Delays and Problems for India's New CDMA Network

securitas writes "The NY Times and Bloomberg are reporting that Qualcomm is touting an expected 6 million Indian subscribers using CDMA by year end. But the facts seem to fly in the face of that with Reliance experiencing technical problems and delays with the launch of India's first CDMA network, covered on Slashdot late last year. Part of the problem is that the GSM operators won't allow Reliance's traffic on their networks, not to mention a court challenge and no approval by regulators. Is this just a hopeful diversion from the loss of the Iraq contract, where MCI chose GSM? How does a country where the per capita annual income is $390-$420 (depending on whose number you use) expect people other than the elite to afford mobile phone service, even if the handsets and service charges are heavily subsidized? Forbes discussed the problem of affordable mobile phone service in Africa where incomes are similar. Is this another wireless/fibre optic bubble akin to the one we saw a few years ago?"

Comments

Excuse me?

[fluxrad]

Could you provide a couple of links to back that one up?

Not everyone in India is poor

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a country with a population of over one billion people. If just one percent are well to do then there are more people in India that can afford a mobile phone than countries like UK, France and Germany, at five percent then there are more than the whole of the EU or the USA.

Then there is the fact that there are millions of early GSM phones floating around Europe that are virtually worthless here. Who wants to but say a Nokia 5110 today? Clean them up slap new covers on, a new battery and ship them out to places like India.

Finally you forget that laying masses of copper wires to every house is a very expensive operation. With a lack of existing infrastructure it may well be cheaper to stick up mobile masts than putting down a copper pair to every house in down town Delhi, or Bombay.

Re:GSM = working

[leonbrooks]

Many Indians - so I am told by my oft-resident expert - use mobile 'phones because it is reasonable to expect them to work, which is more than can usually be said for the landlines.