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Mobile expected to pace India's broadband penetration

Mobile broadband subscriptions using 3G technologies in India are expected to reach 41 million connections by the end of the year, far outpacing the 11 million connections using wired technologies, according to Maravedis.
The report predicts Bharti Airtel will lead the charge in 3G connections as it moves forward with its network build, while those operators looking to deploy either WiMAX or TD-LTE using their BWA licenses are expected to lag in the near term. Bharti Airtel was the country’s largest operator with more than 146 million subscribers near the end of last year.
“Now that TD-LTE is set to become the dominant 4G technology in India, the challenge is to bring an inexpensive TD-LTE device to the Indian consumer,” explained Basharat Ashaim, author of the report. “As soon as Indian operators commit to millions of units the costs are expected to come down quickly.”
Ashaim noted that Reliance Industries Ltd. is expected to take a lead in getting inexpensive TD-LTE devices to the market. Reliance is the country’s second largest operator with more than 119 million subscribers.
The report also noted that TD-LTE technology will represent a $4 billion capital expenditure opportunity in India by 2016, with the TD-LTE customer base expected to reach 2.25 million by the end of 2012 and 21 million by the end of 2016.
Handsets embedded with 3G technologies will account for 80% market share in India by the end of this year, though carriers will be forced to find offload opportunities for data traffic as their current 5 megahertz of spectrum to support 3G services will prove insufficient.

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