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Two conferences were held in Bangalore recently-CIIs COMTEL 2008 on telecom and the second annual Mobility and Wireless World conference organized by MAIT. While the MAIT conference took as its starting point Telecom Regulatory Authoritys (TRAI) recent recommendations on broadband growth, COMTEL focused at breaking barriers and bridging the divide. Both conferences brought out a few interesting points on technologies in mobile telephony. Heres an overview.

Action on broadband
The governments target of increasing the number of Internet connections in the country to 40 million by 2010 (of which half would be broadband connections) was perceived as too modest a target. If India is to be a member of what is being called the transaction economy, then must more attention needs to be paid to harness the largely copper connectivity fueling the nations 40 million landline telephones. TRAI has made a strong plea to unleash the potential of these landlines to carry Internet traffic by unbundling the local loop. This would mean creating mini clusters from the last mile loops to distribute smaller but stronger networks based on WLL, carrying with them, higher data capabilities and ranges.

Internet over Cable TV Networks
The unused bandwidth in the TV cable connections offered by 60,000 cable operators countrywide was also a resource waiting to be harnessed. It was technically feasible to use the current download-only links of direct-to-home (DTH) satellite TV infrastructure to carry Internet traffic after adding an alternative uplink path.

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WiMAX for rural areas
While optical fibre was still the best bet for long haul wired Net access, WiMAX was emerging as the hidden power to bridge the rural divide. The governments recent decision to open the 2.5 GHz band for wireless broadband and 2.1 GHz band for 3G mobile is being seen as a catalyst for high-speed Internet services. With regard to DTH, WiMAX would not be a participant, but coaxial cables and the more common fibre optic cables are slated as the next obvious choice for carrying higher Internet speeds to the domestic user.

Developments in Rural Telecom
National Knowledge Commission Chairman Sam Pitroda told COMTEL conference that rural telecom connectivity was central to the commissions roadmap for distance learning and virtual classrooms. Having known the baggage of legacy systems, India was seen to have an incredible opportunity for global leadership in wireless broadband.

3G vs WiMAX
By 2009, laptop sales are expected to exceed desktops for the first time-a key inflexion point as significant as the overtaking of landlines by mobile phones in 2004. For their connectivity, would these laptops use 3G technologies like High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) provided by cellular players or will they harness WiMAX plugins fuelled by new broadband providers?
The champions of WiMAX tout superior speeds (16 Mbps) against HSPAs 4 Mbps. But going by past experience, victory doesnt always go to the swiftest system but to one that is best marketed. The HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), currently supports downlink speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2, and 14.4 Mbps and though it provides improved downlink performance with Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC), it lacks a few vital features that CDMA networks currently hold-variable spreading factor and real-time power control. This in turn translates to power modulations depending on congestion and range, which is expected to be a deciding factor for Indian rural markets.

The providers of Indias 250 million cellular connections are not about to roll over and leave the field open for yet to emerge WiMAX operators. As the Indian govt finally gets its 3G and broadband act together, the field is still wide open. But only a foolish punter would declare a winner at this point. For all you know, it might be a win-win situation for all