[Tats07]

Originally Posted by Warwithwheels

I have been using Airtel 3G in Chennai for almost a year now. My experience has so far been really great. Touch wood!

Here's a screen shot of the speeds I have been getting over the last couple of months on my Airtel 3G! (Save, the last entry)

My experience with Airtel 3G has been very very poor in Bangalore. Average speeds are never more than 1 Mbps, video downloads are pathetic, let us not even talk about HQ videos. I find my Tata Photon much better.

There was an article in ET which gave an average speed comparisn of 3G between India and other countries - I haven't seen any country offering less than 5 Mbps, except for China perhaps. What could be the reason for us lagging so far behind?

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Tats07

My experience with Airtel 3G has been very very poor in Bangalore. Average speeds are never more than 1 Mbps, video downloads are pathetic, let us not even talk about HQ videos. I find my Tata Photon much better.

There was an article in ET which gave an average speed comparisn of 3G between India and other countries - I haven't seen any country offering less than 5 Mbps, except for China perhaps. What could be the reason for us lagging so far behind?

The operators having paid such huge money for the license are losing money due to low adoption by customers. Handset rates are a major problem in addition to a killer application. Even with that LTE is being deployed.

Looks similar to the airline problems we have.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Looks similar to the airline problems we have.

I beg to differ. Th airline problem really took off when Air India resorted to predatory pricing knowing that the GoI (really you and me the tax payers) will bail them out. This is also the time when the rule permitting travel on any carrier was withdrawn. This was acknowledged by a former CMD of Air India on TV.

I do not see the BSNL or MTNL doing anything similar. Theyy have the benefit of an All India 3G footprint (and now want to stop sharing by others), but in terms of pricing they are only marginally better than others. The circular permitting mobile connections for reimbursement in Govt circles only by BSNL/MTNL was withdrawn ages ago.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I beg to differ. Th airline problem really took off when Air India resorted to predatory pricing knowing that the GoI (really you and me the tax payers) will bail them out. This is also the time when the rule permitting travel on any carrier was withdrawn. This was acknowledged by a former CMD of Air India on TV.

I do not see the BSNL or MTNL doing anything similar. Theyy have the benefit of an All India 3G footprint (and now want to stop sharing by others), but in terms of pricing they are only marginally better than others. The circular permitting mobile connections for reimbursement in Govt circles only by BSNL/MTNL was withdrawn ages ago.

But I was talking more from the hype perspective. Air travel was supposed to boom and now the same with the use of 3G. Private companies are bleeding.

[Tats07]

Originally Posted by srishiva

The operators having paid such huge money for the license are losing money due to low adoption by customers. Handset rates are a major problem in addition to a killer application. Even with that LTE is being deployed.

Looks similar to the airline problems we have.

Appreciate your comment on 3G adoption. But I was referring to India lagging behind in terms of providing average 3G speeds of 5 Kbps+, and not why the adoption rate in the country is low.

[mpksuhas]

As many members said, LTE phones of today are heavier compared to 2G phones. However this is not due to the technology per se, most of these phones support bigger screens to make the LTE experience better (what is the use in having a LTE phone with puny screen), this in turn needs more power to operate along with more powerful CPU making case for a bigger battery.

So till battery technology evolves and get more compact phones will be bit heavier and bigger, all said we cant dismiss the fact that this is the way forward. May be many of us wont need the 100mbps speed promised, may be we wont be using video call, may be voip calls dont intreset us. However as with any technology this is better than the previous one and will be more popular as days pass.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Tats07

Appreciate your comment on 3G adoption. But I was referring to India lagging behind in terms of providing average 3G speeds of 5 Kbps+, and not why the adoption rate in the country is low.

They lagged by more than 5 years for 3g.

Maybe they want to go towards LTE for the higher data bandwidth options without upgrading through the 3G route. That is what Airtel and others are doing already.

[esteem_lover]

So what is 3.5g ? I thought that was 4G.

[krishnadevanur]

What a time, I thought rooting my HTC EVO 4G for reliance network was waste, 4G ftw :-)

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

So what is 3.5g ? I thought that was 4G.

3.5 G was HSPA. Now a days HSPA+ is touted as 4G. Funny enough the initial release of LTE itself was not 4G. LTE Advanced was real 4G.

[Tats07]

Originally Posted by srishiva

They lagged by more than 5 years for 3g.

Maybe they want to go towards LTE for the higher data bandwidth options without upgrading through the 3G route. That is what Airtel and others are doing already.

I obviously meant 5 mbps+ in my previous post and not Kbps. :-)

It has to do with the availability of spectrum for higher 3G speeds, the number of players are more, and hence the spectrum gets shared by multiple operators, and effective speed that the end subscriber gets is nothing beyond 2 Mbps max. I was wondering why we cannot broaden the spectrum to allow higher bandwidth per operator.

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Tats07

I obviously meant 5 mbps+ in my previous post and not Kbps. :-)

It has to do with the availability of spectrum for higher 3G speeds, the number of players are more, and hence the spectrum gets shared by multiple operators, and effective speed that the end subscriber gets is nothing beyond 2 Mbps max. I was wondering why we cannot broaden the spectrum to allow higher bandwidth per operator.

Each player gets a 5Mhz spectrum for 3G (same for HSPA and HSPA+). That is not shareable.
If you have more spectrum, you can have more subscribers (or more operators). Singe mobile cannot use more than one band at a time for data transfer.

[Tats07]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Each player gets a 5Mhz spectrum for 3G (same for HSPA and HSPA+). That is not shareable.
If you have more spectrum, you can have more subscribers (or more operators). Singe mobile cannot use more than one band at a time for data transfer.

So what is the reason for lower 3G speeds in spite of 5 Mhz spectrum allocated individually to operators?

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Tats07

So what is the reason for lower 3G speeds in spite of 5 Mhz spectrum allocated individually to operators?

Poor network design (shadow regions), fewer cell towers, poor back haul network etc.

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by srishiva

But I was talking more from the hype perspective. Air travel was supposed to boom and now the same with the use of 3G. Private companies are bleeding.

Very simple (but impossible in the current age of dyed in the wool Nehruvian socialists) make the PSUs earn their own corn, if they can, else shut them down. We taxpayers are not the tree of plenty (Kalpataru) to keep feeding these PSU monsters, and somehow we have to let this be known. The Railways will be next thanks to the second lady who now defines all our policy. I am not even talking of returns on investment.