Operators Might Jump Straight to LTE, says Ovum

Operators Might Jump Straight to LTE, says Ovum

History might repeat itself in the telecom sector. As per the OVUM report released on the first day of convergence India 2010, some of the telecom operators might jump straight from GSM to LTE in the coming years. It may be recalled that Indian Telecom industry took a 180 degree turn after leapfrogging from analog to wireless technology.

The Ovum report says that by the year 2020, access networks in India will have greater reliance on wireless technology, with urban centers will have a wireless-led mix of 3G and 4G networks. The report predicts that some operators might jump straight from GSM to LTE in the coming years. It also states that while urban areas will experience a rapid growth in data traffic which will put pressure on performance, rural areas will rely mostly on wireless networks by the year 2020.

Ovum predicts that small screen mobile phones will continue to dominate in India, but the same will have enhanced processing ability and functionality. The device mix will include e books, netbooks, laptops, with smartphones forming the greatest proportion.

An Ode to the Digital Citizen

Ovum states that by 2020 the Indian consumers will fall into three key segments-digital citizens, digital adventurers, and digital metics. The digital citizen consumer will account for around 20% of the users in India and will be the ones who will seek safety, ease of use and predictable commitment of a relationship with the service provider. The service provider will be providing them with a whole bundle of services, which would include the device, configuration, applications, content and the connectivity. The rest of the consumers will continue to rely on the predictability of prepaid in paying for voice, broadband access, applications and content services while mostly relying on mobile services. The majority of the youth by 2020 will be forming the digital adventurers group as they would be practicing self management and configuration. The digital metrics group will be the largest out of these three, who will reply on basic low-cost devices.

The report states that leading players like Amazon, Apple and Nokia will succeed in establishing managed device platforms and a direct relationship with the digital citizen group of consumers. Global content and application providers will rapidly increase their presence in India by 2020. While the packages offered by these will cater and appeal to the wealthier consumers and service-driven enterprises, by 2020 India will focus on content which will be utility-based and have a practical application and which will be digital in form. The applications will evolve to focus mainly on banking, health, payments, shopping, travel planning, energy and water management.