Mobile Services on WIMAX - Internet Telephony to lift off in a big way!

Get ready to dial a new set of numbers in near future. WiMAX industry in the country received a major boost as the DoT has reportedly modified its policy on wireless broadband technologies including WiMAX services. For long, this medium stayed in the wings as mobile danced its way to glory in India. The earlier announced guidelines had specified that spectrum for broadband wireless can be used only for data services. However, the Telecom Commission, in its meeting on August 21 has taken a decision to remove the restriction.

Unfortunately, the new boost comes at a cost of increased reserve price for WiMAX spectrum in the auctioning process. The Commission now wants the base price to be 50 percent of the 3G base price as compared to earlier 25 percent. A pan-India WiMAX licence may now come at an estimated price of Rs 1010 crore.

It seems that such a decision did not go well with the existing GSM operators. A GSM industry representative echoed,

“The WiMax lobby had argued that reserve price should be lower to enable them to make broadband services affordable. If they are allowed to offer voice services also they should be treated at par with existing mobile operators bidding for 3G spectrum.”

Internet telephony will mean convergence of broadband for voice (calls), data (web surfing) and video (cable TV) for the masses. It will not only be a low cost option, but also a medium that can do much more than just web.

At present, telephony predominantly remains the main source of inter-business consultations and is widely considered a fundamental component in the on-going growth of effective customer service. The Internet today is changing every industry, with telephony being no exception. Traditional telephony is now being accompanied by IP based telephony in order to primarily reduce the cost of telecommunications and effectively provide more communication options.


Benefits of voice services over the internet :
The main advantage of Internet telephony is in the lowering of the costs. The only costs involved are in the setting up of the computer and the operating costs of a data network connection. And once this is in place, there is no additional charge for using it, unless of course the destination of the call is outside the IP network.
The integration of data network and voice can also reduce the number of lines needed to access both services.
Since voice and data can now share the same transfer channel, they can be combined, hence providing real-time applications such as interactive meetings, long-distance learning, and white-boarding. Multimedia applications can now be incorporated into commercial service more readily.
Wireless VoIP would mean that customers would have a single device for communication, unlike at present where we have a mobile, home phone and office handsets etc.



Well, it’s not all hunky dory for voice enabled WIMAX services. Here’s Why :
If you are using the Internet to make calls, then you cannot call up the emergency numbers since their location cannot be determined. For a user, this is one area that cannot be ignored - so this aspect is a major drawback of Internet telephony. Although emergency numbers are hardly as much regarded as in the west, it does provide a drawback.
Moreover, VoIP telephone services are mostly powered by mains electricity and shall turn to a brick in cases of load sheddings, just the way it is for cordless telephones.
Even though Internet Telephony is rapidly progressing, it still has some major issues with reliability and indeed sound quality to battle. These problems are primarily attributed to bandwidth limitation and current compression technology.
Security is obviously a major factor that has to be addressed. All the security problems we have faced with the internet would have to be faced again with VoIP. If it becomes more widely used it will become more attractive for hackers to attack Hackers could eavesdrop on conversations, interfere with audio streams, or disconnect, reroute or even answer other people’s phone calls.

Nonetheless, the decision of allowing voice telephony over the WIMAX networks is a very important step taken by the Department of Telecom in the direction of increased internet penetration and cheaper call rates which are already the cheapest in the world.

Source : WatBlog