Mobile is More Mainstream Now

Wireline continues to form the backbone of internet access for enterprises, but all-IP LTE networks make mobile a more promising option than ever before

The world has moved a long way from the Stone Age to Digital Age and so has communication. Communication channels and platforms have become more intuitive, seamless and instantaneous. By September 2014, there already were more than one billion websites registered globally, and by 2015 the number of e-mails sent and received per day had totalled over 205 billion. The number of smartphone users worldwide are expected to exceed two billion in 2016, says eMarketer Research.

Technology Trends

In India, the mobile service subscription base crossed the one-billion mark by the close of 2015, of which more than 300 million subscribers were also mobile internet users, as per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) numbers. In fact, it is with the growing adoption of 3G and 4G services that India’s broadband subscriber base has finally been able to see a rapid growth. As of September 2015, there were 121 million broadband subscribers in the country, of which around 104 million were mobile broadband subscribers as against a mere 16 million wireline broadband subscribers. Also, there were 200 million other mobile internet subscribers as compared to just about 3.5 million wireline internet subscribers.

The data is very much reflective of how mobile is enabling internet and broadband access in India and the massive potential it holds, given the existing mobile subscriber base of one-billion plus and the fact that the smartphone shipments have long overtaken the feature phone shipments in the country.

In the wireline internet segment, DSL continues to hold the largest share of subscribers, at more than 80 percent. Other wireline internet technologies include dial-up, Ethernet, cable modem, fiber and leased line. Wirelines continue to form the backbone for internet access across enterprises.

In the wireless segment, the GSMCDMA battle has long been a thing of a bygone era. With LTE having gained worldwide traction and LTE Advanced also rolled out by many service providers globally, the mobile broadband roadmap is well charted out for telcos in India as