Smaller Passive Infrastructure Providers Reshaping Indian Telecom

Despite the tower companies of India are going through several merger and acquisition, there are some new companies entered in the market - Suyog Telematics Ltd,  Signotox Towers Pvt. Ltd., Pratap Technocrats, SAR Televentures etc.

These companies are looking into new verticals of tower industries for generating revenues from telecom service providers. Innovative solutions from these companies can be cost-effective and energy-efficient. 

Report by Avendus predicts that in next 5 years capital expenditure in the digital infra space might go up to $35-50 billion. They also noted four major trends to drive this expenditure are: in-building solutions (IBS), outdoor small cells (ODSC), data centres (DCs), and fibre networks.

Revival of BSNL, deployment of 4G and 5G tech in their network and Vi's plans to expand 4G and enter into 5G space are also good news for these newcomers despite the presence of big companies like Altius (2.75L towers) and Indus Towers (2.5L towers) and mid-level players like GTL Infrastructure with 26,000 towers and Ascend Telecom with around 18,600 towers.

Vistara-Air India Merger: Let's Look into the Journey from Tata Airlines to Air India

October 8, 2021 was a great day for Tata Group, as home grown Airline returned to their origin - homecoming for Air India! Acquisition of Air India, Air India Express, and 50% of AISATS by Tata Group was India's first major privatization of a public sector company.

Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata (29-07-1904 to 29-11-1993) was the pioneer of Indian aviation. He was also India’s first commercial pilot license-holder. In 1932 JRD Tata founded Tata Air Services for transporting mails. On the maiden flight he flew with cargo from Bombay to Karachi on a de Havilland Puss Moth. 

Soon it grew quickly to enter into passenger service. 

In 1938 it was rebranded as Tata Airlines and started international flights. First international destination was Colombo, Srilanka. 

1953: Government of India formed two companies out of Air India - Air India took over international routes, while new entity Indian Airlines got the domestic and regional route. 

In 1962 Tata Airlines became world's first airline with a full jet-engine fleet. 

In 1971 Tata Airlines introduced luxury travel with 'The Palace in the Sky' on a Boeing 747. 

1981: Indian Airlines and Air India jointly founded Vayudoot Airlines mainly to serve Northeast India and also to smaller cities. It used several turboprop airliners - HS 748 (made by British company Avro, later acquired by Hawker Siddeley), Dornier 228 (made by German company Dornier GmbH), Fokker F27 (made by Dutch company Fokker). 

In 1993 Air India started first nonstop flight between New York and Delhi. 

05/2004: Air India launched a wholly owned low cost subsidiary called Air-India Express connecting cities in India with the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Dynamic Bandwidth Allocation by Jio Can Improve Smartphone Battery Life upto 40%

Earlier in a post, I shared the fact that IEEE reported that 5G-NR is more energy efficient than LTE, and 5G-NSA might use higher levels of energy to power 5G networks with 4G infrastructure, as two different forms of cellular technology massively increases power consumption in a network. Now Jio Platforms, the largest telecom operator in India, during its Q2 FY25 earnings call, has claimed that their Standalone 5G network can reduce power consumption on end-devices and this may help the smartphones' battery performance by 20-40%. 

BSNL 4G-LTE Review (Initial Launch)

I had already shared the update regarding BSNL 4G, which is getting live across the country. I found live BSNL 4G in my locality since beginning of September 2024. 

Now time to test the 4G-LTE network by BSNL. It's completely home-made tech i.e. Indian companies Tejas and TCS made this 4G tech exclusively for BSNL. The SIM cards BSNL is now selling all are 5G-ready - no need to upgrade the SIM when BSNL launches 5G in future. Telecom Minister expects BSNL 4G will go mainstream by middle of 2025.