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Bharti Airtel<\/a>, Vodafone-Idea<\/a> and Reliance Jio<\/a> did not respond to ET’s questions. The basic, seemingly insoluble, problem, as telco executives put it, is that India is talking a lot more — voice service consumption has nearly doubled in two years — in part because voice rates are down to bare minimum, even free in some cases, but telecom infrastructure is geared towards data, and even data rates are being driven down by competition. So, telcos have little incentive or resources to maintain, far less upgrade, the part of the infrastructure that cater to voice.
Following the PM’s reported observations, telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said the department was looking for solutions. But as she said, operators (like Airtel and Vodafone-Idea) were phasing out their 2G towers, and installing 4G towers, so nobody was making investments in 2G towers any longer, the predominantly voice spectrum, increasing call congestion on networks. Reliance Jio uses voice over LTE (VoLTE) for voice services.
Rajan Mathews, director general of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, told ET: “This is what happens when you start giving away voice services for free.” Naveen Kulkarni, telecoms expert and head of research at Reliance Securities, said: “The call drop<\/a> problem will reduce only if tariffs go up, which would see a sizeable chunk of users moving back to a la carte plans from cheap bundled offers, reduce consumption, and in turn ease pressure on mobile networks,” Kulkarni said.
Ex-Bharti Airtel CEO, Sanjay Kapoor, blamed cheap bundled telecom plans. “In an age of bundles, the upsurge in voice calling is straining networks and isn’t generating much incremental revenue for incumbents,” Kapoor told ET.
PAYING HEFTY PRICE<\/strong>
Airtel, Vodafone Idea were forced to migrate to bundled plans to stop Reliance Jio Infocomm from taking away their highpaying customers after the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco disrupted markets just over two years ago by offering free voice calls for life with generous chunks of data under a single bucket plan at a fixed price.
Jio’s move sparked off two years of savage price wars that still show no signs of ebbing, eroding telco revenue\/profits, and rapidly bringing the curtain down on an era when voice services set the cash registers ringing.
Some analysts believe incumbents are paying a hefty price for blindly replicating Jio’s bundled offers to hold on to customers, without realising that the latter’s pure 4G Voice over LTE (VoLTE) network economics works very differently from their hybrid networks which straddles the legacy 2G and 3G technology with 4G. Cost of a call is far lesser in a VoLTE network than the hybrid, or circuit switch, networks of the older operators.
Rohan Dhamija, head of India & Middle East at Analysys Mason, said an immediate solution for incumbents to optimise costs would be “a quick switchover to cost-efficient VoLTE-based 4G networks”. COAI’s Mathews though countered, saying rising demand for voice could induce operators to continue using 3G networks as a better and more efficient technology for voice in parallel with 4G, which has become the dominant network technology with the advent of Jio. In the immediate future, though, calls will drop, maybe even the PM’s.
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Bharti Airtel,Vodafone-Idea和依赖Jio没有回应的问题。看似不溶性,基本问题,如电信高管所说,印度是说更多的语音服务消费两年来几乎翻了一番——部分原因是声音利率降至最低限度,甚至自由在某些情况下,但电信基础设施是面向数据,甚至数据速率正在竞争。所以,电信公司没有动力或资源来维持,不升级,基础设施的一部分,迎合的声音。
下午报道观察后,电信部长阿鲁娜Sundararajan表示,该部门正在寻找解决方案。但她说,运营商(如Airtel和Vodafone-Idea)淘汰他们的2 g塔,和安装4 g塔,所以没有人在2 g塔不再进行投资,主要是语音频谱,提高电话网络拥塞。依赖Jio使用声音在LTE(回)服务。
Rajan马修斯,印度手机运营商协会总干事(COAI),代表沃达丰的想法,Bharti Airtel和信实Jio对外星人说:“这是当你开始赠送免费语音服务。“Naveen Kulkarni,电信专家和依赖证券研究主管,说:”叫下降问题只会减少如果关税上,会看到一个很大一部分用户回到点菜计划从廉价的捆绑,减少消费,对移动网络,进而缓解压力,”Kulkarni说。
Ex-Bharti Airtel首席执行官Sanjay Kapoor认为廉价捆绑电信计划。“在一个包的时代,语音电话的高潮是紧张网络和不为现有生成增量收入,”卡普尔告诉等。
支付高额的价格
Airtel,沃达丰想法被迫迁移到捆绑计划停止依赖Jio Infocomm拿走他们highpaying客户穆克什Ambani-owned电信中断后市场就在两年前由终身提供免费语音通话与慷慨的大块的数据在一个桶计划以一个固定价格。
Jio此举引发了两年的残酷的价格战,仍没有消退的迹象,侵蚀电信收入/利润,迅速降低窗帘的时代声音服务让收银机响个不停。
一些分析师认为,现任者付出高额代价盲目复制Jio抓住客户的捆绑,没有意识到后者的纯4 g LTE(回)语音网络经济运行方式完全不同于他们的混合网络横跨遗留2 g和3 g和4 g技术。电话成本远比混合小回网络,或电路开关,年长的网络运营商。
印度和中东主管Rohan Dhamija Analysys Mason,表示立即解决现有优化成本将“快速切换的VoLTE-based 4 g网络”。COAI的马修斯虽然反驳,说声音需求增加引起运营商继续使用3 g网络作为声音的更好、更高效的技术在4 g的同时,已成为主要的网络技术与Jio的出现。在不久的将来,将会下降,甚至点的。
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