Recently, India has become the fastest growing country in the Asia-Pacific region for smartphone sales. The U.S. smartphone market is well saturated and a good portion of China’s 1.4 billion citizens have been using mobile devices for several years. It appears as if the next hot market for cell phones will be India.
Almost all of the more than 23 million smartphones it added in the third quarter 2014 were those that were compatible only with 3G networks. Carriers are in the early stages of rolling out high-speed 4G LTE (News - Alert) networks for the first time making it just a fraction of the market.
The feeling is that Indian subscribers will enthusiastically adopt 4G to satisfy their need for mobile data. The forecast is that India will have as many as 15 million 4G LTE connections by the end of 2015. Today that number is an insignificant portion of the country’s wireless base.
One of the factors that come into play is the fact that there are relatively few LTE handsets being sold. We are beginning to see more inexpensive devices which support LTE becoming available in India this year. Another factor is being able to afford a 4G LTE device and the service that goes along with it.
Qualcomm’s (News - Alert) head services of India and South Asia, Dinesh Prasad, believes that adoption of video technology will be the factor that drives people in India to accept and want to use 4G LTE networks. Apparently, latency issues make it difficult and cause video problems on 3G networks, which will not be the case with 4G LTE networks.
According to Prasad, the LTE bands used in China are very similar to how they will be used in India. That means that all of the 4G LTE devices used in China will be able to function in the same manner in India. Of course, the problem is being able to afford one of these devices. If the devices and the network cost too much, video will not be sufficient incentive to spend money which the consumers do not have.
It is with this in mind that while it took a long time for 3G devices to drop in price, 4G LTE devices can be purchased for around $110. With the understanding that it will drive support, India’s Airtel (News - Alert) carrier is currently offering LTE technology at the same price as 3G technology. The reason behind this feeling is that, “Customers don’t mind paying the same for more and ultimately this will increase data usage and so could increase carrier revenue.”
India has had an opportunity to see how the rest of the world has implemented 4G LTE services. The similarities with China mean that not only can India quickly adapt to using the technology, it will also have a variety of devices that are ready to be used.
The next logical step would be to implement voice call over the higher speed network and deliver Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. While LTE networks are much more efficient at handling data when compared with 3G networks, VoLTE technology requires a good, consistent LTE network to avoid call drops.
It does not matter if the cost to the consumers is the same as 3G services, if they are not happy with the service then they will remain on the 3G network. However, as I mentioned, India has seen how China has handled the shift from 3G to LTE services and can learn a lot of shortcuts that will still allow LTE networks to deliver reliable VoLTE services.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson