Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Radio Trunking Trudges Along In Wake Of Cell Onslaught

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 03:39:47 -0400

COMMUNICATION & NETWORKING
Radio Trunking Trudges Along In Wake Of Cell Onslaught
Indranil Chakrabarty

Kolkata: Picture Kolkata’s chaotic roads at peak traffic hours: vehicles of all
shapes and sizes defying traffic rules as they jostle for space with cyclists,
pedestrians who dodge into moving traffic with an imperious wave of the hand and
the odd processions.
All this would have brought the city to a halt under normal circumstances. But it
is radio trunking in its primitive form that keeps everything moving.

Kolkata’s traffic moves because of the presence of traffic sergeants armed with
two-way radios. Apart from the power to impose spot fines and seize licences of
errant drivers, these sergeants are armed with two-way radios, carefully wrapped
in plastic shopping bags to guard against the odd shower.

These sergeants are a familiar and much feared entities on the chaotic Kolkata
streets. Although some have cellphones, all of them use radios to keep each other
abreast on the movement of VIP convoys, processions or accidents that can disrupt
traffic flow.

Seen at the most basic level, this then is the world of radio trunking services as
it exists in major Indian metros. Such wireless walkie-talkies are also used by
television journalists to keep in touch with their headquarters and field teams.
In India, two kinds of radio trunking services are available for enterprises,
government bodies and institutions. In one system, bodies like the security
services, police or large corporates run and maintain their own networks with a
dedicated team. In the other, the users find it easier to outsource their radio
trunking needs to a third-party service provider.

This third-party outfit is known as the public mobile radio trunking service
(PMRTS) provider. The service provider has a tower and switching equipment at a
centrally located site, and usually covers a circle of 70 km diameter. The service
provider has to secure a license from the department of telecommunication (DoT).

During the last two years, there has been a mini explosion of PMRTS networks, with
demand coming from commercial sectors like courier and cargo logistics business,
security agencies, cash vans to utility service providers.
But, at the same time, radio trunking service has become less attractive to
customers who do not have a captive unit but communicate with the help of the
service providers.

With tariffs for cellular mobile telephony crashing over the past one year, many
corporates who were using radio trunking services no longer find it attractive
enough anymore. As a result, many third-party service providers in the metros have
shut down operations.

Take the case of a network integrating company like Leading Edge. The company has
seven field staff to manage and implement the network of the clients in and around
the country. The head of the company decided to have radio trunking services to
communicate with the field members. So it entered into service contract with one
of the service providers at a price of Rs 1000 per handset.

Said Leading Edge’s chief executive officer Satish Choudhary, “We continued with
the radio trunking services for a couple of months. But when we found out that the
tariff of cellular mobile phone service is lower than radio trunking, we switched
over to cellular service. Instead of paying Rs 1000, we are now paying around Rs
600 per month for each mobile connection of our staff.  Radio trunking was one of
the smartest ways of communications within a closed user group. But, for a
medium-sized company like us, its utility is over.”

It is not that radio trunking technology has not moved ahead in the last few
years. In terms of handset design, value-added services and open standards, radio
trunking has attractive options.

Sleek and light handsets are already available in the market with voice and data
capabilities being offered by the operators. For example in the network, various
levels of user hierarchy can be defined for a given group of users.

But regulatory restrictions have not made radio trunking an attractive option for
the corporate users. For example, technically, a radio trunking service can be
connected to the plain old telephone network and can have separate numbering plan.
But current Indian laws do not allow for this type of service.

Said Mr Chaudhary, “Radio Trunking service will ultimately be limited to big
captive corporate users and government bodies like the police and paramilitary
forces. Given the tariff structure and regulatory issues, radio trunking is no
longer an attractive option for most of corporates.”

Even TV reporters now use cellphones, and leave their radio handsets with their
drivers, to be used for calling in a car that is parked at a distance away.

From the equipment makers’ point of view, India is a small market, a total of just
around Rs 500 crore for the current year. According to Simoco’s chief executive
officer SK Ghosh, the army alone picks up equipment worth Rs 450 crore. So this
leave just Rs 50 crore as the total size of the private and other users.
Apart from Simoco, the other players in the digital trunking system in India are
Motorola, Nokia, Marconi and Rhode & Swartz.

Simoco, however, is bullish on the market and has invested heavily at its Salt
Lake factory near Kolkata. It began making analog trunking systems in 2001, and
will launch the digital TETRA trunking system from November this year.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=39034

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