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Saturday, August 30, 2008

Death of Fixed Wire-line??

Are we going to see Plain Old Telephones (POTs) become museum piece?
Will there be any attractiveness in wire-line business to remain in business?
Will WiMax, 3G be final nail in confine of wired broadband dream of India?
Does Wire line telephony business co-exists in today’s wire free world?
Is there at all business case for huge capex spend on digging & laying fibers?

I do not know the answer. POTs will maintain its dignity and certainly find a corner in museum. Wire free end-points is need of time. But I see a ray of hope and feel there is enough reason for businesses to remain focused, invested in wire line business and not only that but provide adequate finance to support it to grow. This is even more important and crucial for voluminously & densely populated countries like India and China. Let us talk about India only ..

I just want to mention reasons in points and leave rest to your imagination and comments to complete it/ argue or debate it…
# Reason1:
Scarcity of wireless bandwidth in densely populated metros, cities and more and more various services demanding additional bandwidth
# Reason2:
IP v6 can revolutionaries they way different home equipments are remotely maintained. A dream of electronic, digitally wired homes where all of our domestic helping machines will have an address – an IP address. This thing is not far away from becoming true..
# Reason3:
Bandwidth hungry innovative services: IP TV, High quality video telephony, Flirt/Chat/Multiplayer super games/Community based services, Work from home. And numerous other innovations! Last but not least incremental gain through Advertise based revenue and by becoming unconventional sales, ordering and fulfillment channel
# Reason4:
Why can’t there be mash up between wireless technology and wire line stuff:
‘Fiber kisses Antenna’!!! Something like fiber to reach home and all end user points are wireless -Working on blue tooth v2.0, WiFi, Wi-Max (for big offices or resid. towers), and so on… Or Wire line can greatly supported by wireless technology for bridging connectivity through long haul no-mans land. Guess there will be more creative ways
# Reason5:
Mobility is must today but it is also true in 75-85% times limited mobility is enough.
# Reason6:
a) Unbundling of last mile local loop of incumbent and its up-gradation
b) Joint venture of private player to lay fiber- Sharing passive wireless infra
c) Partnering with local entrepreneurs to lay fiber and own jointly- connect it to national carrier network
Explore more and more creative options.. Matrix is about to reveal truth ;-)

I like one of the comment so much that it should be part of this writeup as one more reason for wireline to sustain. Thanks to Mr. Abhishek's comment to add one more angle to look at positioning of wireline as safer technology.

# Reason7:

Fixed line was the dark side of wireless technology. Everyday questions are raised about how safe it is to use a simple mobile phone. It can cause you heart-attacks, impotency, variation in blood pressure, damage to brain cells (just think the effect it can have when you are talking to your friend for 1-2 hours continously

29 comments:

abhishek said...

Its too early to declare the end of Fixed Wireline for sure. One point which I found not covered there in support of Fixed line was the dark side of wireless technology. Everyday questions are raised about how safe it is to use a simple mobile phone. It can cause you heart-attacks, impotency, variation in blood pressure, damage to brain cells (just think the effect it can have when you are talking to your friend for 1-2 hours continously) etc.

A technology to really transform or revolutionize the whole eco-system must not be detrimental to the ecosystem itself. Wireless technology has to achieve some more milestones and get rid of the so-called health & other issues which are now clearly proven.

This is where Fixed-line is still way beyond wireless. And now almost all VAS services are devised keeping in mind the fixed-line subscribers (you an receive SMS on your fixed line, little bit mobility with cordless devices, IVR services, all this with better voice clarity and no health hazards), we can very well expect an improved fixed-line services, both technically and experientially.

Sushil Malani said...

Abhishek, Your comment is well taken. You had made very interesting point concenr about health-hazard!! The only problem with marketing it as usp will be difficult!! As all the private players in fix line has much bigger interest at stake in wireless world

Sunil said...

Some points to Debate:
1)Going forward MTNL has planned its iptv on its fixed wired lines, also tested the same.

2) Usage of E1 technology for corporates, which has to be a wire line.

3) Both MTNL/ BSNL, are having a good penetration in retail broadband market using wireline as their backbone.

Keeping the above points in mind both state run enterprises can exploit the existing network for more and more products/services. So you can take the Fix line wire to the coffin as of now.

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