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CDMA 2000 1x Comes to India
nilesh writes "Yesterday, Reliance Infocomm launched one of the largest CDMA networks in the world [Google news]. This wireless network will cover 90% of India's population on a backbone of 60,000 kms of optic fibre. They have dreams of providing an Internet-enabled Java-powered CDMA2000 1x phone to almost every Indian citizen for around tariffs as low as 40 paise per minute or 0.8 cents per minute. The Samsung/LG/Kyocera phones will be replete with applications ranging from internet banking to video on demand and online gaming. Now all we need is Quake for Java and we'll have college kids playing deathmatches with each other in classroom at 144kbps. The next game revolution is in sight."
"for around tariffs as low as 40 paise per minute or 0.8 cents per minute. " Somehow, I doubt such a plan would succeed. Is such a low tariff even possible, much less for this kind of expensive service?
Frankly I hope they continute with initiatives like these.
I really like Indian food, and I've been waiting for a good excuse to leave the US. I guess it's a toss-up between India and Canada.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Cell phones are of little TRUE cost. They are a cheap item marked WAY up.
oh really? if that's the case, then how come a majority of the people living in this country still don't have cell phones.. oh and factoring in that AT&T gives away free phones with the cheapest service of being $29.99/month?
Think before YOU speak, Anonymous Idiot
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
I keep hearing and reading stories of Indian taking leap after technological leap (even if its just attempted leaps). First the leaped in the future of programming, then linux (the open source initiative that pretty much may have kicked Microsoft in the balls) and now this network leap.
:)
Has India reached some sort of critical mass that the US hasnt reached? I know they are supposed to be a poor country but hell, it feels like they are just about to leap frog over everyone in the next couplt of months.
would like to hear replies and thanks for reading
Sigs are dangerous coy things
but bad for US and Canada, in the long run. Indian government realised that the only way they can reduce poverty and improve the condition of India's citizes is through technology. Permeating every class in the society with the technology will enable even the poorest people to access the learning materials and colaborate with other people in developing new products and services. Those products and services will in turn be sold and smart people who understand technology, no matter how poor they were, will get a chance to rise above the class to which they belonged and achieve their full potential.
It is really too bad that US and Canada, with their sub-substandard primary and secondary education, and lack of technological vision in governmental leaders, will fall behind in technology and be reduced to the land of financial speculators and marketing people.
It's hard to get excited about 144Kbps when 802.11 hotspots are popping up like wildfire. The math is easy to figure out... 11M vs 144K. Granted, I can't drive through town downloading email while in my car over roaming hotspots ((yet)) but then again, the likelyhood of getting dropped by Sprint PCS even in major corridors makes that a "so-what" in my book.
The real reason that CDMA gets me excited is as an augmentation to WLAN connections. To at least have some net connectivity if I'm hopping between hotspots. Not as a replacement for high-speed connections. The ILECs and other broadband carriers have nothing to fear from CDMA and should begin to embrace working together with them.
Why? Because at the end of the day, it's still cheaper, faster, and better to have your connection over physical fibre and no wireless carrier in the world can replace the stuff that is already buried in the ground.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
I just want a cell phone network where frequent call drops, long wait times, and low signal strength are common.
;)
Oh come on, they invented that network years ago and it's still in use today.
oh i apologize.. and by THIS country.. I mean the United States of America..
"The ones who dont do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down" -- Henry Rollins
I just want a cell phone network where frequent call drops, long wait times, and low signal strength are common.
:) *Ducks*.
Um, OK... Aha... So, well, I guess you should stay in the US, then?
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
I'm absolutely positive that it was gamers in the Indian government who pushed for this network. I mean, come on. It's not like there are any actually relevant uses for this in a developing nation that is trying to leapfrog the 20th century and take a leading position in the 21st.
Nope, it's all about gaming.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
not quite! but i do get pretty decent response times on slashdot... i got a verizon card last week and am posting (pecking on my tablet) from a coffee shop. i find that it is very functional, and only miss the bandwidth when downloading files. bandwidth seems to be an excuse to surf faster. recomended.
If you could care less, why are you bothering to talk about it?
Or perhaps you couldn't care less, but you're too lazy and ignorant to think about what you're typing, in which case why should we care about whatever you've got to say?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Old, old, old story. JQuake is dead. Long live Frag Island!. Well, back in 1997 anyway.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
2/3 of americans own cell phones.
This has absolutely nothing to do with helping the poor, or trying to get a phone to a beggar in India. It has everything to do with the fact that Reliance is providing the right service at the right time.
Reliance is not just a J Random company in India. Reasons why this will be a killer service in India.
They have done their groundwork beautifully well. They have been laying fiber optic all over the country, for quite a while, and have enormous clout. As an example, where other providers have so far been unsuccessful in getting govt. clearance for certain services in India, it looks like Reliance will not be having that problem.
Reliance is using existing technology customised for India, at the Indian Inst. of Technology Madras. Details here.
You have NO idea the way the demand for bandwidth for both voice and data is growing in India. Want figures? Find them here.
Do you know the proposed cost of deployment of RIL's telecom plan? You pay Rs.3000 initially ($60) and Rs.600 monthly ($12) you get the instrument and the service, but will have to service for a period of 3 years, as part of the Rs.600 will go towards your instrument. Just look at their pricing schemes.
In fact, pricing is one of the reasons why Reliance will succeed. Reason? They chose NOT to use GSM as the initial cost is high, but wanted to help atleast the middle class.
;-)
If you still are not convinced, goto Chaoszone, run by cygnusx. He has been keeping track of this for a long time, and has very interesting links on the current scenario and WHY this WILL work.
You are forgetting one very basic point. Yes, India has poverty to handle, but you do not solve it by denying all other technology, atleast that's what your attitude sounds like. There is a significant chunk of the middle class for whom the rates that reliance offers is EASILY affordable, and that comes to a significant portion of the population of a billion.
Read this interview with Mukesh Ambani. Forget quality, they'll see gold through quantity. And that is exactly what Reliance is banking on.
And as a geek, I sure as hell hope they do, am looking forward to getting one of their J2ME enabled thingys
So Reliance know who to bribe and by how much?
With that kind of clout, they don't need to. :-)
In 1995 I had flat rate, all I could eat, ubiquitous (at least in the cities I lived in/travelled to the most: Seattle, SF, NYC), wireless Internet access.
Since the death of that network (Ricochet) I have used other wireless networks (GSM, CDMA, CDPD, etc.) and what made me quit using them very swiftly was the usage-based pay scheme.
You see the problem is that wireless communications are flaky. I know that about half of my voice calls on wireless devices are lousy and/or dropped... data communications is nowhere near as flexible and tolerant of lousy connections as the human ear is. At least I can kind of guess that my wife wants me to stop ... the .... groc... some... milk ...and... thing... dinner.
But my computer/PDA/smartphone/whatever, when presented with a datastream like that would just give up... and try again, and again, and again... at whatever cents per minute? Fsck that. I hate paying for something on a metered basis that just *doesn't work.*
If they came up with a plan that was unlimited, for say $29.95 a month? (what I was paying for ricochet BTW) Sure, I'd buy it. But metered? Forget it.
Science always advances. Technology makes inroads. The aim is to make lives easier for *most* people, not *all* people. Even the US has not been able to ensure that each of its citizens have their basic needs met, or that the fruits of technology have reached all.
So the next time you hear a story about India or Jordan or Brazil or any other developing country trying to improve the life of its citizens, try to be understanding, if not a cheerleader. And quit your high-horse!
Easy, they've got their foot on the accelerator of new technology, new ideas, new rules, and new freedoms.
In contrast, we've got our foot on the brake of new constraints like "Intellectual Property", new "growth" areas like patents on everything, and new laws to ensure that old business doesn't succumb to the new.
To which continent do you think the label of "progressive" applies best?
The only reason we're still doing as well as we are here in the "first" world is because we have a large head of steam and massive resources from past years, and a world bank that knows on which side its toast is buttered. If everyone were to start afresh right now, our only growth industry would be in lawyers and related non-producers of wealth. It's kind of depressing.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
This system is WiLL which means no handoffs. This type of system is great for replacing existing (or non-existant) land line infrastructures to single points (like homes). This reduces the complexity of the system and therfore the cost of installation and upkeep. However, this system doesn't work if the user is moving around, so it's no substitue for a true cellular system.
Even the US has not been able to ensure that each of its citizens have their basic needs met, or that the fruits of technology have reached all.
I think you meant especially the US hasn't...
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
How about giving these people some food;
Who will give them food?
How about teaching them to make food more efficiently, clean their water, and run power lines? It would solve the problem fundamentally, and is much cheaper than external involvement.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
- In some southern Indian states, fishermen have found a great use of cellphones. When they go out to sea for fishing, on the way back they call at all of the local harbors within their range, and find the best price for their catch! Some fishermen have found that their cellphone paid for itself in just a couple of weeks.
- Farmers can keep in touch with their nearby mandis (wholesale markets), and strike deals which will maximise their gain from their harvest (i.e., pick the right time, sell their produce in advance, checkout prices at all nearby places and take their produce to the one with the highest prices, etc.).
These are but 2 examples; I'm sure if someone did a study, you'd find 100s more.I liken this new technology to what happens when a man-made wreck lands at the bottom of the sea. Nature quickly finds ways to use the wreck to its advantage: new coral colonies bloom, fishes use it as their hideout, etc. Similarly, the people of India will quickly adapt and find ways to leverage this new technology in ways that we, here in the west, can't even imagine. I say more power to them!
This wireless network will cover 90% of India's population on a backbone of 60,000 kms of optic fibre.
I'd just like to know where they plan on buying 60,000 kms of wireless optical cable.
But... first, I think the provision of clean drinking water, sewer, and civil support systems should be a priority. Ask yourself this... you live in a mud house (recently constructed after the last monsoon killed half your neighborhood and left you homeless) and rarely have enough to eat. You've yet to experience television, telephone, tele-anything. Nor have you ever seen a real doctor in a somewhat clean setting. Or dentist. You don't think much about your childrens' college funds, because--- if they survive infancy--- there are no schools to attend except possibly some local religious school (which may be terroristic in idealogy... but who's counting if it's all you have?). Is a cellphone really near the top of your list of priorities? You can't even READ!
Granted, there are millions and millions and millions of Indians for whom this will be a boon. They are highly intelligent, hard working and motivated people. But priorities... priorities... please...
you obviously can't read.
He's talking about how it doesn't matter to him if the US ever upgrades BANDWITH on cell phone service.
He wants quality service before worrying about how fast data is xferred.
Perhaps I am missing something...
How the open standard, high-volume GSM is more expensive than the proprietary, royalty-ridden, lower-volume CDMA?
In Brasil people are complaining every day that government has chosen TDMA and CDMA over the cheaper, standard GSM.
And with GPRS, GSM get the same data transfer speeds as CDMA.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
>xyzzy
You're in the world's most populous nation, surrounded by people needing telecom infrastructure.
..can't speak of europe, but there's a huge growing backlash against this massive legal and humongous illegal immigration into the US and outsourcing jobs, and the state of the economy as a whole. My best guess at this time is two years from now at the next presidential elections there will have occurred a major shift in peoples' consciousnesses and protectionism and serious clamp down controls and a drop of "guest workers" will occur in the US. Obviously I can't "know" this but that's why the trends are showing right now. The US actual wealth-producing productive workforce is relatively small for our population, we are hemorraghing real bona fide mortgage paying jobs now. personal bankruptices and mortgage defaults are at a 30 year high and climbing. Monday night 3/4 of a million middle class workers who have already lost their jobs will lose their last income, their unemployment checks, with roughly 50,000 a week every week after that for another few million. We AREN'T replacing those jobs nor anything close to those incomes in any close ratio. This will result eventually in some serious political re alignments, it's inevitable.
How this relates to India I guess is we'll see such pressure on the US congress that those numbers of h1b's will drop, not right away but it'll happen. If ya'all can send them other places, swell, more power to ya, and I repeat I WASN'T dissing India in my original post, just looking at macros all over. You guys are doing what ya need to do, but that don't change the fact of the 2000's being the decade of the "resource wars" as the oil and water starts to seriously run out and gets divvied up and fought over. That's why I gave it roughly a ten year furtherance predictive time span. One of the reasons is that is roughly the time I think china will make their expansionist moves, as in "big ole war" or at least such a serious bluff it will be allowed to go on.
As an aside, I think the world will be extremely lucky to not have at least one medium sized war go nuclear and biological by then, chances are high the subcontinent might be one (of several) of the places this occurs, and seeing as how that is such a wildcard in it's effects I can't really make any prognostications if that actually transpires.
' i mean, most of them don't even have a television set probably '
Given that I've not watched 'TV' in 7 years
and haven't died yet. Umm...
Maybe if you spent a little more time reading
and a little less time vegging you'd see that
India is slated for some wicked cool stuff in the
near future.
Hell.. if I spoke the language I'd move there right
now, just for the opportunities. (besides a huge
population of folks that don't have any desire
to pester me with questions about what I watched
on tv the night before.)
Turn it off and get a life.
the modem card is good because rarely can you find a consistent hotspot which is free. sure if you're driving around town they pop up, but my experience has been that the signals often are weak and drop, and if they know what they're doing, they are protected. damn starbucks to hell! everytime i walk in there, my browser automatically goes to the tmobile site. trying to get off that site is a pain in the ass. they certainly have something to teach top the pop-up add people.
I hate to flame, but this obviously will not work.. this is a very idealistic approach at trying to help a poverty stricken society keep up with the times.. i mean, most of them don't even have a television set probably and here they are.....besides there are many other issues to deal with in India (health wise, primarily) than hoping that every citizen in India will have their own cell phone.
This is really just a variation of another bankrupt argument that never seems to go away despite being refuted over and over again:
"How can we even talk about space exploration while there is so much suffering here on earth?"
Of course, we get to have cellphones in this country because our poor people have TV sets!
How do you know that cellphones won't stimulate India's economy? Should all industries there be suppressed until a large middle class develops? Remember that while India is mostly known for its poor people, the people in its upper classes are filthy rich and would be more than willing to fork over some rupees every month for good cellphone coverage.
(BTW don't take the "freak" icon personally- you must have said something a long time ago that pissed me off but frankly I have no idea what anymore. I also have no idea what I said to get my own collection of fans and freaks. Being able to associate a specific post with a friend/foe assignment would be a nice Slashcode feature.)
It is true the that the 300million strong middle class exist. It is also true that the rest are struggle to survive and suffer abject poverty. One fact doesn't obfustace other.
India is poor for centuries. We just don't know any better. However US in its glorious 60s, admist moon landings and transistor invention was lynching innocent men, women, and children - despite the superior education, facilities, economy, and resources. So what was that you were saying about 'tough love'?
I cannot agree more on this patent and IP thing. This is beyond common sense. We are developing a system and seems like we just stepped into a patent/copyright minefield. We don't need engineers - we need lawyers! Don't the sci-fi writers own all possible patents already?
From the guys who started it all. By the way this company is no joke. These guys(Ambanis) started with literally nothing to turn into a fortune 500 company with an annual revenue of $13.5 billon in a short span 27 years. So, when they say we will do it, they are taken very seriously. Reliance Infocomm Ushers a Digital Revolution In India http://www.ril.com/eportal/media/NewsDetails.jsp?i d=N279&page_id=72
Second, in mid 2003, with an enterprise netway revolution by providing 100 mbps Ethernet links to every desktop and device to half a million enterprise buildings initially and eventually to 10 million buildings.....
Third, in end 2003, with a consumer convergence revolution by providing high speed Ethernet links to 80 million homes initially and eventually to every home.....
The Dhirubhai Ambani Developer Programme will create a new platform for innovations in information technology. One thousand developers of software solutions are being enrolled now to eventually grow to 100,000 developers by December 2003
In India, the carriers do not subsidize the
cost of the cell phone. Each subscriber
has to buy his own phone... at full price.
If you buy a cell-phone service from Verizon,
verizon spends $200.00 on you the day you
sign up... for the cost of the phone.
That is partly why the service is more expensive in the US.
Magnus.
Sometimes I care very little, but could care less, for a modest fee.
Fixed line rates are 40paise(0.8 cents) per minute, and inspite of such low rates you have telcos making large profits in fixed line area. Now in GSM the rates are higher (4-5 cents/min). The reason is liscensing fee is very high, on the other hand for WLL (CDMA) the liscencing fee is same as fixed line. So apart from infrastucture costs no issue here. Big volumes = Profit
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
About India :
:
:))
India - population 1,000,000,000 , 60 % rural
Middle class - 300,000,000 (mostly in the cities)
Average cell-phone acquistion cost Rs. 4500 ( $90)
Average cell-phone charges Rs. 2 per minute ( $0.04)
Reliance
Allocated Rs. 200,000,000,000 ($ 4.5 billion) at the end of 2000 to lay optic fibre throughout the country within 2 years.
They are the largest busines group in India and hav revenues in excess Rs. 60,000,000,000 ($ 1.5 Billion) from their existing petrochemical industries. And a fortune 500 company.
The plan is simple, invest huge amounts of money (which nobody else can) to rollout a wireless network across 600 cities (in Phase I!!). reduce charges to the point where nobody else can compete, and provide cutting edge technology. Subsidise handset costs to persuade users to agree to long-term plans. Provide dirt-cheap call rates (even in Indian rupees) so that usage is high. Watch the revenues roll in from a tech-savvy and tech-starved country.
I can testify that there is a lot of excitement in India over this launch. Many, many people are already planning to switch from their existing GSM services. Remember, this launch is aimed at the 300 million middle class, who can well afford this. They are alos planning to introduce video conferencing and other 3G technologies within a year! Large parts of India may get 3G before the US!!
Seems that the world is leaving the US behind in adopting wireless tech. The best part is that the Java services on these CDMA phones is being set-up by a US company (which I will not name), which is starting a development center in India for that purpose. The wheel coming full circle ???
Should I also mention that I submitted this last week?
Remember, every 6th person is an Indian.
more about me
Reliance is a huge, listed, petro-chemical company. They are the largest listed company in India. They are not in the business of charity. They are in the business of making money. Their business plan for this launch is hard-nosed and focussed on making money. It is not altruistic. Their vision is to : - provide a phone to every citizen at low tariffs - AND make money on every subscriber There is no government intervention / funding on this project. So there is no question of public funds being spent on providing cell phones to citizens when they should instead be spent on poverty alleviation. Surely, living in a capitalist economy like the US, you agree that a corporate has the right to invest its money in whatever venture that it may decide, will bring the greatest returns.
For GPRS to work, spectrum has to be dedicated to data and voice separately. Existing GSM providers need to license more spectrum (this costs big money), have to upgrade their equipment and convince users to change handsets to support 2.5G ("GPRS"). Considering that they are all in the red, it ain't going to be easy. CDMA providers can provide voice+data over the same spectrum.
Because 3G deployments in Europe and Japan so far have been less than successful.
Because CDMA 2000 1X is coming with a massive second mover advantage, at a time when people need higher data rates from their mobile, and the GSM folk can't given them that quickly, the operative word being 'quickly'.
I agree a GSM-based high-speed standard would have been better. But the only way high-speed GSM would have taken off in India was if someone built a W-CDMA (which is the air interface for high speed GSM) network from scratch, and given European and Japanese experience with W-CDMA 'til now, I'd excuse any business for being slightly scared about this :).
In Brasil people are complaining every day that government has chosen TDMA and CDMA over the cheaper, standard GSM.
Huh? TDMA is the air interface for vanilla GSM. High speed GSM uses W-CDMA as the air interface because TDMA is so damn inefficient. Anyway, what business does the government have mandating technology? (Europe did this, mind you :-p) All they should sell is spectrum!
> Both CDMA and GSM/GPRS cost about the same to roll out.
Yes, right. But, it will cost *existing* GSM operators a lot to roll out GPRS on their existing networks. And when they go to 3G, it'll cost a lot again. CDMA is a bit more reasonable: you can roll out higher-speed services incrementally.
Ask yourself this: if GPRS is so easy to roll out, why has not one GSM provider in India provided GPRS so far? They've been talking about it since August 2001, it is in danger of turning into vaporware!
So the only way to build a high-speed GSM network is to build a 3G network from scratch. See my other reply in this thread -- people have tried this (notably DoCoMo in Japan) and have had egg on their faces.
Thanks for the informative answer. I can see now the reasoning.
If you could still answer some points...
But is W-CDMA a marketing or a technological problem? If marketing, then either going CDMA 2K 1x is a PHB decision, or a proprietary lock-in. If technological, then I can see the reason for it.
Also remember that business tend to see short-term only, and has made the US stuck to CDMA & TDMA. Europe saw further down the road, and thus gave us GSM.
Yes and no. Yes, TDMA and GSM use time division multiplexing. But when people write TDMA, they mean the US proprietary version, not the European GSM open standard.
Not. Actually Europe mandating an open standard made phones better, cheaper, more useful in Europe and all the rest of the GSM world than in the US, where operators were free to use proprietary protocols.
Just think POSIX versus MS-W32. IT was better when governments would buy only POSIX.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
> For a guy on india-gii, how come you didn't know about BPL Mobile's GPRS service?
:-) ? Should've read the archives, I guess! As for BPL's GPRS service, mea culpa! Bad research on my part.
:-(. This is where, I'm sure you'll agree, a pan-India service helps.
:-).
;-) (which I know BSNL will match as well, real soon now).
> BPL Mobile in Mumbai has had GPRS live for a year (December 2001 - so your references may need to be updated), with over 5000 customers.
How about the bad excuse that I joined India-GII only about four days back
But 5000 GPRS customers in one whole year -- if true, that sounds bad. What kind of rates are they charging?
> And BPL Mobile's rolling out GPRS in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Maharastra by Feb 2003.
Great! more power to them! Won't help me, though -- I don't think BPL services Madras city
> Airtel is rumoured to have it ready for rollout next month all India.
Please. I've heard that story from them for quite some time now. As a current Air("Busy Signals are our Middle Name")Tel customer, any promise they make has zero cred with me. OTOH, if they do launch, good for them. I'll believe it when I see it
> However, your point about incremental costs is valid, as far as 2.5G and 3G go.
The cost is my biggest concern. I fear that for a lot of in-the-red operators, GPRS will be a low priority. And this means we'll be stuck in 9.6kbps-land for ages.
> However, I was referring to voice penetration, which I think is more critical for India, rather than high-speed data.
Well, the thing is -- voice is nice, but if the same network gives high-speed data, so much the better (especially since CDMA 2000 1X EV-DO is a pretty smooth upgrade path, unlike W-CDMA). The efficiencies possible in SCM alone justify this.
Small disclaimer: I don't get paid by Reliance, I'm not even remotely associated to them. I'm just a software nerd who's excited about a new high-speed *nationwide* network available to develop apps for. The air interface (or telco) really doesn't matter to me. Yeah, that and the low STD rates
Quake and other forms of twitch gaming do not care that much about the bandwidth. The current cellular phone networks have more than enough bandwidth to handle multiplayer FPS games.
However, what they don't have is the latency to drive games that require sub-second reactions. I have seen no indication from anyone that this would yet happen even with the next generation of cell phones. Even the latest networks employ packet systems that might take anywhere up to several seconds to respond to your query.
Until we actually get some decent ping times on the network, game design has to be centered around other ideas. Like this one about persistent 24/7 galactic exploration & conquest in the style of Master of Orion...
That, and wireless hotspots. Bring on BlueTooth Quake!
Jouni
Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant
Every country has a black mark. How do you justify American action in Iraq? Perhaps they have a point, perhaps they do not.
How about Pakistan, which sponsors terrorist activities, is ruled by a military dictator and whose intelligence agency ISI is *confirmed* to have ties with the underworld in India?
India has a rocket scientist for a president, a *democratically elected* president, while being surrounded by a Military Dictatorship (ruling a fundamentalist country) on one side and a Communist Dictatorship on the other.
India is a developing nation, and has it's own set of problems in healthcare and basic utilities, I do agree. But technology IS the ONLY way out of this mess. Only when you educate people about the ill effects of bad environments, AIDS and the like will there be progress. People NEED to know.
Yes, we have sectarian violence. Try having a billion people of disparate cultural differences, with hundreds of languages, who have been exploited by colonialism for 400 years. You will then know.
Keeping them in the dark only worsens the situation. People *need* to be taught that this would not help in the long run. People need to be taught tolerance.
Technology has done a wealth of good for us, with revolutions in the agro sector, IT industry and now communication industry.
More the money the industries make, more the revenue the govt. earns, and the society as a whole benefits. And you have a booming economy, with a growing middle class which is tech savvy.
Please tell me what is wrong with this. I fail to see how something as beneficial as technology is going to do ill to a society.
Unforunately, people like "metlin" forget that their country needs to be brought up from 3rd world status and that will not happen by giving people cell-phones.
Incorrect reference, third world refers to Non-Aligned Nations, and has nothing to do with economic development. Developing nations would be an appropriate usage. Technology is not the end, it is the means to solving world's problems. If you think otherwise, you're a fool.
Most of the achievements in the Western world have come from hardwork and a sincere desire to change. Technological advances were created with the evolution of society not by handing them technology.
Huh? What the hell did you just blabber? Oh so wait, we want to have technology so that we can sit and play Quake all day? Or wait, technology happens on its own without us having to work or just loitering around or what?
What an absurd statement. Technology arms people. Technology gives people the power to do things that they thought impossible, and improves their standard of living. It does not happen overnite, and it does not happen to everybody. But it does happen, it is a process and it will take time.
But that does not mean that its all useless. This is one of the MOST STUPID comments I've EVER read on
Duh.
Oh, you meant AT&T's IS-136 TDMA-based system, not TDMA-the-encoding-standard. Oh yes, that sucks big time.
Actually the US decided on no technology, it just let the market decide. Europe's trouble seems to be that it saw only a bit further down the road, and then settled for GSM. From what I hear, a lot of European telcos are whining about not being allowed to offer CDMA 2000 now.
I'd say it's an engineering problem: in theory, W-CDMA should work, it's the fault of the implementors (DoCoMo et al). On the other hand, W-CDMA is new, and is (much more importantly) incompatible with the standard it is replacing, i.e., vanilla GSM. So when folk rolling out the new service get technical glitches (like DoCoMo did in Japan ) handsets had to be recalled twice. In Europe, they are facing handset/network incompatibilities, because of which Finnish operators like Sonera (among others) deferred 3G plans.
Considering that CDMA 2000 gives you a phased series of technologies to roll out (1X: 144k/s, 1XEV-DO: 2M/s, 1XEV-DV: 4M+/s + simultaneous voice+data) with one investment (instead of three as in GSM's case: one for GSM, one for 2.5G, one for 3G), it becomes economically judicious to use CDMA 2000. So, I wouldn't exactly say it is a marketing decision by any means.
True. India too has been using GSM -- for 7 years now. And yes, GSM as a ubiquitous standard made roaming possible and very easy. But now that we want to take cellular telephony to the next level (in terms of data rates), GSM is proving to be not-quite-upto the task, at least, not without spending lots more money in new GPRS networks. So do we stick to the old-familiar standard, or use a new one?
You have to remember that interconnect agreements are mostly a commercial matter. The only reason the US cell scene is so balkanized is that companies like Nextel and AT&T have not allowed it, not because it isn't technically possible. (think AOL and instant messaging). In India, telecom regulations say that telcos MUST allow interconnects or face lawsuits.
Yes, but then you compare a totally new CDMA network to an already existing GSM & GPRS infrastructure.
So the question is, does it make sense for current CDMA operators to go CDMA 2K? Probably. Does it make sense to GSM operators to keep GSM? Sure enough. Now, does it make sense to new, TDMA or analog operators to go CDMA 2K or GSM? Perhaps CDMA 2K would be the right thing to do cost-wise, but what about the price & availability of the handsets as compared to GSM, GPRS and UMTS ones? And what about Qualcom royalties, do they exist also in GSM 3G?
Not so. In Brasil, if you use CDMA some areas only allow analog roaming, because CDMA isn't universally deployed. Neither with TDMA nor with CDMA you can use your handset outside of USNA, Brasil and the odd country to follow USNA's lead. With GSM you can use your handset just all over the world.
In a word, interconnect agreements are nice, but if you don't have a minimum common denominator you can't even start thinking about them.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Do you understand the difference between "could" and "couldn't"? Do you know what "opposite" means?
We really need some Sesame Street level remedial language classes here.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
> what about the price & availability of [CDMA] handsets as compared to GSM, GPRS and UMTS ones?
:-|
Negligible difference, for the same reason that a P-III that cost $$$ when newly-introduced is throwaway-priced today: handsets are only as costly as the demand. In fact, a W-CDMA (UMTS) handset that also supports vanilla GSM would be costlier, because effectively you have to put two phones into one. CDMA handsets remain compatible with older CDMA networks, including CDMA95.
> And what about Qualcom royalties, do they exist also in GSM 3G?
This was probably the single biggest grouse about CDMA - Qualcomm's money gouging. El Reg, never one of Qualcomm's biggest fans, reports though that for CDMA2000 they have reasonable royalties - 5-6% of equipment cost.
Incidentally, Qualcomm also markets W-CDMA which is used in GSM based 3G networks/UMTS, because it owns the patents. So I guess it wins either way!
Feat?!?
At least I hope it's not a waste of capitals...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Feat?!?
At least I hope it's not a waste of capitals...
Highly unlikely for that to happen, especially given the huge tariffs that exist today.
It had to come down one way or the other, and it so happened that Reliance is smart enough to capitalise on that. You have to be in India to know the amount of excitement this has generated.
IMHO, this is a definite seller.
OK, but a feat?
And even if it sells, is it to the best interest of users and investors? I mean, it still could go wrong because it is not standard and because it commands high royalties to Qualcom. Users are blocked from roaming, have to pay more for handsets, and cannot use them in other networks and countries if they move or simply decide to change operators. Investors could see their assets devaluated if GSM 3G succeeds and leave CDMA 3G as a niche, especially if GSM operator license fees are lowered by governments, as it would be fair to do.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
> OK, but a feat?
:-)
The "feat" IMHO is more that they got through India's bureaucratic maze and got regulatory approval for this, rather than any technical new-ness.
> Users are blocked from roaming
This could change soon. Reliance is trying to get full-fledged roaming licenses as well. If it succeeds, users *will* get roaming.
> [users] have to pay more for handsets
I don't agree with this. In a large, price-sensitive market like India, prices do crash. GSM phones started in India at Rs12,000+, they can now be had at sub-3,000 levels. No reason to believe the same won't happen to the CDMA market. Plus it'll be very interesting to watch MS' reaction as cheap J2ME phones (instead of their beloved Stingers) flood the market
Also, the customer does benefit in a very direct way -- lower call charges. Indian call charges (especially Long Distance) was unaffordable for many Indians -- the cost of the handset pales in comparison.
> Investors could see their assets devaluated if GSM 3G succeeds
The key word here is 'if' -- if they introduce 3G in the first place (remember, it'll cost 'em big money!). The Indian GSM operators have been a bunch of lazy bums 'til now, not introducing any new services (barring, as another poster mentioned, BPL in Bombay with GPRS) with the excuse that "we're hardly making any money".
Well, someone has just lit a fire under their collective arses. Let's see if they run or burn.
Not without GSM, AFAIU.
CDMA is already present in the US, some of Latin America and some of the Far East. Yet handsets are routinely more expensive, late and with less options than the comparable GSM ones. The exception seems to be some PalmOS phones such as the Kyocera ones.
One reason: Qualcom patent royalties. Another: absence of universal standard hinders economies of scale.
Agreed, but this has nothing to do with GSM vs CDMA.
I understand this is just a regulatory aberration specific to braindamaged Indian policy hostile to GSM, that is about to change anyway?
Again, this has nothing to do with CDMA vs GSM AFAIK.
Yes, but again this is just a dumb regulatory issue that should go away?
Unless you are meaning that even the GSM investments have hardly paid off yet. But this is true all over the world, and I can hardly see how a new operator, fighting uphill against already entrenched ones, has a better chance of breaking even and providing investors with some ROI.
This is not an excuse, it is true. Only big executive managers are making money, not the investors for sure. And this reminds me of another question: is there, or will there be, any market for GSM at all? It might be nice, but we would need at least better and cheaper Palm OS, GNU/Linux and Java phones, and even then I do not see it as a given.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
> Not without GSM, AFAIU.
:-)). the problem is -- if all GSM vendors move onto 3G (W-CDMA)or GPRS, and abandon vanilla GSM service then your vanilla GSM phones won't work. No backward compatibility sucks. :-( (To be fair, this is unlikely to happen anytime soon)
Why not? roaming with CDMA just as possible as with GSM -- as long as you are in an area where CDMA is supported, which for in India is nationwide, with more than one vendor: Reliance, Tata Indicom and BSNL.
> CDMA is already present in the US, some of Latin America and some of the Far East. Yet handsets are routinely more expensive
Acknowledged, but let us see. anyway, handsets in the CDMA world (also in the European GSM world, afaik) are routinely subsidized by the vendor, so I'm really not too sure this is a big deal.
>> The key word here is 'if' -- if they introduce 3G in the first place
> Yes, but again this is just a dumb regulatory issue that should go away?
*No*. That's the whole point. Because introducing 2.5G requires dedicated spectrum, and rolling 3G requires new spectrum (that they can't use for vanilla GSM -- effectively 3G GSM == WCDMA == CDMA, and W-CDMA has royalties on it just as CDMA 2000 has).
As i said at the beginning of the thread, *this* is the big hit against existing GSM vendors who are saddled with equipment they cannot use to offer next-generation services. Existing equipment must be replaced. They need money to buy new equipment (AND maybe spectrum -- but if they don't buy new spectrum, then vanilla GSM users are left out in the cold) to offer 3G.
On the other hand, a player who enters from scratch NOW with CDMA 2000 has a clear path to "3G"-compatible services: he can offer voice with 1X, and on the same spectrum then add a PDSN and modify/upgrade rather than replace other equipment to offer 1XEV-DO, and then add some more to offer 1XEV-DV with little incremental trouble.
Like so many other things in engineering, decisions in favor of W-CDMA or CDMA 2000 will be taken on the basis of technical excellence + economic realities, and this is how it should be.
> this reminds me of another question: is there, or will there be, any market for GSM at all?
Oh yes, for cheap voice telephony + reliable roaming, GSM's great (barring stupid Indian vendors
> we would need at least better and cheaper Palm OS, GNU/Linux and Java phones, and even then I do not see it as a given.
I think Linux has a very bright future inside cellphones, but I don't think the air interface really matters to the OS powering the phone's apps. Conversely, the OS doesn't really matter to the telco.
OK, but step outside of your borders and you're effectively mute.
Subsidising is always done in hope of recoupling it later. So if costs are higher, tariffs will have to be higher too sooner or later.
That's sad...
Anyway, it will only be an advantage if 3G flies.
A point: I guess W-CDMA isn't an international standard as GSM is?
That is not an option. GSM will always be there for (lots of) people who wanna but talk.
Agreed, and that was my point.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin