Despite fears that the Indian government's proposed security measures will delay 3G deployments, one analyst firm predicts that wireless broadband will support more than 70 million users by 2015.
Such wireless broadband services will be delivering good profits to operators by this time, according to a study by Maravedis and Tonse Telecom.
The main deployments will be based on 3G and Wimax, while LTE will only make a significant impact towards the end of the five-year period of the study,
Co-author Sridhar Pai said in a statement that the recent spectrum auctions, despite the rows over certifying vendors and kit, would “unleash a broadband economic driver thus far evasive to India.”
He added: “The unmet demand for broadband resulting from poor wireline infrastructure will be met by a combination of 3G and 4G technologies, including WCDMA/ HSPA, 802.16e and TD-LTE, over the next five years.”
This will belatedly create a data economy in India, which will also drive structural changes for the carriers, notably a wave of consolidation starting next year.
“Infrastructure opportunity has moved to a new level and will quickly morph into an application driven era,” the report says.
“A vibrant device ecosystem, a rich native content value chain, an extensive service distribution network, and high tenancy passive infrastructure sharing - combined with rock bottom voice ARPUs and high spectrum investments - have created a heady mix pushing operators to move into the 3G/4G opportunity as their next growth engine.”
The analysts expect to see 40 million 3G data devices in use by 2015, and a subscriber base of 33 million for Wimax and LTE at the same stage.
This article originally appeared in Rethink Wireless
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