Bharti Airtel, SoftBank Mobile develop technology for low-cost 3G services

Technology uses a communications satellite as a transmission line

The country’s largest mobile carrier by subscriber base Bharti Airtel, on Thursday, said it has developed a practical technology, jointly with SoftBank Mobile Corp, that would enable the company to provide ‘cost-efficient’ 3G mobile phone services.

Bharti currently operates in more than 20 countries across Asia and Africa.

With the new technology, Bharti would be able to offer 3G service at a lower cost using a communications satellite as a transmission line. The two companies have already conducted field trials in the Republic of Kenya. The technology can be used in areas where the company finds it difficult to build facilities for fixed-line and mobile communications services.

In these areas, Bharti said in a statement, that the development of communications networks using satellite transmission lines has been considered but expensive usage fees have been the primary barrier.

“With this trial, Bharti Airtel and SoftBank Mobile validated technologies and methods for providing communications services using a communications satellite in rural areas at a low cost,” it added.

According to the statement, SoftBank Mobile has already developed the technology to provide communications services using spectrum of a communications satellite and the same was used in Japan after the earthquake in March 2011 to rebuild mobile networks in out-of-range areas. The company had used 300 satellite base stations that time.

“This technology is critically important to the development of mobile phone networks in rural areas in Africa and other areas where commercialization of such operations is challenging,” Bayan Monadjem, Chief Technical Officer of Bharti Airtel Africa, said in a statement.

According to Bharti statement, the technology validated through the field trial also achieves both high speeds and low costs — two service aspects that are usually in conflict — through the dynamic allocation of satellite spectrum to each base station depending on its respective traffic volume.

“This will enable 3G mobile phone service in remote locations where transmission lines cannot usually reach while achieving drastic reductions in transmission line costs,” it added.