Tata continues mobile broadband push with New Delhi launch

Tata Teleservices today announced the launch of it’s new mobile broadband service in New Delhi - Photon Plus. The company, which recently announced a $2 billion investment for a nation-wide GSM network, is suspected to be driving 3G services across India to make way for 4G upgrades from NTT DoCoMo

From the release:

“With the significant Internet penetration in India, it is becoming crucial for telecom service providers to meet the increasing consumer expectations. The awareness and demand for wireless Internet connectivity is increasing rapidly and with laptop and PC sales showing exponential growth, there is a huge demand for wireless high-speed Internet access,” said, Mr. Vineet Bhatia, COO Delhi and NCR, Regional Head North, Tata Teleservices Limited. “At Tata Indicom, we believe in constantly adding innovative products to our portfolio. This reiterates our commitment to bring in latest innovations and leverage the power of CDMA data capability to better service our customers. This launch is an important step in providing customers with high speed Net access which will enable them to experience super-fast speeds at very affordable prices”

What we think?

The Photon Plus offering is pretty standard mobile broadband fare. It advertises speeds of up to 3.1Mbps - but the reality could be very different. Individual users access it through the now familiar USB modem, but there’s a service aimed at small and medium businesses as well. That requires buying a router, which allow other wireless modems to connect through it.

Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo bought a 26% share in Tata last year - so there’s a good possibility that these networks are being launched with an upgrade to NTT LTE standards in mind.

I also found Vineet Bhatia comment about being committed to CDMA interesting, in the light of the recent GSM push. It doesn’t seem cost-effective to maintain both kinds of network.