The Big Fight For LTE Deals

The network equipment nanufacturers are waiting in anticipation for the Long Term Evolution Time Division Duplex (LTE-TDD) deals to be announced soon. Stakes are high and vendors are banking on different things to grab the maximum share of the LTE pie.

As of now, Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Augere Holdings have announced their LTE vendors. Augere awarded the contract for its circle to Ericsson AB, while Bharti awarded the Kolkata circle to ZTE Corp., Maharashtra to Nokia Siemens Networks and Karnataka to Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.. Ericsson is likely to get Bharti's Punjab circle. The vendors are waiting eagerly for Reliance Industries to announce its deals, since it is the only player with the pan-India BWA spectrum. (See Huawei Lands Bharti 4G Deal, India Welcomes 4G Services, End of 3G Era? and IndiaWatch: Equipment Quotas Plan Breaks Rules.)

Light Reading India spoke to vendors to find out about their unique selling propositions to capture this market.

Both Nokia Siemens and ZTE believe that their presence in the devices segment is their key differentiators. "With the Motorola Inc. acquisition, Nokia Siemens Networks itself now has a full-fledged data device business supporting both the FDD and TDD flavors of LTE. We offer a full-LTE solution, not just networks, but devices too which is critical for full TD-LTE commercialization," says an NSN spokesperson.

ZTE also believes that its device capability, which for many experts is the big bottleneck for commercialization of this technology, will play an important role in grabbing this market. "When it comes to 4G technologies, ZTE has taken a clear lead in successfully developing a wide variety of LTE devices, ranging from USB dongles to smartphones and tablets. Having pioneered in bringing these technologies to India, ZTE has an upper edge when compared to the other market players," says Ranjan Sharma, Director, Wireless Technical Sales, ZTE.

On the other hand, Alcatel Lucent is banking upon an end-to-end LTE solution, which the company believes is helping them address the explosion in the mobile data traffic. "With our innovations like LightRadio and High Leverage Network, we are fully geared up to meet the end-to-end demands for 4G," says Surojeet Roy, Lead Wireless Solutions, Alcatel Lucent India.

The experts believe that the Chinese vendors do enjoy the advantage that they have done it before. It will be the "All vendors have set up or re-located their manufacturing facilities to China to take the best advantage of the cost arbitrage. So the initial advantage enjoyed by Huawei and ZTE purely in terms of equipment cost may no longer be very significant. Going forward, it will be technology innovations and the ability to cater to a wide set of customer needs [applications] that will drive the preferences for the telecommunications equipment suppliers," says Naveen Mishra of Cyber Media India Ltd..

The jury is still out on who is the fairest of them all. What is clear is that the vendors will need to come out with innovative strategies to appeal to the operators.

Experts believe that with LTE, the equation between vendors and operators is likely to go through a transformation. It is not going to be just about the technology and cost advantages but also about which services to offer to the end subscribers.

"Beyond technological platform stability and cost advantages, the operators will look to work with vendors who can help them create the right service mix and reach the 4G subscribers with the best value offerings," says Mishra.

May the best vendor win!

Rimit singh, Correspondent, Light Reading India