China, India add big buzz to wireless broadband

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The launch of 3G in China and India by the likes of China Mobile and Bharti Airtel could boost wireless broadband worldwide, sparking a boom in new offerings as millions of users sign up for services.

The move to 3G and its likely follow-on, fourth-generation (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, is also set to help Chinese network equipment makers such as Huawei better challenge Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks.

"A lot of people in China and India don't have fixed line connectivity, so they will look to wireless broadband for their future online access," said Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer of the GSM Association, a mobile industry group, on the sides of a telecoms industry event this week in Hong Kong.

India, the world's fastest-growing wireless market, with about 490 million users, has been adding about 14 million subscribers each month. The government has pencilled in revenue of Rs 350 billion (USD 7.6 billion) from the auction of 3G spectrum.

O'Hara said some 169 million people worldwide have access to broadband-quality wireless service using a 3G technology known as HSPA, generally considered one of the first technologies to provide such speed.

That number is expected to swell to 1 billion by 2012, as operators upgrade their systems and start rolling out 4G, especially in the massive China and India markets, he said.

China took a long-delayed 3G plunge in January when Beijing awarded licenses to its top three mobile operators in the world's largest mobile phone market, which now has about 700 million subscribers.

Since then, China Mobile and its two rivals, China Unicom and China Telecom have aggressively built their 3G networks, which now have several million users.

"Our big commitment is to HSPA," Manoj Kohli, CEO of Bharti Airtel, India's largest mobile carrier, told Reuters on the sidelines of the event.

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