While many in India are still to adopt 3G, service providers have already started luring phone users with 4G. According to them this will enable the users to

share the content that they have generated.

“Traditionally, India has been using voice services and SMS, which don''t

need a fat data pipe. However, data consumption has been increasing and

is driven by social media and the ability to share user-generated

content — for example, shooting a video and posting it on YouTube — will

drive the migration from 3G to 4G,” Mr Mrinmoy Purkayastha, who heads

sales and marketing at the communications business unit of Tata Elxsi,

told Business Line.

While 2G networks were built mainly for voice and slow data, such as

SMS, 3G was optimised for video calls and mobile TV. 4G, with a stated

capacity to move data in the speed range of 100Mbps to 1 Gbps, is

capable of providing video that is superior to what is currently

available on a 3G network.

Cricket, lower cost

Apart from user-generated content, cricket is also expected to drive

usage of 4G. “On a 3G network, live video is not great,” pointed out Mr

Purkayastha and said that a cricket match streamed live on 4G networks

could act as a ‘killer' application for the adoption of 4G in India.

4G will also lower costs for both users and operators because on a 4G

network, you pay for the amount of data sent and not for the time spent

for sending the data. “From the perspective of capability of the

infrastructure, since 4G enables much more data to be pushed for every

megahertz of the spectrum, it is cheaper. And if it's cheaper for the

operator, the benefit will flow down to the consumer.”

Mr Purkayastha said that Tata Elxsi was currently working with major

equipment manufacturers to accelerate the development and adoption of 4G

technologies. “We build the reference design for 4G base station

equipment and this enables equipment manufacturers to get ready access

to the technology and reduces their time to market.” In India, Tata

Elxsi is working with players such as Reliance, Bharti Airtel and Tata

DoCoMo for 4G trials, which are expected to commence in the second half

of 2012.