The debate can never be settled partly because of the huge advertising spins on the dip shit wireless access. I have never been a fan of the same but instead always advocate landline based broadband access and free public Wifi. The municipal areas can be taken up for the task but sadly there has been no movement on to make the public carrier a.k.a BSNL responsible for such a thing. There is NO thought on this either!
The big question mark then boils down to the fact that competing technologies are making a beeline for the customer space. Nokia has upped the stake and launched a slew of handsets which are “3G” compatible. The networks are seeing huge amounts of raw investments in the space. Yet, in the previous write up, I had clearly mentioned that India represents a missed opportunity to shift to 4G instead of the present 3G investments. What the hell is the difference between 3G and 4G?
Here is an idiots guide to 3G versus 4G difference. It all boils down to download speeds. Although, in fair judgment, the download speeds are going to be marginally better than the existing experience on the handsets. We have seen multitude of ringtones and crap shit like that making a neat little profit from all that. Yet, the fad is bound to wear off. Sooner than later. Data can NEVER be the differentiator here because there is NO ecosystem for the same.
It only boils down to “operational efficiency” for the voice traffic.
No amount of crap dip shit research can explain the projected telecom users. Neither the best estimates. Nor the tax collections or the opaque methodology to count the number of customers. It is only a grab of the public resources by private players. Most of the private payers would exit out of the current game, leaving the field wide open for the bigger international players in the market. That would ultimately decide the price for the spectrum running into billions of dollars. That is the reason why Raja conceded to the big national players because the lobbying happens in their backyard. Any new International player has to kiss their ass to get a “toehold” here in Indian market that is supposed to be “exciting”. Fact is that no one fucking cares because we are way behind as laggards in either 2.5G or 3G or 4G (or even any of the new avatars) designed for future use.