India's 4G war is already on!

By: Subhadeep Bhattacharjee

Just when India was coming on the 3G map with major Telecom operators starting to provide the service mainly in the urban areas the 4G war seems to be on. Intel the world’s largest chipmaker seems to be eyeing this future market. It is in talks with leading Indian Telecom companies like Tata Communications, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications. The broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum for 3G goes into auction in Jan '10.

If you thought Intel was moving too fast as even 3G hasn't established its foot on the ground you might just be wrong. 4G network which will be able to transmit data at around 100 MBPS speed is already undergoing test and it may be a mater of only a few years before 4G network hits the Indian market. Intel's interest in India's 4G spectrum also establishes the fact that India is likely to be one of the most lucrative Telecom markets in the world in the coming decade.

Why is 4G consider so much superior than the 3G which only a handful number of Indians has used due to its late entry into the Indian market.

• A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions
• A Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks
• High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio, high speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV

In layman's term a 4G enabled phone will truly converge the three media (telecom, television and internet) into one. The Convergence Bill of 2001 or better known as ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment) had envisioned to achieve this long back but this never happened. With the launch of 3G all this became possible but the low bandwidth most of the users have been denied a hassle free experience.

There are however many who feel 3G and 4G may not become huge hit in India as most of the Indians use the phone mainly for calling purpose. In fact the rural population which is contributing to the growth of the mobile business in India doesn't even use the otherwise popular SMS (Short Messaging Service). It remains to be seen how much of a business success these technologies become in India after all we are country which has patronised 'Missed Calls'!