Jamming The Mobiles

Three months after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) finally issued 40 licences for operating Public Mobile Radio Trunking Services (PMRTS) in 190 cities in the country, operators find themselves in a jam. To begin the DoT itself took an inordinately long time in issuing the licences. It had floated tenders for PMRTS way back in 1994 but issued the letters of intent only in September 1996.

Of the companies who have accepted the licences, only Mumbai based Lan Eseda Industries and Delhi based Jasmine Telecom have officially launched services in Jalandhar and Bhopal respectively. Lan Eseda has licences for 15 other cities and Jasmine for 27 cities in all. Services in these other cities are a long way from being launched as preliminary DoT clearances have still not been obtained. A clutch of others Bhilwara Telenet of Delhi, Anco Communications based in Bangalore and Punwire of Chandigarh are all set to launch their services but are waiting for last minute DoT clearances.

 

Theres another reason why the other 35 odd licensees have held back from launching their services. And that is the restrictive conditions of the DoT licence especially those pertaining to the area of operations, which has been restricted to a radius of 30 kilometers within the city; and also of interconnectivity with other networks, which is not allowed.

In fact, such restrictions have caused companies like KLG Systel Ltd, which had licences for 11 cities, and Global Telesystems, which had licences for 32 cities, to abandon their plans altogether. Less than 80 cities out of the 190 may see full-fledged launch of trunking services by end of 1997, says a senior DoT official, closely involved with the licencing process.

It is a niche market, says A K Gaur of Rossel Telecom, the Y K Modi group company, which has licences for 15 cities. But DoTs policy restrictions have caused us to postpone our launch plans for some time, he adds. Rossel was scheduled to go online by the first week of January. Gaur is now hoping for changes in DoTs stance.

Today, PMRTS services are officially available in just three or four cities with barely a few hundred subscribers between them. Setting up a trunking network in a single city requires an investment ranging between Rs 70 lakh to one crore. The only licence fee that operators have to pay the DoT is an annual royalty of about Rs 10 lakh per site for the frequencies that are allotted to them.

However, while operators are willing to sink in the money, what is really bothering them are DoTs restrictions on the service. It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to fulfill customer expectations, says Prashant Saraogi, CEO of Jasmine Telecom, which has licences for operating PMRTS in 27 cities. The company would have to invest close to Rs 50 crore to get its network operational in all these cities, over and above the frequency royalties.

Radio trunking is a means of organisational communications [or a closed user group] unlike cellular which is meant for individual communications, says Saraogi. The target market for most PMRTS operators is businesses like courier companies, taxi services and real estate developers, whose operations are widely scattered, often outside city limits. But as one network cannot connect to another, an operators service becomes extremely restricted. This happens when a subscriber moves outside the 30 km radius and loses connectivity with his colleagues.

PMRTS is often called the poor mans cellular phone. Like the cellular phone, trunking is a two-way mobile communications system. But trunking tariffs are fixed and not charged on a per call basis. Jasmine for example has a fixed deposit of Rs 3,000 per subscriber and a monthly charge of Rs 1,500 for unlimited use. In the case of cellular the latter varies according to usage. Also unlike cellular, trunking works in the broadcast mode. It is not meant for a one to one communication. The trunking technology itself is simple. PMRTS operators in the country have been allotted a set of five frequencies, which lie in a central pool. Conversation channels are allocated from this fixed pool of frequencies as and when demanded, that is whenever a user picks up the handset and presses the talk button. After use, the frequency channel is returned to the pool.

Another DoT condition that is stifling the service is that PMRTS operators cannot connect to the public telecommunications network. Since cellular phones can connect to the public network, PMRTS subscribers feel this is a handicap even though the two services have entirely different uses. Public connectivity would allow us greater flexibility in offering certain kinds of services. Like broadcast calls to mobile subscribers or conference calls over large distances, points out Saraogi.

Adds Gaur, The connection with a public network is also important from an emergency point of view. In certain situations, the customer should have the option to use the radio handset as a telephone. Most consumers want to know if they can connect to the landline network.

If trunking services are to be successful, DoT will have to address these issues and also technology issues like digital standards. Unlike cellular services, where the Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) was fixed as the national standard, DoT specified no fixed standard for trunking. As a result, many operators are using analog systems from vendors selling proprietary technologies. This could become a handicap since one system doesnt work with another once DoT allows interconnectivity. The market was expected to be worth Rs 80 to 100 crore by late 1997, the end of the first year of operations. With restrictions on the service and with companies opting out altogether, that may take a while.