line .
While 2G networks were built mainly for voice and slow data, such as SMS, 3G was optimised for video calls and mobile TV. 4G, with a stated capacity to move data in the speed range of 100Mbps to 1 Gbps, is capable of providing video that is superior to what is currently available on a 3G network.
Cricket, lower cost
Apart from user-generated content, cricket is also expected to drive usage of 4G. “On a 3G network, live video is not great,” pointed out Mr Purkayastha and said that a cricket match streamed live on 4G networks could act as a ‘killer' application for the adoption of 4G in India.
4G will also lower costs for both users and operators because on a 4G network, you pay for the amount of data sent and not for the time spent for sending the data. “From the perspective of capability of the infrastructure, since 4G enables much more data to be pushed for every megahertz of the spectrum, it is cheaper. And if it's cheaper for the operator, the benefit will flow down to the consumer.”
Mr Purkayastha said that Tata Elxsi was currently working with major equipment manufacturers to accelerate the development and adoption of 4G technologies. “We build the reference design for 4G base station equipment and this enables equipment manufacturers to get ready access to the technology and reduces their time to market.” In India, Tata Elxsi is working with players such as Reliance, Bharti Airtel and Tata DoCoMo for 4G trials, which are expected to commence in the second half of 2012.
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