Gyan Research weekly newsletter on #telecom sector

1. Policy News
 Telecom bodies approach DoT for sealed towers
The three associations of telecommunication industry - Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI),
Association of Unified Telecom Service Provider (AUSPI) and Tower and Infrastructure Providers
Association (TAIPA) have approached the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) with the grievance of
mobile towers being sealed by Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), thereby resulting in call drops. As
per telecom bodies, MCD has sealed 10 sites from August 15 to 17, 2015 without issuance of any show-
cause notice or sealing orders to the cellular or tower companies. The telecom bodies demanded the
issue to be taken up with the MCD Commissioner to stop the “coercive” action.
 Telcos to partner with DoT for mitigating consumers’ worries
The telecom service providers are likely to partner with the DoT for initiatives to mitigate consumers'
worries on electromagnetic frequency (EMF) radiation from mobile phone towers. Continuously, the
service providers demanded to the DoT for joint initiatives such as advertisements to circulate public
misgivings. As per Vodafone and Idea, both Indian government and the industry together need to eucate
consumers that EMF radiation from cellphone towers isn't harmful.
 RBI gives license to VodafoneIndia
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) gave payments bank license to Vodafone India and Airtel's wholly owned
subsidiary, Airtel M Commerce Services Limited. The license will help Vodafone and Airtel to further build
payment modes and offer comprehensive portfolio of banking and financial products and services. Airtel
Money, launched in 2011, was the first mobile based pre-paid payment instrument service in the country.
Vodafone is also providing suitable way to transfer money and make payments with over 90,000 'M-Pesa'
agents.
Industry News
 Reliance Communications short-lists bidders for stake sale in tower arm
Telecom operator Reliance Communications has received indicative non-binding bids for 100 per cent
stake in its tower subsidiary Reliance Infratel. The company short-listed bidders for the next round and is
said to be in talks with American Tower Company (ATC), Carlyle and others for the majority stake sale.
Thie sale proceeds are expected to significantly reduce the company’s overall gross debt during the 2015-
16; it had a net debt of Rs 38,595.7 crore at the end of June 30, 2015. Reliance Infratel has more than
45,000 mobile towers
© Gyan Research and Analytics Pvt. Ltd., 2015 1
Telecommunications News
August 15, 2015 - August 21, 2015

2. © Gyan Research and Analytics Pvt. Ltd., 2015 2
 Ericsson India hiring more women
Ericsson in India is hiring more women in its core operations in acknowledgement of gender diversity as a
potential profit-cum-productivity driver. The company is expected to hire about 100 women engineers in
2015-16, increasing the number of women employees to 15 percent. Erricson’s swift transformation to
an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) player from a pure telecom infrastructure provider
has led to this shift in resource strategy. Women engineers, with requisite technical skills will man
diverse managerial roles, including customer facing roles, mainline consulting and systems integration, 3G
and 4G network rollouts, network design and optimisation, business services and core operations. It will
also induct 20 women ex-service officers to deliver field operations support functions, including network
rollout and deployment, resource allocation and logistics management.
 Telenor to bid for 3G
Norwegian telecom heavyweight Telenor, which operates in India as Uninor, plans to bid for 3G spectrum
in the next round of auctions. The government had released one block of spectrum (of 5MHz) in the last
round of auctions and will sell three more blocks in 2016. The company is also keenly looking to enhance
its network capacity by entering into spectrum sharing. It is also eyeing expansion through mergers and
acquisitions (M&As). Uninor, which offers only 2G and caters to the 'lowest-price' plank, operates in
Western and Eastern UP, Bihar (including Jharkhand), Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It will
soon begin services in Assam.
 Ericsson to increase workforce in Bangalore R&D
Ericsson will increase the engineering employee base at its Bengaluru Research and Development (R&D)
center by 15 percent this financial year. It will hire in the fields of Cloud, IP Routing, Network Function
Virtualization (NFV) and Virtual Platform. Under its IP portfolio, Ericsson aims to strengthen its Broadband
Network Gateway (BNG) solution, deployed to drive adoption of video and cloud services. Ericsson’s
Bengaluru R&D team is also contributing in Software Defined Networking (SDN) technologies. The
company currently employs around 1700 people across its three R&D centers in Gurgaon, Chennai and
Bengaluru.
 Nokia Networks wins 30 deals in 1H
Nokia Networks has won 30 deals during the first half of 2015. The contracts range from IP multimedia
system deployment to calls over 4G and other rollout and managed services deals. Nokia announced the
trend would continue in the second half of 2015, with larger value sizes, as operators increase capital
expenditure by around one-fourth over 2014, mostly on building data networks. The company also
posted the highest half yearly revenue growth since 2008, driven by lifting of regulatory uncertainty,
availability of liberalised spectrum, data growth and its monetisation for telecom operators.
Telecommunications News
August 15, 2015 - August 21, 2015

3.  Indian mobile services to reach USD 21.4 billion
According to a Gartner report, the mobile services market in India will reach USD 21.4 billion in 2015, due
to increasing use of cellular services on data-centric devices like tablets and notebooks, through either
embedded cellular modems or USB sticks. Expenditure on mobile services will also increase by 4 percent
in 2015 to reach USD 21.4 billion, driven by data services which might grow 15 percent to reach USD 6.5
million. The report further stated that mobile connections in India will expand five percent to 880 million
in 2015.
Weekly Snapshot
© Gyan Research and Analytics Pvt. Ltd., 2015 3
Telecommunications News
August 15, 2015 - August 21, 2015
Operator-wise Additions in April 2015
Operators
No. of additional subscribers
(in million)
Bharti Airtel 2.235
Vodafone 0.759
Reliance 0.33
Idea 1.392
BSNL 0.587
Tata -3.748
Aircel 0.619
Telewings/Uninor 1.166
Sistema -0.028
MTNL -0.029
Videocon 0.163
Source: Various Published Sources

4. © Gyan Research and Analytics Pvt. Ltd., 2015 4
Telecommunications News, August 15 - August 21, 2015
Market Entry
Strategies
Market/
Marketing
Research
Pre-Feasibility,
Feasibility & TEV
Studies
Equity
Research
& Valuation
Economic
Intelligence
Our Business Practices
Business
Research
Central Delivery
Centre
BD-9, Sector-1,
Salt Lake City
Kolkata - 700 064,
India
Phone: +91-33-
40060084
Corporate Office
LG 37-38, Ansal
Fortune Arcade,
Sector - 18,
Noida - 201 301
Delhi NCR, India
Phone: +91-120-
2511945
E-mail: reports@gyananalytics.com
Website: www.gyananalytics.com
Branch Office -
Mumbai
Branch Office
- Bangalore
Branch Office
- Hyderabad