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• Reliance Communications Non-Core Assets See No Takers
• OnePlus Might Make Nord an Independent Brand
• Airtel Forays into Banking Sector in Africa as Well
• Telecom Sector Skill Council Partners Britco & Bridco to Open New Centers
• India to Have Around 110 Million Fiber Broadband Subscribers by 2030
• Metaverse Value to Grow as Big as GDP of Japan by 2030, to Redefine Marketing as Well
• O-RAN Is Important for Telecom Industry to Reduce Costs and Promote Diversity
• Airtel Payments Bank Appoints Shilpi Kumar as Chief Marketing Officer
• China Broadnet 5G Network Live Now

Reliance Communications Non-Core Assets See No Takers Posted: 05 Jul 2022 08:04 AM PDT Reliance Communications (RCom), a major telecom operator now under insolvency proceedings, has failed to sell its non-core assets. The company has not seen any interested party for its non-core assets, which include land in Pune, Chennai and shares of Reliance Realty and Campion Properties Ltd. RCom had told the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that the Committee of Creditors had approved the sale of non-core assets. EoI (Expression of Interest) by the bidders was first invited on April 17. However, as per an ET Telecom report, there were no bidders, and thus the EoI submission deadline was extended to June 27, 2022. Again, there were no takers. RCom had to approach the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) on July 20 for approval of the sale of said assets. Since the company hasn't received any interest in the first place, there's no point in approaching the NCLT. Why has No One Bid for RCom Non-Core Assets? There might have been no bids until now because there's a big uncertainty around whether NCLT would allow the sale of these assets in the first place, and there are also questions around what hidden uncertainties these assets might be attached to. The company was reportedly looking to sell its enterprise business as well. But for enterprises, what RCom has today is just a bulk of voice and messaging services, whereas the other telcos have much more advanced services in their portfolio. Thus, there might be no takers for RCom's enterprises’ business either.

OnePlus Might Make Nord an Independent Brand Posted: 05 Jul 2022 07:49 AM PDT Back in 2020, for the first time, OnePlus launched a Nord smartphone. At that point, there weren't a lot of Nord branded products. In 2022, OnePlus launched multiple Nord products, including Nord Buds. There are reports online which suggest that OnePlus might separate Nord from its existing brand and make it an independent brand or a sub-brand of the company. Xiaomi has done this successfully with Redmi and Poco. Since the brand of 'Nord' products is recognised pretty well now, it could be a possibility that this is true. The latest smartphone to launch in the Nord line-up in India was the OnePlus Nord 2T. All the Nord branded products target customers in the mid and affordable price range. This is what the Chinese brands have done so far in India. The development has been shared by TheMobileIndian. If it is indeed true, then we already know what we can expect from the independent 'Nord' brand, which is actually a great thing. The branding colour is most likely going to be blue. How OnePlus is planning to spin this off or whether it is planning to do that in the first place or not is unconfirmed at the moment. However, even if it happens, Nord customers might not be too concerned or hurt.

Airtel Forays into Banking Sector in Africa as Well Posted: 05 Jul 2022 07:06 AM PDT Bharti Airtel runs a wholly-owned banking subsidiary company in India called Airtel Payments Bank. The company has paid good returns to Airtel as it is now profitable. Rarely do we see banking or finance startups in India becoming profitable as fast as Airtel Payments Bank. Airtel Africa, majorly owned by Bharti Airtel recently launched SmartCash Payment Service Bank. It is a wholly-owned banking subsidiary of Airtel Africa. The SmartCash Payment Service Bank can issue debit and prepaid cards to consumers, and facilitate payments and other banking services within Nigeria. The newly launched banking subsidiary has received its license from the Central Bank of Nigeria and is headquartered in Lagos. What Will SmartCash Payment Service Bank Owned by Airtel Africa Do? Segun Ogunsanya, CEO, Airtel Africa said this new bank will offer consumers both banking as well as mobile financial services which will result in last-mile connection to the people who are financially excluded. According to the data shared by the Financial Services in Nigeria, 36.8% of the adult population is unbanked. This marks an opportunity for Airtel Africa to swoop in and make an impact with its financial services. Airtel Africa can definitely take learnings from the business model of Airtel Payments Bank which has led the company to become profitable in a very short span. There are plenty of things that SmartCash Payment Service Bank will need to do if it wants to create an impact. First of all, the company will need to communicate how it is a more convenient option than the traditional banks. Second, the company will have to tell the consumers about how secure the mobile experience would be. Third, in Nigeria, offline retail presence would play a major role in expanding the brand and business fast. Airtel Africa can definitely make the SmartCash Payment Service a profitable entity just like the Airtel Payments Bank if the company can execute things in the right manner.

Telecom Sector Skill Council Partners Britco & Bridco to Open New Centers Posted: 05 Jul 2022 06:04 AM PDT The Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC) has partnered with the skill-based organisation Britco and Bridco to open up new examination centers in Hyderabad, Delhi and Guwahati. Under this partnership, the focus will also be on offering special telecom courses to college and school students. By studying and passing these courses, the students get an opportunity to open up their own business or get employment in reputed organisations, as all the objectives of the courses are in line with the NEP-2020. The new curriculum is made with an emphasis on delivering knowledge about advanced technologies, which will raise the potential of the students in grabbing employment opportunities in different sectors. Mr Arvind Bali, CEO of TSSC, said students not only need proper training and skillsets, but they also need proper certification and recognition to grow ahead in life. Bali added that about 8.5% of the GDP comes from the telecom sector, and thus it is the need of the hour to train the workforce in telecom. The partnership with Britco and Bridco will help India in skilling the youth and building a robust ecosystem of handset repairers and related services. India Needs 4 to 5 Lakh Service Engineers Just to Maintain Current Volume of Smartphones The number of mobile subscribers in India was 1.2 billion in 2021 (as per Deloitte's 2022 TMT Predictions), out of which 750 million subscribers were smartphone users. TSSC said that one engineer can handle about 3000 devices annually. Thus, for the current number of devices, India needs four to five lakh service engineers. As the number of devices increases, the need for service engineers will grow further. With new technologies such as 5G, AI, ML and more coming to India, the need for trained professionals in the telecom will certainly skyrocket. Currently, there's a lack of trained professionals in the sector, and TSSC aims to bridge that gap.

India to Have Around 110 Million Fiber Broadband Subscribers by 2030 Posted: 05 Jul 2022 05:34 AM PDT Regardless of the 5G network launch, users won't ignore the benefits that fiber broadband brings to the table. India's journey in the fiber broadband segment has just started. There's still a long way to go for the country to get fiber access in every nook and corner. A report from Point Topic, a US-based analyst, suggests that India will see rapid growth in fiber broadband subscribers by the end of this decade. Indonesia is also expected to see major gains in the fiber broadband segment. The report mentioned that India's fiber subscriber trajectory is set to take off in 2025. Around 2028, India is expected to tie with the U.S. (United States) or surpass it in terms of the number of fiber subscribers. By 2030 India's fiber subscriber count is expected to reach 110 million. It is worth noting that India's figures are still comparatively very low as what is expected for China (523 million fiber subscribers). Around the same time frame, the U.S. is expected to have around 80 million fiber subscribers, with Indonesia having 60 million and Brazil and Japan fighting for the fifth spot with around 40 million fiber subscribers. RoW Rules to Make a Big Impact as Well The central government in India is trying to modify the Right-of-Way (RoW) rules in every state to ensure that the telcos and the infrastructure providers (IPs) can deploy fiber faster. The numbers could be easily higher than what the Point Topic data suggests for India. but it will depend on the way the government, as well as the telecom sector, works towards deploying fiber in every part of the country. This means that an uptick in the fiber business of JioFiber and Airtel Xstream Fiber is for sure in India. There are many regional internet service providers (ISPs) in the country as well, which are seeing rapid growth. Companies such as Excitel and ACT have made a solid business in the last few years.

Metaverse Value to Grow as Big as GDP of Japan by 2030, to Redefine Marketing as Well Posted: 05 Jul 2022 03:51 AM PDT All the private Indian telecom operators including Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea (Vi) and Bharti Airtel are jumping into the metaverse world and investing a significant sum of money into it. Several local, as well as international tech companies, have also poured in billions of dollars into the metaverse. In fact, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta to align with the future. But there are many who think that Metaverse is just a bubble waiting to be popped. However, it doesn't seem like it when you see what's actually been happening. The value of Metaverse could grow to $5 trillion by 2030 – this is what the GDP of Japan is. McKinsey and Company recently published a report saying that Metaverse is shaping to be the biggest new growth opportunity for several industries in the coming decade and it will be hard for businesses to ignore it given its potential. The report mentioned that nearly 60% of consumers using Metaverse today are looking forward to transitioning daily activities to it. Moreover, around 95% of the businesses are upbeat about Metaverse bringing a positive impact to their operations. But Metaverse becoming a part of a consumer's daily life is still quite far away. Businesses developing solutions and technologies around Metaverse will have to test it, constantly tweak it based on user feedback, and then ensure the value is created for the enterprises as well as consumers. Workers and employees across industries would require training in Metaverse and then security is also something that's a big part of the technology which is not very clear right now. The potential of the Metaverse is too big. One of the many ways it will affect the industries is that it will redefine the way businesses conduct marketing operations. Brands Will Look to Redefine Experience Marketing is a big part of any business that is trying to scale online today. Metaverse can enable these brands into delivering a strong, precise and effective experience to their customers. It will be a completely new platform for the brands to do marketing and drive the value of their products/services to the sky. Big fashion brands such as Gucci have invested heavily into Metaverse. Gucci Garden was launched by the brand on the Metaverse and it drew over 19.9 million visitors in two weeks. With Metaverse, brands can easily deliver more immersive experiences to consumers. But Metaverse is about a wide set of use cases. There will be plenty of more things that will come to the virtual world of metaverse than just marketing. Big tech companies such as Microsoft have been investing billions of dollars into building a Metaverse ecosystem.

O-RAN Is Important for Telecom Industry to Reduce Costs and Promote Diversity Posted: 05 Jul 2022 02:00 AM PDT At the first roundtable discussion organised by ASSOCHAM, a non-governmental trade body, leaders and stakeholders from the industry talked about the potential of O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) in India. G Narendra Nath, Joint Secretary, National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS), the government of India, said that O-RAN is of great importance as radio access networks account for the bulk of the investments in networks. Nath said that with O-RAN, the goal is to provide an open interface for the disaggregated and virtualised entities that are there. P Balaji, Chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Digital Communications, said that ASSOCHAM has been working with the government of India to help promote policy formation, which will accelerate the adoption of O-RAN in the country. 5G Is an Opportunity for O-RAN to Contribute Balaji added that since 5G is just around the corner, it is an opportunity for the O-RAN ecosystem to contribute to the growth of the telecom sector by offering cost-effective networking solutions and adding to the goal of the government's AatmaNirbhar Mission. Narendra Rawat, Vice President, Sales Engineering, Mavenir, said that the initial cost of deploying something needs to be kept in mind. Rawat said that there's a need for products that are required in huge volumes so that everybody can benefit from the economy of scale. Raghavendran Ramiya, a Senior Architect at Telco Security Rakuten, said that a very high TCO (total cost of ownership) is a challenge that the operators face right in offering 5G services to the customers with the traditional approach of building and rolling out networks. Ramiya stressed the point that the traditional approach would not work and help with enabling the wireless ecosystem to thrive. It is only when the industry moves towards a cloud-native, multi-vendor, disaggregated Radio access network with programmability using RIC that the TCO will reduce. Vishy Ramaswamy, Vice President 5G and Digital Solutions Tata Communications, said that the innovation in telecom hasn't scaled to the point it should have, and O-RAN would be an attempt to bring the innovation mindset to the telecom industry.

Airtel Payments Bank Appoints Shilpi Kumar as Chief Marketing Officer Posted: 05 Jul 2022 12:51 AM PDT Airtel Payments Bank (APB), the profitable banking subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, has announced that it has appointed Shilpi Kumar as the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for the company. Shilpi Kumar will oversee the marketing and corporate communication function for APB. The role of Shilpi in the company would involve planning, developing, implementing, and monitoring the overall business marketing strategy. Things such as market research, product marketing, pricing, marketing communication, advertising, and public relations will also fall under the scope of Shilpi's job. APB said that "Shilpi will be the bank's Executive Committee member and will be working closely with our MD and CEO, Anubrata Biswas." Shilpi Kumar Background in Studies and Corporate World Shilpi comes with an extensive background in the industry. She completed her PG (post-graduation) degree in Business Management from Amity University. Then in 2018, Shilpi completed a programme in leadership excellence, Organisational Leadership, from Harvard Business School. To learn about Digital Marketing in-depth, Shilpi took up a Digital Marketing course between April 2021 to December 2021 from Northwestern University – Kellogg School of Management. This is not the first time Shilpi will be working with Bharti Airtel or one of its subsidiaries. In 2002, Shilpi started as a Summer Trainee at Samsung and was there for less than a year. Then, from June 2003 to November 2004, Shilpi worked in the Marketing Department of the UB Group. She then moved on to work as a key accounts manager in Coca-Cola Bottling Company United for two years and one month between November 2004 to November 2006. In November 2006, Shilpi joined Bharti Airtel for the first time and was with the company for three years and five months. In that period, Shilpi worked as an Assistant Manager in Marcomm in the role of Manager for Channels and Alliances and then Manager for Marketing Acquisitions – B2C. In October 2010, Shilpi joined Airtel again as Head of Marketing and Communication. There is no doubt that she is already aware of the corporate culture that exists within Airtel. But this is a new era, and she is now working with the banking subsidiary of the company, so it will be a fresh set of challenges for Shilpi. After leaving Airtel again in September 2011, Shilpi worked in several brands such as Godfrey Philips India Ltd and Group Renault. Her last job was Director of Marketing & Business Insights – GMS JAPA Region at American Express. It will be interesting to see how Shilpi helps APB in steering towards a better brand image and more profitability. With Indians transacting more digitally, if APB is able to push more consumers its way by giving them incentives and showing why it is superior to other brands with features such as Airtel Safe Pay and more, it will be a great win for the company as well as Shlipi.

China Broadnet 5G Network Live Now Posted: 04 Jul 2022 11:37 PM PDT Just a couple of days back, China got its fourth telecom operator China Broadnet. The new company has now switched on 5G networks. China Broadnet was earlier known as China Radio and Television, and the company had already received the 5G license in June 2019 before being formally inaugurated in 2020. China Broadnet's strategy with the 5G mobile offering is different from what the top three operators are doing. Instead of focusing too hard on the mobile services business with 5G, China Broadnet will leverage the power of the 5G network for interactive broadcast and TV services. China Broadnet Will Deliver AR and VR Services Alongside a Mobile Network Xinhua news agency said that alongside a mobile network, China Broadnet would also deliver AR (Augmented Reality) and VR (Virtual Reality) services to the customers with its 5G network. It is worth noting that until earlier this month, China Broadnet was operating as China Radio and TV as well as China Broadcasting Network Corporation (CBN). The company has rebranded itself and launched the 5G network so that it can deliver customers a new type of radio and TV communication network. This is actually a good strategy for the company instead of directly competing with the existing three operators in their own game. China Broadnet is playing a different game altogether; it is just doing that with the power of 5G. China Mobile, one of the largest telecom players in China, is actually deploying, operating, and maintaining the 5G network of China Broadnet, said TeleGeography. China Broadnet is currently a very small player compared to the other telecom players. But the company's unique strategy for the market might place it in the leagues of the big players very soon. China Broadnet will, however, need to build its own 5G network, in the long run, to be successful. It can't depend on China Mobile or other players forever for its 5G network.

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