Telecom Tuesday is our weekly Digest that brings you snippets of Buzzing stories related from Indian telecom Industry
Mobile Phone Towers spell demise of Honey Bees !
Now thats really sad – The Hard working Honey Bees are having a tough time to survive in this Mobile Phone Tower Jungles.
The electromagnetic waves emitted by mobile phone towers and cellular phones are posing a threat to honey bees. Cell phones when kept close to beehives drastically reduced the bee population within a short time span.
An experiment conducted in the southern state of Kerala found that a sudden fall in the bee population was caused by towers installed across the state by cellular phone companies to increase their network. (source)
The electromagnetic waves emitted by the towers crippled the "navigational skills" of the worker bees that go out to collect nectar from flowers to sustain bee colonies.
This is really a no-win situation – Admitted that it hurt the Honeybees to a large extent, but can we now survive without cell phones ?
I can survive without honey, but not without my mobile phone !
Mobile Subscriber Growth very Robust, Wireline Subscribers keep declining
You just cant stop it, can you? The number of Mobile subscribers are growing at blistering pace. The July numbers released by TRAI suggests that 14.38 million Wireless phones subscribers have been added, while the wireline subscriber base reduced further by 0.13 million.
Here are the numbers released by TRAI for Month of July 2009:
- Total Telephone subscriber base reaches 479.04 Million
- Wireless subscription reaches 441.66 Million
- Wireline subscription declines to 37.41 Million
- 14.38 Million new additions in wireless
- Wireline subscription declines by 0.13 Million
- Overall Tele-density reaches 41.08%
- Broadband subscription rose to 6.80 million
I dont know why the Broadband subscriber growth is so sluggish. Total Broadband subscriber base has increased to 6.80 million in July-09 from 6.62 million in June-09, thereby showing a measly growth rate of 2.7 %.
Foreign Mobile Phones will now be heavily scrutinized before entering in Indian Market
Now this is an important step taken by the India Government. Given the security threat India faces from various countries, they may be able to exploit the current loophole that exists in Indian Telecom market.
Currently, all the foreign mobile cell phones that come to India, do not have to go through any kind of security checks. This is definitely a loop-hole that can be exploited by Anti Social Elements or by the Mobile company itself.
Especially the Chinese vendors like Huawei and ZTE, who are walking way with a bulk of new supply deals signed in the telecom equipment space.
Although, Indian telecom operators have been strongly opposing any move to ban Chinese equipment suppliers, it is a must given the threat.
If the proposal is cleared, DoT’s technical arm, Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), will set up the test bed, Telecom Testing and Security Certification Centre. The project will resemble steps taken by several countries, such as the UK and the US, who have put such facilities to ensure that external elements do not intrude in their communication networks, said government officials. (source)
3G Spectrum Auction reserve price set at 3,500 crores, WIMAX Internet at Rs. 1750 crores
Finally, the confusion over 3G spectrum comes to an end or atleast I suppose so.
The Group of Ministers (e-GoM) finalised the reserve price for auction of radio waves for next 3rd generation mobile services at Rs. 3,500 crore. (source)
It has decided to allow a maximum of five 3G operators per telecom circle, including a BSNL and MTNL. It fixed the base price for pan-India WiMAX spectrum for wireless Internet at Rs. 1,750 crore, and decided to sell only three slots initially.
The auction for both 3G and WiMAX services would be completed within 90 days, paving the way for faster and more efficient mobile and Internet services.
The Government is likely to get richer by over Rs. 25,000 crore.
