CDMA is dying by the day: Sunil Mittal

NEW DELHI, JUNE 23: Days after top CDMA operator Reliance stunned everybody by switching sides to GSM technology, the biggest mobile operator Bharti Airtel said that CDMA is on its way out in India and that the country’s spectrum policy needs to stay in tune with the big, globally harmonised spectrum rules.

‘‘CDMA is dying by the day. Even in Korea and the US, there is a steady shift to GSM,’’ Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel Ltd, told The Indian Express on Friday.

Mittal said that worldwide, GSM operators are migrating to W-CDMA technology while CDMA operators are switching to GSM. He said that if the US players T-Mobile and Cingular can switch sides from CDMA, it sends a ‘‘very big signal’’ to spectrum policymakers about where technology is headed.

‘‘W-CDMA is a kind of CDMA that is used by GSM players to provide 3G services. But CDMA is a closed technology for which heavy royalties have to be paid, so the CDMA people are moving to GSM, an open technology,’’ Mittal said.

He added that W-CDMA is becoming popular with Telecom operators worldwide because Qualcomm, which developed CDMA technology, charges significantly lower royalties for W-CDMA than it does for CDMA. ‘‘The significantly lower royalties for W-CDMA definitely play on operators’ minds,’’ Mittal said.

In such a scenario, while Reliance’s adoption of GSM does give Bharti another major competitor on its own turf, it may bring the two warring sides together on the controversial spectrum allocation rules. Indian CDMA players want the Government to give them spectrum in the 1900 MHz band where they can provide 3G services. But GSM operators want to keep them out of this band because of interference concerns.

‘‘The 1900 MHz band is not given to CDMA anywhere but in Korea and the US, and there is a steady shift away from that even there,’’ Mittal stated. ‘‘I think that in India the deal is done — we need to stay with the big, globally harmonised spectrum bands and keep 2GHz for W-CDMA,’’ he sad.

Of course, Reliance may still keep its CDMA business working for several years if not forever and another big CDMA operator still remains: Tata Teleservices. There is no reason yet why this business house should want to give up on the claim for 1900 MHz to provide 3G.

Mittal said that when 3G is finally launched in India, its impact will be tremendous, though that is not yet being sensed yet by anyone in India. ‘‘E-payments, e-governance and a range of e-services will transform the landscape. And we need it to happen,’’ he said.

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