Being one of the smallest states in the country, Goa can boast of having the highest teledensity. The rapidly enhancing sales figures of smartphone and 4G base stations is certainly a good sign for Goa. However, at the same time to match with standard benchmark for quality of services, Goa still has to walk a mile.
With a population of nearly 14.59 lakh, Goa has 23.26 lakh SIM connections from four major operators – Vodafone, Jio, Idea and Airtel. Considering these figures, virtually every Goan possess two SIM cards.
“It is a peculiar situation in Goa. For instance, a person who gets coverage of a particular service provide at home, may not get service of same service provider in some other locations or for that matter at their work place. This is the reason people possess two SIM cards,” said a senior official from BSNL.
He further said that after launch of Jio, virtually all news smartphones launched in the market are VoLTE enable and most of them are dual SIM as customers now prefers two SIM for a backup.
In last one and half year over 7 lakh news SIM have been allotted, of which 70 per cent is accrued by Jio. The unreliability of service providers across Goa for seamless connectivity, availability of affordable duel SIM card phone and Jio as a speed data service provider have contributed to the surge in wireless connections in Goa.
As per the TRAI guidelines to minimize call drops and data speed problem, benchmark set for quality of service is that one base station (mobile tower) can only have 1,500 connections which can operate simultaneously. While in China quality of service standard is 500 users to one tower simultaneously. If the above standard is considered, than each operator should have nearly 1000 mobile towers to cater to the population of 14.59 lakh. In Goa nearly 4000 towers are required for its four major players – Jio, Vodafone, Idea and Airtel against the total of 1553.
Though, the Goa government has recently announced its Start-up policy (to be rolled out early next year) and is in a process to finalise IT policy (to be rolled out in March next year) but when it comes to Mobile Tower Policy, the state is yet to come up with policy.
Smartphones sales:
According to Singapore-based market research firm Canalys, the smartphone sale in India has rapidly move up and in the third quarter India has become second largest smartphone market in world after China. Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research says that India shipped a record 84 million units – smartphones and feature phones – during the quarter ended September, 2017.
Goa too has matched the expectation with growing demand of Smartphones in India. Prior to Jio’s lunch last year, nearly 8000 smart phones were sold in Goa per month, while numbers has moved to 18,585 per month after Jio’s launch, according to GFK consumer research agency. With overwhelming advantage on technology, coverage, devices and pricing, have become the preferred choice for 4G smartphone consumers.
Data Consumption:
According to Jio’s presentation to TRAI, by 2020-21 the data demand in India is expected to reach 500-600 crore GB per month. This will generate Rs 3-3.6 lakh crore annual revenues for the industry.
“In just six months of Jio’s launch, data consumption in India went from 20 crore GB to 120 crore GB per month and has been multiplying ever since. Now, Jio customers alone are consuming over 125 crore GB of data every month, including 165 crore hours of high speed video every month, making Jio the largest mobile video network,” said Mukesh Ambani in his AGM speech in July 2017.
He had further added that “India has overtaken USA and China in mobile data usage. Before Jio’s launch, India was 155th in the world in mobile broadband penetration. Now India tops in mobile data consumption and well on its way to becoming number one country in mobile broadband penetration, in the coming months.
While Goa too has showed it hunger for data consumption. Nearly 44.57 lakh GB of data was consumed per month which was in single digit prior to Jio’s launch. According to the sources in TRAI, Jio alone consumes nearly 34.28 lakh GB data per month off 44.57 lakh GB.
As on October 31, 2017, the number of wireless broadband connections in India stood at 321.73 million, up 61 per cent from 199.90 million on October 31, 2016. Wireless broadband is considered as 512kbps or higher data speed and includes 3G.
It said that when it comes to survival, a mountain can be moved overnight. With a speed the way 4G coverage has enhanced in Goa in last two years its shows that growing footprint of 4G presence in Goa. (See figure in the box 1 and 2 for numbers 4G towers of four major telecom players)
“With launch of Jio, dynamics of market have changed – as consolidation of operators is taking place rapidly the entire focus is on enhancing 4G coverage,” said an official from Indus Towers, which is engaged in setting up infrastructure.
The Mary Meeker Internet Trends Report 2017 suggests that time spent by an average Indian on mobile each week is more than seven times time spent on television with such a startling figure. It is time that Goa too can catch up with infrastructure development to attain better and seamless connectivity.
