CDMA Sunset - Across the Globe CDMA Networks Shutting Down

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As technology grows, old ones become obsolete and new ones are welcomed. Same is happening with CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). The death of CDMA was filed a long ago in 2008 when Qualcomm, the company behind CDMA stopped R&D on UMB - the next of CDMA family favoring LTE as future.

LTE2100 - The New Trend in Global LTE Rollouts

Globally LTE deployments going on in the fastest way and the new trend is LTE2100 (FDD). The trend is something major that GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, published its first status report about the development of LTE in 2.1 GHz, known as 3GPP band 1.

Common deployment trend at present: 
LTE FDD : 1800, 800, 2600 and 2100 MHz
LTE TDD : 2300, 3500 MHz

The reason behind the interest in LTE2100:

Airtel Has Launched Both LTE-TD and LTE-FDD Networks in the Country

As Reliance Jio's 4G launch is due on December this year, Airtel is all its boots working to expand its 4G coverage. Unless you missed the point Airtel has rolled out services in certain circles where Airtel does not have 2.3GiHz spectrum like Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Chennai, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and North East. However in 2014 and 2015 Airtel has acquired tech neutral 1.8GiHz spectrum in these circles. 

So let me point down the possibilities of Airtel's 4G network in these circles. 

1. Airtel deployed LTE-FDD on 1.8GiHz band. (From the beginning of 2015 Airtel's LTE-FDD launch was on radar, first they partnered with Nokia Networks and then there was news that Airtel is running trials in Chennai with NN)

2. Airtel can use Aircel or Reliance Jio's LTE-TDD network in these circles under ICRA. The scope of this point is very little as Aircel's 4G is still on beta testing mode and only available in Chennai; and Jio's 4G network yet to be launched for mass use. 

So definitely Airtel has launched its own FDD-LTE network in these 5 circles (Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Chennai, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and North East) and may be in other circles where Airtel already has presence with LTE-TD network as a supplementation. 

Please check this table, hopefully you can understand the Airtel's 4G circles in a better way. 

** Airtel now has 2.3GiHz spectrum in 9 circles. In 2010 they won in 4 circles, got another 4 by acquiring Qualcomm's venture in India and recently bought Augere India's single circle of Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh. 

** FDD-NB stands for Narrow Band FDD roll out in circles where Airtel has less than 5MHz of spectrum on 1.8GiHz band.

** Airtel becomes the first operator in the country to roll out LTE-TD network (in Kolkata, in April 2012), first operator to roll out LTE-FDD commercially and the first operator to own both types of LTE networks in the country. 

Reliance Jio's Jionet Free WiFi Review [Shyambazar]

Jio is now present all over the Kolkata - you can see their OFC covers in the roads, can find Jio's 4G signal live and can enjoy Jionet Wifi in many locations across Kolkata. 

Recently I found that Jionet is live near Shyambazar also. So I jumped into the free WiFi to test as well as for my usual browsing and downloading. 

Now connecting to Jionet is easy, start your WiFi/WLAN on your device, you will see Jionet live and just connect and log in. Logging in Jionet is easy - open your browser, try to open any webpage and it will be redirected to Jionet log in page. There you type your mobile no, Jio will send a OTP as text message and verify it on the log in page and you're in. 

Speedtest.net app: 

Speedtest.net requires no introduction and no speed test is not complete without this famous site's testing. So let me start with Speedtest.net app.

Reliance Jio 4G LTE Network Trials Going On: Signal Live Across Kolkata

MTS Backed, Vodafone Branded EvDO Data Card Services Netcruise Killed Off

We just lost another CDMA brand from India – Vodafone Netcruise. It was actually EvDO Rev A based data services provided over USB data cards. Vodafone and MTS India (SSTL) entered into a partnership in July 2011 by which SSTL’s EVDO products are to be sold under Vodafone brand.

That time deal was perfect for both – Vodafone was weighing profit from 3G, and had 3G presence in just 9 circles, while MTS was a pan India CDMA player with better EVDO services. And that time Vodafone has better brand value to sell relatively new player SSTL’s high speed data cards to corporates.

However time changed a lot – MTS is now present in just 9 circles but MTS dongles (MBlaze) grabbed a significant market share, while Vodafone launched 3G on pan India basis, thanks to ICRA. If you can remember MTS or Vodafone never published any separate data for Netcruise or promoted this brand. There was no TVC of this brand, nor it has any twitter handle. Only some retail stores like TheMobileStore, Spice Hotspot etc sold these. There was little success of this brand, and lately almost no activity.

MTS has recently been pushing its RevB (downlink upto 9.8Mbps) services under MBlaze Ultra. They bring own smartphones, Wifi enabled USB dongles and Wifi Hubs to promote its own branded services.

So it is inevitable that they would parted from the brand sharing agreement. Netcruise’s website netcruise.in is now redirecting to MTS India’s website.

Earlier Tata Docomo also killed Virgin brand – all Virgin Mobile customers are now under Tata Docomo brand. Aircel’s pseudo-MVNO services – Blyk and Simpossible are in limbo. So only pseudo-MVNO brand still surviving is Talk24 (TTSL-Future Group venture). It's not only surviving but doing quite well - they launched their own self care app too. Download T24 Mobile App | Give missed call to 8655188888 to get the link.

This story first posted on Telecomtalk.info

India's Worldphone Yet to Come!

A Worldphone or globalphone is considered to support most available network across the globe.

In India there are several technologies are being offered over different spectrum bands. Here goes the list:

GSM/EDGE (2G) - 900 MHz
GSM/EDGE (2G) - 1800 MHz

CDMA 1x/Rev0/RevA/RevB - 800MHz

HSPA (3G) - 2100 MHz
HSPA (3G) - 900 MHz

LTE-TD (4G) - 2300MHz
LTE-FDD (4G) - 1800MHz
LTE-FDD (4G) - 800MHz


What we are missing here:

LTE over 700MHz
LTE over AWS band (1700MHz-2000MHz)
LTE on 2600MHz
CDMA over 450MHz
CDMA over 800MHz
TDMA (as in China)

At present I guess no device support such long list of networks over such extended bands.