Indians have given a Thumbs Down to CDMA based Mobile Voice Service as they increasingly embrace the GSM Platform due to the friendly eco-system for consumers. India has 851 Mn Wireless Connections at the end of June-2011.
In June-2009 CDMA Mobile Connections commanded a 23% market-share which dropped to 17% in June-2010 and it further dropped to 13% in June-2011. During the same Period, GSM Connections have increased from 77% to 83% and then to 87% respectively. So the verdict is Final, CDMA eco-system is a miserable failure in India. Which company is to be blamed ? You know 🙂
Now, RCom and Tata Indicom are the two major operating networks on CDMA. They immediately hoped to a contingency plan to mitigate network investments and started tuning their network to provide Wireless Broadband Data Services using EVDO technology and the results are very encouraging. According to TRAI, the number of CDMA EVDO based broadband subscribers is around 10 Mn. However, I think their could be discrepancy in reporting the numbers as Tata Photon+ Numbers reported is just 1/5th of Reliance NetConnect Broadband+. Both Tata and Reliance have started around the same time and are likely to have similar customer base. This is broadly in-line with what I guess+estimated during the calculations of NTP-2011 broadband Subscribers Target of 175 Mn by 2017.
Other Important Statistics from the TRAI Report,
- Wired Broadband Subscriber base at 12.35 Mn
- Wireless subscribers capable of accessing Data services/Internet 346 Mn [This is quite high. What is the Active Subscriber ?]
Finally, TRAI should get a little bit active in seeking accurate data from Operators.