Senior executives of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm took to the stage at the GTI (Global TD-LTE) Summit here on Tuesday to give a glimpse to the world of India's potential and India's problems concerning the evolving 4G market.
Gopal Vittal, Joint Managing Director & CEO India, Bharti Airtel, pointed out that more low-cost devices and spectrum were needed in order to overcome the infrastructure challenges related with LTE, the faster version of the mobile Internet.
"The biggest infrastructure challenges right now are that we need more low-cost mobile devices. Then there's the spectrum that is supplied. What is supplied to us is only 40 per cent of the global average," Mr. Vittal said.
"Also, only half of India's base stations are on fibre... this needs to change," he added.
Reliance Jio's Mathew Oommen, who is the President of Strategy, Network and Products, on the other hand, painted a more optimistic and upbeat image with the showcasing of a LTD-TTD interoperability use-case with Chinese giant China Mobile.
"This interoperability took us just one afternoon to work out with China Mobile's engineers. The collaboration with China Mobile was great," Mr. Oommen said, after calling an executive at the China Mobile stand at the trade fair here.
Reliance Jio, according to Mr. Oommen, wants to make a larger global impact and also affect fields like public transport and the smart grid.
"There's huge potential. This is why we need the help of partners and organizations like the GSMA (GSM Association) and GTI... to help unleash Jio," he said.
China Mobile too took to the stage, in support of Reliance Jio, with a dynamic presentation of VoLTE (voice over LTE) in collaboration with Reliance Jio Infocomm.
