The study, which was conducted by technology analyst firm Ovum says that many new hubs for KPO’s are going to emerge from the Asia-Pacific region in the near future, but India will retain its dominant position in the industry.

Says Mr Ed Thomas from Ovum,

“Being able to deliver services from multiple locations means providers can offer existing clients greater flexibility and minimize the risks associated with having all their operations in one facility, while at the same time tapping into fresh labor pools.’’

Some of the other locations which may pop up as lucrative set ups for KPO’s include China, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. KPO’s offer a wide range of solutions ranging from research and analytics, legal process outsourcing and clinical trial management.

China has been rapidly growing in the Clinical trial management because of a large number of potential patients on whom trials can be carried out. An economic labor force is also a major reason for the growth of this market.

Sri Lanka on the other hand, with its growing number of financial professional offer a growing market for equity and credit solutions.

The growing number of urban youth looking for a quick summer job and the vast as well as diverse population can be seen as major reasons for the dominant position that India holds in the KPO industry.

With many players turning towards Indian markets, it seems like the KPO industry will only strengthen with time.

The Delhi High Court has asked for a reply from the Central Government regarding the petition. The complaint filed by an advocate, Yakesh Anand who has mentioned Bharti Airtel Ltd., Idea Cellular Ltd. and Vodafone Essar Ltd in the petition.

The petition reads,

“Private operators have entered into agreements among themselves for using each other’s network and spectrum and provide 3G services, even in those areas and circles in India, where they neither have the license nor any 3G spectrum, thus, entering into the 3G area of operations through the back-door”

Mr. Anand said that the companies found a loophole in the norms set by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and gave out 3G services to other companies who did not win the 3G Spectrum bid.

The respondents – the government and the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) – have failed to take action against the erring cellular companies and illegally and unlawfully permitted the sharing of their 3G spectrum with those operators who were not awarded the license. There is no provision in the DOT guidelines for sharing of the spectrum by telecom operators,

the petition went on to say.

The complainant claims that the private operators who won the 3G Spectrum auction collaborated together and entered into an illegal spectrum sharing agreement with others. Some operators even provide services in the area where the spectrum is not present.

The Central Government has to reply to the complaint by November 30. Mr. Anand has even approached the TRAI and DoT to make sure that 3G services are not provided by non licensed operators

.According to the petition, the violations of the regulations by non-licensed companies can lead to losses of Rs. 200 billion for the Government.

With the Indian telecommunication Industry still getting back to track after the 2G spectrum, this new development might just get things back to Square One.

Most leading handset makers like Nokia have joined the fray. They all see huge business opportunity in this lucrative space. For example, BlackBerry’s app store, just a few months old, boasts of well over 4,000 apps; same is the case with Google’s Android. It has already touched the 20,000 apps mark.

Interestingly, the top mobile operators, nearly two dozen of them, are collaborating on the apps space. The members of this powerful alliance comprise SingTel, AT&T, China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom, Telefónica, Telenor Group, Orange, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone and Sprint. The logic behind the move is that mobile service providers have lost substantial revenues to handset makers because of independent developers being allowed to access their platforms.

According to research firm Gartner that tracks global IT & telecom industry trends, app stores amassed more than $4.2 billion in revenues globally last year. It suggests that the revenue would increase multifold by 2013, touching nearly $30 billion mark. App stores have clearly emerged as a lucrative revenue stream for developers and handset makers.

No surprise, top mobile firms like Vodafone Group and Bharti Airtel have joined in to leverage this space. The latter announced that its app store had gone live with over 1,200 applications. In fact, Bharti Airtel is the first telecom company from Indian to try replicate Apple’s hugely successful business model. Its CEO Sanjay Kapoor mentioned in an interview to The Economic Times that the Wholesale Applications Community looks to bring together a fragmented marketplace.

The aim is to create an open industry platform to benefit applications developers, network operators and of course, mobile phone users.

A spate of sponsorship and advertising opportunities unveiled by the IPL management include television media (Colors and Sony Max), as well as Internet (YouTube), ground sponsorships, team sponsorships and theatre rights.

According to sources with media buying firms, the third season of IPL has opened up exciting avenues for smaller advertisers as well, so the clutter will only increase. To overcome the clutter factor, advertisers are taking innovative steps such as ground activations, co-branded fan clubs and catchy advertising on YouTube. The brand rush to ride the IPL popularity wave indicates that sport marketing is now getting its due attention in India.

As already reported, Google claims a huge success in its web-casting of the IPL on YouTube. There is immense amount of euphoria over the experiment. The Internet giant has reportedly set a rather modest target of about 10 million unique viewers and 40 million cumulative hits for the 60-match long IPL league, but the targets could well be surpassed going by the trend.

Meanwhile, Airtel, among the country’s leading three Broadband players, has come up with an offer for IPL fans. They can avail of a full 1Mbps upgrade over its existing 1Mbps bandwidth to view the live telecast on YouTube sans any buffering issues. Airtel is one of the official sponsors of the IPL. Its speed bump offer will continue till April 25. There are no extra charges, though you’ll need to pay for data transfer.

Naming them: The Tata service of broadband plus is known as Tata Photon Plus while that of Reliance is called Reliance netconnect broadband plus.

This new technology is undoubtedly a step towards Mobile Broadband Service which is equipped with the next generation technology offering an enormous mobile internet connectivity solution. The Tata Photon+ and Reliance netconnect broadband plus provides a USB inbuilt Modem device that enables one to experience this service over country wide where the respective networks are available. With Tata coming providing only one model of the modem which shall cost you in and about Rs.3600, reliance lays out 3 models of the modem costing around Rs.3500.
Allowing the user to access internet service at super fast speeds using the new USB modem, photon + and netconnect is a simple method to be connected while you’re on the go.

Both Tata Photon plus and Reliance netconnect Broadband plus claim that the service is 20 times faster then other services provided, with a speed upto 3.1Mbps and that with it internet can be accessed all over India.

But then where is the war? Patience, o’ mighty ones! The war’s here. When it comes to coverage, reliance takes the cake providing a service that even extends to 35 odd cities covering the highways as well as the railways! Tata on the other hand is limited to certain cities and also isn’t able to do justice with the service they say they provide. Also, reliance has three options, while Tata has just one.

While in one hand you have the Tata reliability, on the other hand you have the reliance allure. Inspite of having an almost similar price range, it seems Reliance will ultimately overpower the kingdom of photon plus. No, we just said, it seems! Hope both of them are able to cash in on the opportunity (as they are the only ones providing the service at this point of time), before the competition increases.

Tata Docomo is a service which is debuting on the GSM circuit and claims to bill you per seconds! Such an alliance symbolizes both companies’ dedication and their commitment to the development of India’s ever growing mobile phone market. During the starting stage their plan is to capture the market in Southern India and then head nationwide.

The GSM market is filled to the brim with well established telecom giants which command a good amount of market share (  Bharti (35.4) BSNL (25.4) Hutch-Essar (25.3) Idea (13.6) ), its very clear that they are heading into a David and Goliath kind of altercation. It definitely seems like a tough task ahead, but knowing Tata as a reliable company they just might be able to penetrate the market and leave its mark.

Referring to the CDMA technology, Tata was a late entrant in this section as well with their brand Tata Indicom. It has made its mark in the CDMA market and is also one of the fastest-growing pan-India operators. Tata Teleservices have managed to acquire a pan-India license to operate GSM telecom services, under the brand TATA DOCOMO and they have been allotted spectrum in 18 telecom Circles. Will this venture stand the tides of the telecom giants? Well only time can tell.

The Industry average revenue per user for Public sector companies reflects that the companies have attracted price-sensitive, low-minutes usage for its subscribers and hence, the subscriber base would find no use for 3G services as 3G pros being services which include wide-area wireless voice telephone, video calls, and wireless data, all in a mobile environment. 3G networks enable network operators to offer users a better service while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. And like the popular saying goes, good is always followed by bad which forces us to stumble across the pros as well as the cons.

And the Cons include-

•    Differences in licensing terms between states
•    Lack of state support for financially troubled operators
•    Cost of 3G phones
•    Lack of coverage in some areas
•    High prices for 3G in some countries
•    Battery life of 3G phones

Almost forgetting to mention the fact that there was a bidding involved for technology, when all the cash flows away in buying the technology, we wonder where would the public sector companies gather financial support from. In the six months of its 3G launch, BSNL has roped in just 10,733 subscribers and the figure for MTNL stands at a dismal 902, an average of just 150 per month across Mumbai and Delhi, considered the two most lucrative circles for 3G in India.

However both the public sector companies deny the fact that buying the technology has created any sort of financial issue for both, infact they are in a position to venture newer applications. Having private sector giants gauging on the limelight, will public sector companies be able to leave a mark? Well let’s leave them with some serious thinking.

The Tigo network has two million subscribers being Sri Lanka’s third largest network and is part of Millicom International. The network has operations in Laos and Cambodia other than Sri Lanka where it has a business worth $150-200 million.

Airtel ‘s Sri Lankan arm, which launched mobile services last year, has already invested $125 million in Sri Lanka against a commitment of $250 million. Bharti entered the Sri Lankan market early this year and have a million subscribers within six months. Other competitors for the network include Russia’s Vimpelcom, Malaysia’s Axiata Group and UAE’s Etisalat.

This move comes as a surprise as Airtel has been in talks with MTN for one of the world’s biggest telecom mergers.

Bharati has yet to make a firm bid which should be done in a few weeks.

TTML has 2.5 million users in the 20.4 million strong Mumbai subscriber base.  The second-biggest telecom circle in India has 10 brands vying for subscribers where Vodafone Essar is the leader with 4.6 million users. TTML will be employing existing CDMA infrastructure for its GSM services rolled out in Mumbai and rest of Maharashtra. The Tata’s GSM services are functional in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chennai and Andhra Pradesh.

TTML has a capital expenditure of Rs 1,000-crore and plans on offering services at one-paise-per-second. The price point should stiffen the competition leading to probable price-cuts by competitors. The GSM rollout adds up to the GSM clutter and the only beneficiary would be the end-users. In the GSM war subscribers would have many options to choose from.

Till the news surfaced Bharati Airtel was banking on its cash reserves and short-term investments of Rs 6,300 crore towards the merger. The delay of the third generation (3G) spectrum auctions till next year enables Airtel to use reserves for the MTN deal. Though the talks were scheduled to end on July 31 it looks there is going to be an extension to the same due to the new hurdle.

On the other hand Vodafone India reported revenues of Rs 6,000 crore. In the three-year period the largest phone company roped in 7.7 million subscribers.

The company earned Rs 5,011 crore from voice services and Rs 175 crore from messaging services. While data services had 30% higher revenue of Rs 350 crore other services added the Rs 560 crore to the kitty. The latter figure includes revenues from Indus Towers (a JV with Bharati Airtel and Idea Cellular).

But the Idea steals the spotlight this quarter. The fifth largest telecom entity in India surprised industry experts with a 13% growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 297 crore. The merger with Spice and rapid rollout in new circles has boosted the business. Plus it added a staggering 4.1 million users.

The reduction in termination call charges from 30 paise to 20 paise has effected the revenues of all Indian telecos. So the final standings are …