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India Getting Ready For 3G Wireless Broadband

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 22:04:13 -0700

Coming soon in India - world’s fastest growing mobile market - 3G services by the dozen. And what that means is a looming free-for-all in a market where competition is already fierce, prices super low, profits even lower and consumer is the ultimate winner.

Indian Department of Telecommunications (DOT) is getting all set to introduce about a dozen 3G licenses in some of the more densely populated regions including the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Karnataka, and Kerala. The information comes to us from our friends at Packetology, a Telecom research firm focused on the Indian market.

Other states getting 3G will include North Indian state of Haryana (right next door to Delhi and home to many outsourcing outfits), while ten licenses will be up for grabs in Kolkata (Calcutta) and Madhya Pradesh. In other large markets such as Mumbai (Bombay) and Delhi, the number of licenses available be far fewer because the available spectrum is in limited quantities. Delhi will have only four licenses while Bombay can accommodate upto eight licenses.

According to initial DOT 3G policy, each carrier was going to get 5 MHz of spectrum and only 25 MHz of total spectrum was available. However, more spectrum has become available, hence the boost in the number of players who can bid for the spectrum.

The availability of such a huge amount of spectrum and licenses makes India one of the few unique places to have aggressive and highly competitive 3G market from get go. Most countries have between 2-to-5 players. UK has five, US has four, Brazil has four and most Asian countries have two or three. With this kind of liberal licensing of spectrum, and the existing 2G operations in place, some regions might get over a dozen operators offering phone services.

Thanks to fierce competition in the 2G services, India continues to be one of the fastest growing mobile markets - about 300 million at last count - mostly because prices are seriously low. Still, the presence of such a high number of players makes you wonder if there will be anyone who will be able to make money. The looming WWF style competition is going to keep large US and European carriers out of the market, though there has been news that AT&T and Verizon are very keen on entering the Indian market.

The new 3G players in India will be looking to build their networks very cheaply in order to compete and offer ultra low prices to end consumers. This would mean despite a huge buildout, companies like Siemens, Nokia, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent and others should forget about making any real profits. The Chinese vendors - Huawei and ZTE - can mop-up, because they are willing to sell at a loss in their bid to gain market share. Infonetics Research, a Campbell, Calif.-based market research firm recently said that China and India are two major drivers of telecom equipment sales.

So who wins in this? Qualcomm & Nokia! The spread of 3G technologies brings a lot of royalty money into Qualcomm’s coffers. Similarly, Nokia is the strongest mobile brand in India and has a 3G portfolio of phones to match.

The big question that looms large in my mind: by introducing so many players in the market, is DOT killing the golden goose? In other words if there are too many players - dozen odd - and no one is making money, it would (and could) lead to a situation where they start shutting down. It could in the end the competition would decline and might result in an increase in prices.

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sanity, inc. gitweb

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:51:15 -0700

Celebrity Baby Blog is Acquired: People.com’s Gain Is FM Publishing’s Loss

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:40:40 -0700

It’s nice to see blogs growing up, even if they are about babies. People.com has bought Celebrity Baby Blog, a fast-growing blog started four years ago by Danielle Friedland. She confirmed the deal earlier this week, after MediaWeek broke the story. The site has an editorial staff of 17 editors, contributors, writers, and reviewers (presumably, not all full time).

The blog is an obvious fit for People, which knows that stories about pregnant celebrities and their babies sell. (Doesn’t it seem like pregnant celebrities are on the cover of People more than anything else?). The price was not disclosed, but Friedland and staff will stay on to grow the site.

But People.com’s gain is Federated Media Publishing’s loss. With this acquisition, FM Publishing is losing yet another anchor blog from its advertising network. Last year, it lost Digg to Microsoft, and earlier this month it lost Ars Technica to Condé Nast. Now, Time Inc. (my former employer) has snapped up Celebrity Baby Blog.

Celebrity Baby is FM Publishing’s top parenting blog, and has recently started to pull in more pageviews (and thus advertising impressions) than FM stalwart BoingBoing. Since February its traffic has shot up—to 6.9 million pageviews and 720,000 unique visitors in April, according to comScore. That month, BoingBoing had more unique visitors (2 million), but fewer pageviews (3.7 million). See the chart below.

Deals like this point to the fundamental weakness of FM’s business model. When a blog in FM Publishing’s network gets big enough or gets bought, FM loses all or part of their advertising inventory. The more profitable a blog is for FM, the more likely it is to try to sell ads on its own or be taken away by a larger media company with its own ad sales force. (Disclosure: TechCrunch is also an FM partner site. They sell a portion of our ads, but we also sell our own).

That said, we hear that FM was actually very helpful in getting this deal done. It knows that its blogs can walk away at any moment (As publisher Chas Edwards told me when FM raised $50 million last month), and the only way to keep them is to deliver higher CPMs than they could otherwise get. FM also wants to be seen as the best partner for up-and-coming blogs. Generating goodwill is always a smart business practice, even if it means having to let go of a rising star.

Update: FM’s Chas Edwards got back to me. He confirms that FM helped Friedland assess the offer from Time Inc., although it did so as a favor. And although “it is not clear” what will happen to FM’s advertising relationship with Celebrity Baby Blog, he suspects that Time Inc. will take over once the current ad campaigns run out. But he says that the revenue impact of losing both Celebrity Baby Blog and the larger Ars Technica will be minimal:

We would love everybody to stay with us for life, but we realize that is not practical. In terms of a business impact, it is very minimal. No one site represents a substantial percentage of revenues.

And here are his thoughts on the importance of being a good partner, even at the end of a relationship:

I think it builds the rest of our partners’ comfort with us and the broader industry gets a better understanding that Federated Media is building almost a talent agency. We want our partners to go deep with us in a collaborative approach to building their business.

A lot of people still confuse Federated Media with an ad network. It is not just that we want to sell your ads, but we want to help you build your business and your brand. And maybe we’ll get the opportunity to participate in these exits in the future.

That’s certainly the right the attitude if he wants to keep or attract more traffic on his ad network (sorry) than will escape whenever a bigger blog graduates from FM.

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Namaste, Moto! Indian TV Guy Wants Your Handset Business

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:46:38 -0700

Indian electronics maker Videocon has designs on Motorola’s ailing handset division, according to news reports. Videocon Chairman Venugopal Dhoot says he’s heard that the U.S. mobile giant is going to put its wireless handset business up for sale, and if that happens, his company — well-known for making budget televisions and appliances — wants to buy it.

He wouldn’t be the first Indian industrialist with global ambitions. More recently, Tata bought out Ford Motors’ Jaguar and Land Rover business for $2.3 billion. Tata and its local rival Reliance have been on a buying binge for a while now, but buying a branded mobile phone maker would be a first for either of them.

“We will be bidding for Motorola’s handset business, but at this point of time I cannot give out the price or the value of the bid,” Dhoot told Dow Jones Newswires. He’s considering using Motorola as the centerpiece of his vertically integrated retail strategy: He already has the licenses to set up a mobile network in India and a network of 1,000 stores across the country — handsets could be the missing piece.

Given that India continues to be one of the fastest growing mobile markets — 251 million connections, at last count — this move shouldn’t come as a surprise. I have been hoping that the massive telecom buildout in India would spur a lot of local innovation and the formation of telecom/networking equipment startups.

Indian Cell Population: 246 Million and Counting

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 07:52:30 -0700

The Indian cell-phone boom isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Indian mobile operators are adding around 8 million new subscribers a month; February’s tally of 8.46 million brings the total to 246 million, making the country second only to China. Sure the ARPUs are low compared to those in the West, but I find it amazing how quickly the market has grown. I remember going there in 2004 and being amazed by the mobile frenzy. At the time, there were 34 million subscribers and hopes of hitting the 100 million-subscriber mark. They are clearly way past that. I wonder, how long can this growth continue? What is the natural limit to the market? Any theories, people? [via Unstrung]

Emerging Markets As Cutting Edge Tech Test Beds

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 09:42:14 -0800

A while ago, I had pointed out that the epicenter of the tech world had moved somewhere in the middle of South China Sea. The point was that most of the new innovations - Fiber, Ethernet 2.0 and Mobile - were being deployed first in Asia and other rapid-growth economies, mostly because of lack of legacy. The latest example is Boston-based software-defined radio start-up Vanu Inc., is working with IBM and using virtualization to lower the costs of network operations and increase spectral efficiency.

“Emerging markets are becoming like incubators,” said Shiv Bakhshi, director of mobility research at IDC. “You incubate the idea there, get proof of concept. . . . Then you bring it home to the bigger markets . . . there are too many people here with too many interests to let any innovation go through to disrupt the market.”

For global carriers like Vodafone, T-Mobile and AT&T, these experiments have major ramifications - they can help them eek out some profits from their wireless voice business, and at the same time improve call quality.

Are we going to see more such-try-there-apply-here experiments in coming years? Of course. I think the big question is when the local entrepreneurs start thinking about innovating for their local markets along with harboring global ambitions. Chinese vendors, Huawei and ZTE are two examples of companies with global ambitions. In India there are some interesting fixed wireless start-ups that are gaining traction, not just locally but overseas in markets such as France.

BSNL’s Big $750 MM WiMAX Network Plan

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 02:42:02 -0800

Indian incumbent BSNL plans to spend about $750 million on a nationwide WiMAX network that will primarily target rural areas and small towns and cover a sixth of the country’s ever-growing population. This has to be one of the largest WiMAX rollouts anywhere on the planet.

The funds for the first phase of deployment are coming from a universal service fund set up for broadband access. BSNL will roll out the WiMAX network in large cities later as a separate buildout. The initial network will connect schools and telephony kiosks in villages.

The state-owned incumbent that is often the target of choice four-letter words because of dropped calls to my parents in Delhi has been dabbling with WiMAX for a while now. The announcement comes close on the heels of the Indian government clarifying its 3G policies.

The primary beneficiaries of this new network are going to be local WiMAX gear maker Telsima Networks, Aperto and Cisco-owned Navini Networks. India is fast becoming a big WiMAX testbed. From Intel, Alcatel-Lucent to small startups, all are betting on the WiMAX rollouts promised by incumbents and private sector players such as Reliance and Tata.

Wireless technologies seem to work well in India vs. wired broadband, which is popular in other fast-growing telecom markets such as China. Maybe it is easier and faster to roll out wireless infrastructure and start making money.

India Finally Has a 3G Plan; WiMAX in the Mix, Too

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:01:48 -0800

After a long wait, the Indian government has decided that it will auction 3G spectrum, and will allow foreign players to participate in the bidding. The spectrum is going to be released in the 2100 MHz band, which would make it compatible with rest of the world, barring a few countries such as the U.S.

Here are some specifics:

Winners will be required to pay 0.5 percent of total adjusted gross revenue to the state on an annual basis for the first three years of operation, rising to 1 percent thereafter.
Winners will not be allowed to trade or resell the spectrum and they will not be allowed to merge in the first five years after the grant.
About 30MHz of spectrum will be sold in total.
India will also auction licenses for broadband wireless (WiMAX) services, with the reserve price fixed at 25 percent of the amount for 3G spectrum.

The spectrum is going to be plentiful; our sources say that it will be enough to accommodate six carriers. The carriers we expect will make it to the finish line include the current leader, Bharti Airtel; Idea Telecom; Reliance and Vodafone (VOD). The two international cell phone companies likely to win the spectrum bid include AT&T (T) and Sistema.

If the rollout of voice services over past decade is any indication, this is a big opportunity for equipment makers. Ericsson (ERICY) and Nokia (NOK) have done well in India, and there is little reason why the situation would change, though one suspects the Chinese equipment vendors are going to act as deflationary counterweights to their Western counterparts.

The 3G services in India will eventually have to compete with WiMAX, which is being seen as the wireless broadband technology of choice by lawmakers. More importantly, this auction is a way for the Indian government to keep the telecom sector specifically and the economy overall growing at a healthy clip. India’s economy was catalyzed by telecom and call center businesses, then spread to other sectors.

Cisco’s Chambers Bullish On Wireless In India

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 12:44:47 -0700

Cisco Systems (CSCO) CEO John Chambers is headed to India and in an email interview with Livemint.com he outlined the progress made by Cisco in India:

Cisco sales in India are over $1 billion. Chambers is bullish about prospects of wireless in India. (It might also explain why the company snapped up WiMAX vendor Navini Networks for $330 million.)

There is a potential to leapfrog technology in the developing world that is very different from the developed world; it is an exciting market for us.

Cisco has earmarked $1.1 billion in investment in India. $750 million is going to “R&D activities, training, and development and expanding relationships with strategic partners in India.”
Of the $150 million earmarked for VC investments, $100 million has been already invested. Investments include Indiagames.com and Nimbus.

Google bets on start-ups in India

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 22:42:58 -0700

The truth about Indian start-up scene is that there is more money than actual start-ups. We have talked about it before, and we will say it again. Venture Capitalists - both local and US-based are showering money on start-ups, some of them quite marginal.

Google is adding to the money-shower by becoming an institutional member of the Band of Angels (BOA), a group based out of New Delhi.

It doesn’t mean that there is going to be an investment - since BOA is not a fund - but it opens up the potential of an investment for start-ups that catch BOA’s fancy. This is not the first time Google has taken an institutional approach. It had previously invested $3.75 million in Ventureast TeNet Fund. It has also taken a limited partner (LP) role in Erasmic and SeedFund. In a related announcement, Cannan Partners of Menlo Park announced first round investment of $5 million in techTribe, India’s Career Networking portal. Cannan’s New Delhi man, Alok Mittal is also a founder of the Band of Angels.

Vin, Vani & India VC

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 00:44:42 -0700

Vinod Dham, also known as “The Father of Pentium,” Vani Kola, serial Software entrepreneur and Kumar Shiralagi, former head of Intel Capital India, the venture capital group have closed their first India focused fund, NEA-IndoUS Ventures at $180.4 million. The fund is going to invest in early stage technology companies, and tech-enabled IT companies. The fund has already made seven investments, including Minekey, a contextual matching start-up, and VIA, a travel site. Given the spread of mobile phones in India, Kola says there will be many investment opportunities in that sector, especially the consumer apps.

In broadband, China zooms India stalls

Mon, 28 May 2007 01:41:29 -0700

The first quarter of 2007 has been good for DSL, thanks to higher than expected growth in China and other Asian economies, according to Dittberner Associates. China contributed more than a third of the total 12 million new DSL connections in the first quarter, which also helped Chinese equipment makers, Huwaei and ZTE, who took the top spot from Alcatel-Lucent. In Japan, VDSL made a strong come-back, in the quarter.

While China is zooming, the Indian broadband market seems to be stuck in neutral, even though the government had declared 2007 a year of the broadband (or whatever passes for broadband!) Andthat should be a cause of concern for venture capitalists who are placing multi-million dollar bets on consumer Internet start-ups.

There has been a strong demand for broadband, but apparently there is a shortage of modems and other gear, according to Light Reading. The problems are particularly acute at two state owned phone companies, BSNL and MTNL, who control nearly 64% of the total Internet access market. There are about 2.3 million broadband connections in India. There are about 8 million Internet subscribers in India. MTNL had planned to add a million new subscribers this year, while BSNL had a target of 5 million.

The government was hoping to get 20 million broadband subscribers online by 2010. The problems at MTNL and BSNL come at a time, when the local telecom regulator is trying to change its policies that favor the incumbents, who are allegedly using their copper-control to beat out rivals.

This should be a major concern for US based venture capital firms that are investing at a break neck speed in India, especially those who favor consumer Internet start-ups. Lack of broadband is going to become a major roadblock for the growth of their investments.

While broadband is unlikely to bring the social change brought upon by mobile phones, it is nevertheless crucial for India. From an economic growth standpoint, broadband is crucial for India’s future, especially if the country wants to be taken seriously as a technology powerhouse.

On a more mundane level, broadband could, for instance, provide a major lift to one of India’s biggest assets - Bollywood. Broadband deployment, and sending video over those pipes can help formalize an industry that currently exists in shadows. The television content business could get a major boost, leading to more companies like UTV and NDTV.

On a more personal level, availability of broadband - faster speeds at lower prices could help me iChat with mom, which means better cooking lessons, that would lead to a healthier lifestyle. I know, sounds narcissistic, but then you want me around longer for these long rants.

Time Inc. Closes TeenPeople.com, But Keeps Brand Alive Within People.com

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 22:50:25 -0700

A new twist on the recent trend of print magazines transitioning to online-only editions: a year after shuttering its hard copy edition, TeenPeople.com will close at the end of the month and be merged into its adult sibling, People.com. Marc Golin, People.com’s editor, speaking to Mediaweek, said that the rationale for the merger was the “nice amount of teen-demo traffic” the younger site has gotten, adding that if TeenPeople were viewed as doing poorly, the brand would’ve been discontinued. The site had 435,000 unique visitors in March 2006. But as Mediaweek pointed out, a year later, it didn’t meet minimum sample size standards needed to reliably project audience size, according to NetRatings. In terms of the impact on personnel, the Time Inc. unit only had two full-time staffers and a network of freelancers. One of the full-timers will go to People.com while the other person has been laid off.

The Vonage & VoIP Inc. deal mess

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 14:18:36 -0700

Updated: Yesterday, I wrote about the Vonage-VoIP Inc., deal that seemed to be perfect for Vonage to get out from under Verizon’s thumb of death. A few publications and some Wall Street firms had pointed out that VoIP Inc., had some patents and cited a 8-K filing. Instead of checking the facts, I went along with what others were saying.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. A few vigilant readers wrote in and prompted us to further investigate the claims in the previous Vonage-VoIP Inc. report. A Vonage spokeswoman in an email said:

The VoIP Inc. 8-K filing has caused much confusion in the marketplace. Vonage’s deal with the company is a termination deal, and is completely unrelated to the development of workarounds. Basically, VoIP Inc. is no different from any of the carrier partners Vonage utilizes to get inbound calls from the PSTN to customers, or vice versa, IP calls to the PSTN. Again, this deal is completely unrelated to the pending litigation between Vonage and Verizon.

So for this less-than-mediocre reporting, I would like to offer my apologies to the readers and hopefully learn from this episode.

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Vonage saved by VoIP Inc., for now

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 08:18:46 -0700

One of the most memorable lines in recent cinematic history is when Dr. Evil in Austin Powers utters, “Throw me a fricking bone.” That was the first thought that came to mind when reading about Vonage having found a work around their patent mess, thanks to VoIP Inc., a little VoIP company from Florida.

Verizon recently won its patent infringement battle against Vonage, and unless the Holmdel, NJ-based VOIP company got a stay from the federal court on April 6, it was facing a lights-out type situation. However, this deal with VoIP Inc. - will help Vonage stay open for business at the very least.

According to a 8-K filing by VoIP Inc., it was going to provide Vonage with certain network services, though the filing didn’t really reveal the financial terms. VoIP Inc., has patents and has a subsidiary that provides direct VoIP interconnection facilities with multiple carriers.

The deal could at least help Vonage address 2-out-of-3 Verizon patents that have landed it in hot water. Two of the patents deal with how VoIP calls connect to the PSTN network and the third one is about making VoIP calls via Wi-Fi phones.

Vonage is delaying filing its annual report pending the federal court’s decision (expected on April 6.) Funny how they were mocking the market for overreacting - Vonage actions since then show that over reaction was justified.

Previously on GigaOM

3/26/2007: VoIP patent mess to get messier.
3/26/2007: Vonage ready to rumble
3/23/2007: Vonage has 2 weeks to stop using Verizon patents, says Judge
3/16/2007: Vonage - rocky road, not road kill
3/8/2007: Vonage owes $58 million in patent case

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Time Inc.: Still Not For Sale—Until It Is

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 15:30:39 -0700

It really doesn’t matter how many times top execs deny a property is for sale—if other people think it should be, it will be proposed and talked about until either the cows come home or until the sale finally takes place. Time Warner hosts a couple of perpetually discussed such properties: Time Inc. and AOL. Nat Ives offers some hope via AdAge for the sell-side proponents when it comes to both ... just wait for Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons to leave when his contract is up in 2008 and hope that successor-designate president and COO Jeff Bewkes means when he says nothing is off the table. The focus here is on Time Inc., which estimates have bringing in as much as or more than $16 billion in a sale. A spin-off is another posibility. Some observers such as Bear Stearns analyst Spencer Wang don’t think the perpetual money machine fits in a video-centric company; others argue that TW needs integrated media. There’s also the likely nasty tax hit to consider. (Maybe they could bring in Liberty Media’s John Malone as a consultant.)
-- But as much money as Time Inc. makes, it’s not a perpetual growth machine across the board. Time Inc. is counting on digital for the bulk of that and that’s where much of its investment is aimed. Ives quotes a former Time Inc. as saying that the money going to digital is frustrating other areas; a spin-off likely would increase that. Meanwhile, I hear excitement from those convinced that digital is the future.
While we’re in the neighborhood, as for AOL, either Randy Falco and company are there to get the subsidiary ready for sale/spin-off or they’re not. Take your pick.

Time Inc. Highlights Recent Digital Moves, Emphasizes Video For Revamped Sites

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:35:55 -0700

A few hours after announcing it was ceasing publication of its Life newspaper insert and having the brand serve as an online photo portal, several Time Inc. executives held a press briefing to highlight the company’s digital moves over the past several months.
And now that the dust has settled on the pink slips the company sent out a few months ago as it shifted more resources to digital (with the exception of the 42 losing jobs because Life is folding), the company has been busily crafting deals and revamping its sites. On the deals front, SI.com executives noted its spree of recent acquisitions and alliances: FanNation, a site through which fans and fantasy game players can blog, track players and comment on the news; a partnership with Takkle, a high school sports online network; and a content deal with NBCSports.com. Aside from purchases, Time Inc. is heavily pushing video and social network initiatives across magazine properties like Essence. The company is planning a significant use of video at People over the next few months.
For SI.com in general, the main idea is to position it as the ultimate sports aggregator, with video from the recent NBCSports.com deal to serving as a news hub with content from teams and competitors like ESPN. “We’re not worried about offering users content from other sites, such as ESPN,” said Jeff Price, president of SI Digital. The site also plans to offer more original video.
CNNMoney has similar plans. The site is now using AJAX to provide automatic refreshes to its revamped custom portfolio page. And so far, worries about diminished pageviews due to users reloading the page have not been significant.
“Pageviews are actually flat, so in light of AJAX, this is actually good news,” said Vivek Shah, president of digital publishing, Time Inc. Business and Finance Network. “We just weren’t proud of our portfolio product before. But the ability to give real-time quotes has changed all that. And advertisers clearly get it. Pageviews might even be obsolete as a metric soon and we’ve gotten enough feedback that tells us this is working.” Like SI.com. the network plans to incorporate a greater amount of original video over the next few months.
It’s a little early in the experiment to have produced huge revenues, said John Squires, Time Inc. EVP: “We hope in the next few months, as we’ve rolled out more features, we’ll have something very positive to report on that front.”
Related:
-- SI.com, NBCSports.com Sharing Content; Will Offer Cross-Platform Media Buys
-- SI Acquires FanNation.com; Time Inc. To Buy Interest In Parent Company
-- As Time Inc. Waits For More Cuts, Company Prefers To Focus On Digital

Open Source Edition Downloads: Enterprise Messaging and Collaboration Software by Zimbra

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:17:21 -0800