Telenor India is planning to expand its narrowband-LTE services in ten new towns from existing 27 towns across its six operational circles, the company's chief operating officer Tanveer Mohammad said.
In an interaction with ET's Danish Khan, Mohammad also shared learning from being a rural telco in the market, and shared views on rising competition.
What are your views on the Indian telecom industry?
India has a huge telecom industry. After China, it is second in the world in terms of subscription and in terms of internet users it is also the third biggest in the world
We are also seeing more than a billion subscribers in India. It also has around 80% of teledensity. But, looking into these big figures, something might not be very clear because as you go into the deep rural areas we also see that penetration is merely at 50% so there is still a lot of untapped opportunities which are lying in the Indian market.
What we are also seeing is that internet is definitely growing and the demand for internet is also growing but at the same time there is lot of voice demand which is still there in the country. It's a big market, it's a market for opportunities, and it's a market where at this moment both the voice and data are still in highly demand.
Please share Telenor's learning being a rural telecom operator in India.
What we always wanted to be was be relevant in the rural market. When we started our operations we wanted to offer the basic services to customers. At that time, voice was the basic need, and we stretched ourselves to make sure that we can offer voice at best possible prices or cost to the customers.
As I said, we always wanted to be the operator that provides basics to our customers. We also found that gradually data has also started becoming a basic need for our customers. In 2014, we started offering basic data to our customers as well. But this is very interesting - what is basic today specially for data, tomorrow that very definition of basic can also be changing. So what we found that many of our customers who had first internet experience with our network may in terms of some messaging applications like WhatsApp or Facebook, over time their basic need also started evolving and they started demanding some sort of video possibilities with our network. Then we started exploring what can be done so that we start meeting the demand. In many of our circles, we have spectrum holding of 5 to 7.2 Mhz of spectrum. Then using this limited spectrum what can be the solution for offering internet to our customers, we really started engaging with different stakeholders like vendors, partners and many others. We also realised that there are certain new technologies which has started coming into the world - one of the example is lean GSM. We took a big initiative to modernise our network so that we can start implementing some of these very new technologies.
The lean GSM helps you take care of basic voice requirement in more efficient way.
If you have 5 MHz to take care of GSM need, what we have found that if you can really modernise the network and implement these new features, it's possible to take care of the same demand using less spectrum - 3.5 Mhz. In the process, you are freeing up some of the spectrum which can be used for something else. Another new technology which became available was narrowband-LTE. What we have seen that in most of the case 5 mhz was being used for LTE application. As a part of narrowband LTE, we also found it's possible to use 1.4 or 3 Mhz of spectrum for LTE applications.
Using a combination of Lean GSM and narrowband LTE, we found opportunities to launch LTE in circles where we operate. In circles, where we have only 5 MHz of spectrum, we could free up 1.4 Mhz for narrow band LTE and in circles like AP we could free up 3 Mhz of spectrum for LTE application.
Our journey has been progressing in the way so that we are able to meet our customer demands in terms of both voice and data applications in the most efficient way possible.
We started with voice, then we started basic data, then we expanded ourselves with the launch of narrowband LTE. Now, we are in a position wherever we have launched LTE we can take care of video demand as well. This is so far the internet journey of Telenor India.
How has been the uptake of Telenor's narrowband-LTE services?
Our first city was Varanasi where we launched LTE service. We launched LTE with 1.4 Mhz of spectrum. It has already been more than six months and customers are still getting around 1 MBPS of throughput. These customers are mainly small screen users. For video services like Youtube in small screens is working perfectly with no buffering. In cities like Vizag, where we have launched LTE with 3 MHz spectrum, customers are getting 3-5 mbps and the experience is even better.
Our number of customers is growing. Recently we exceeded 5 tera-byte of data consumption per day in our LTE towns. We have already launched 27 towns and 10 more are in the pipeline.
Our LTE is giving a perfect solution to customers for applications and content that are available in the market.
How crucial pricing of 4G services is for Telenor India?
We offer both the GSM and LTE services - GSM works with feature phones so the entry barrier is quite so it is very much possible for them to buy cheap handsets and start using the voice and basic data. For LTE, supported devices are required. Worldwide we are seeing good price development in terms of LTE devices. Once they overcome the device barrier, then definitely whatever kind of plans and different products are available in the market that's very important. We have always ensured that there has to be a good value for the money for our customers in terms of products and offering. So we have tailor made our offerings in terms of customer need so that they don’t need to spend big amount of money to avail our different products.
In Indian market, pricing is really important because services have to be good but at the same time it needs to be affordable as well. Only when you create right kind of equilibrium, it will be customer friendly and things will start growing.
How do you look at the competition?
Competition is exciting in the Indian market, especially after the new entrant it has got newer dimension. But, India is a vast market with huge population and huge subscription base. One size will never be fitting all the needs in the market. There are different segments of customers, hence different needs of customers. We want to be best in segments where we operate. Despite of having different competition, we are trying ourselves even more efficient. We are trying to make ourselves even more applicable to segments we operate in. It is giving us even more push to become even more competitive. The competition is there but at the same time we are also seeing enough traction for services and products we offer. We are still very relevant and will continue to be relevant in circles where we operate.
Does Telenor plan to develop its own digital content to back 4G services?
We want to really make sure that our offerings are creating best value for customers. The telecom ecosystem is so huge that for Telenor India it will never be possible to take care of everything by the company itself.
It's about partnerships and providing right kind of access to different content and services that are available in the market. our strategy will always be to be relevant and continue to make sure how to bring different content services in best possible way. It could be through partnerships or in terms of doing something on our own.
We ventured into the spaces like micro insurance, and also ventured into creating mobile applications through which customers can take care of their regular needs. We have also got into giving small loans to customers whenever they find it difficult to recharge.
Many things we are doing by ourselves, but at the same time we are taking advantage of whatever is available in the market.
Which are the new initiatives being planned for customer acquisition?
We want to grow in circles where we operate, but it has to be in a most viable kind of way. We are always evaluating different options. In future, you will be seeing new different initiatives which will make our position even stronger in the market from where we are.
You served as a CTO of Grameenphone Bangladesh before coming to India. How do you compare both the markets?
Both the markets are growing markets, yet there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of unique characteristics and challenges as well. In Bangladesh, i worked with Grameenphone which is the market leader, while Telenor India is really setting up new trend in terms of how to really run a network in a very efficient way.
In both the markets, we are trying to bring new things and want to be pioneer in terms of bringing innovative services to customers. But the uniqueness in Bangladesh operations is that most of the things are in-sourced, while in India we are working in a hybrid model of in-source balanced with outsourcing.
Both the markets have got tremendous growth opportunity, and have huge youth population. Both markets have a hunger for internet services.
Telenor India is planning to expand its narrowband-LTE services in ten new towns from existing 27 towns across its six operational circles, the company's chief operating officer Tanveer Mohammad said.In an interaction with ET's Danish Khan, Mohammad also shared learning from being a rural telco in the market, and shared views on rising competition.
What are your views on the Indian telecom industry?
India has a huge telecom industry. After China, it is second in the world in terms of subscription and in terms of internet users it is also the third biggest in the world
We are also seeing more than a billion subscribers in India. It also has around 80% of teledensity. But, looking into these big figures, something might not be very clear because as you go into the deep rural areas we also see that penetration is merely at 50% so there is still a lot of untapped opportunities which are lying in the Indian market.
What we are also seeing is that internet is definitely growing and the demand for internet is also growing but at the same time there is lot of voice demand which is still there in the country. It's a big market, it's a market for opportunities, and it's a market where at this moment both the voice and data are still in highly demand.
Please share Telenor's learning being a rural telecom operator in India.
What we always wanted to be was be relevant in the rural market. When we started our operations we wanted to offer the basic services to customers. At that time, voice was the basic need, and we stretched ourselves to make sure that we can offer voice at best possible prices or cost to the customers.
As I said, we always wanted to be the operator that provides basics to our customers. We also found that gradually data has also started becoming a basic need for our customers. In 2014, we started offering basic data to our customers as well. But this is very interesting - what is basic today specially for data, tomorrow that very definition of basic can also be changing. So what we found that many of our customers who had first internet experience with our network may in terms of some messaging applications like WhatsApp or Facebook, over time their basic need also started evolving and they started demanding some sort of video possibilities with our network. Then we started exploring what can be done so that we start meeting the demand. In many of our circles, we have spectrum holding of 5 to 7.2 Mhz of spectrum. Then using this limited spectrum what can be the solution for offering internet to our customers, we really started engaging with different stakeholders like vendors, partners and many others. We also realised that there are certain new technologies which has started coming into the world - one of the example is lean GSM. We took a big initiative to modernise our network so that we can start implementing some of these very new technologies.
The lean GSM helps you take care of basic voice requirement in more efficient way.
If you have 5 MHz to take care of GSM need, what we have found that if you can really modernise the network and implement these new features, it's possible to take care of the same demand using less spectrum - 3.5 Mhz. In the process, you are freeing up some of the spectrum which can be used for something else. Another new technology which became available was narrowband-LTE. What we have seen that in most of the case 5 mhz was being used for LTE application. As a part of narrowband LTE, we also found it's possible to use 1.4 or 3 Mhz of spectrum for LTE applications.
Using a combination of Lean GSM and narrowband LTE, we found opportunities to launch LTE in circles where we operate. In circles, where we have only 5 MHz of spectrum, we could free up 1.4 Mhz for narrow band LTE and in circles like AP we could free up 3 Mhz of spectrum for LTE application.
Our journey has been progressing in the way so that we are able to meet our customer demands in terms of both voice and data applications in the most efficient way possible.
We started with voice, then we started basic data, then we expanded ourselves with the launch of narrowband LTE. Now, we are in a position wherever we have launched LTE we can take care of video demand as well. This is so far the internet journey of Telenor India.
How has been the uptake of Telenor's narrowband-LTE services?
Our first city was Varanasi where we launched LTE service. We launched LTE with 1.4 Mhz of spectrum. It has already been more than six months and customers are still getting around 1 MBPS of throughput. These customers are mainly small screen users. For video services like Youtube in small screens is working perfectly with no buffering. In cities like Vizag, where we have launched LTE with 3 MHz spectrum, customers are getting 3-5 mbps and the experience is even better.
Our number of customers is growing. Recently we exceeded 5 tera-byte of data consumption per day in our LTE towns. We have already launched 27 towns and 10 more are in the pipeline.
Our LTE is giving a perfect solution to customers for applications and content that are available in the market.
How crucial pricing of 4G services is for Telenor India?
We offer both the GSM and LTE services - GSM works with feature phones so the entry barrier is quite so it is very much possible for them to buy cheap handsets and start using the voice and basic data. For LTE, supported devices are required. Worldwide we are seeing good price development in terms of LTE devices. Once they overcome the device barrier, then definitely whatever kind of plans and different products are available in the market that's very important. We have always ensured that there has to be a good value for the money for our customers in terms of products and offering. So we have tailor made our offerings in terms of customer need so that they don’t need to spend big amount of money to avail our different products.
In Indian market, pricing is really important because services have to be good but at the same time it needs to be affordable as well. Only when you create right kind of equilibrium, it will be customer friendly and things will start growing.
How do you look at the competition?
Competition is exciting in the Indian market, especially after the new entrant it has got newer dimension. But, India is a vast market with huge population and huge subscription base. One size will never be fitting all the needs in the market. There are different segments of customers, hence different needs of customers. We want to be best in segments where we operate. Despite of having different competition, we are trying ourselves even more efficient. We are trying to make ourselves even more applicable to segments we operate in. It is giving us even more push to become even more competitive. The competition is there but at the same time we are also seeing enough traction for services and products we offer. We are still very relevant and will continue to be relevant in circles where we operate.
Does Telenor plan to develop its own digital content to back 4G services?
We want to really make sure that our offerings are creating best value for customers. The telecom ecosystem is so huge that for Telenor India it will never be possible to take care of everything by the company itself.
It's about partnerships and providing right kind of access to different content and services that are available in the market. our strategy will always be to be relevant and continue to make sure how to bring different content services in best possible way. It could be through partnerships or in terms of doing something on our own.
We ventured into the spaces like micro insurance, and also ventured into creating mobile applications through which customers can take care of their regular needs. We have also got into giving small loans to customers whenever they find it difficult to recharge.
Many things we are doing by ourselves, but at the same time we are taking advantage of whatever is available in the market.
Which are the new initiatives being planned for customer acquisition?
We want to grow in circles where we operate, but it has to be in a most viable kind of way. We are always evaluating different options. In future, you will be seeing new different initiatives which will make our position even stronger in the market from where we are.
You served as a CTO of Grameenphone Bangladesh before coming to India. How do you compare both the markets?
Both the markets are growing markets, yet there are a lot of similarities, but a lot of unique characteristics and challenges as well. In Bangladesh, i worked with Grameenphone which is the market leader, while Telenor India is really setting up new trend in terms of how to really run a network in a very efficient way.
In both the markets, we are trying to bring new things and want to be pioneer in terms of bringing innovative services to customers. But the uniqueness in Bangladesh operations is that most of the things are in-sourced, while in India we are working in a hybrid model of in-source balanced with outsourcing.
Both the markets have got tremendous growth opportunity, and have huge youth population. Both markets have a hunger for internet services.
Nice article and thanks for sharing your knowledge. I really appropriate your views.
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