The telecom sector in India will continue its growth momentum but some

early warnings point to further commoditization. Hence, service

providers will have to look at new generation services to drive growth

in future.

``With more operators entering the market and ARPUs going lower, this

is putting more pressure on the EBIDTA margins of telecom players. So

they are increasingly looking at opportunities in new generation

services to get more revenues,’’ Manoj Menon, Partner and Asia Pacific

Managing Director, Frost & Sullivan said. He was speaking at an

interactive session on ICT – new generation services at GIL 2009:

India, a Frost & Sullivan global congress on corporate growth in

Bangalore.

A Sethuraman, executive director, Huawei Technologies Company agreed,

saying that operators are thinking about the challenges in going for

these new generation services and how to take advantage of it.

Among the areas of interest in these services are mobile broadband,

mobile commerce, value added services and GPS services. Non-voice

services presently contribute between 20-25 per cent of telecom

providers’ revenues.

Menon said that the new business strategy has to move from just

communication-led to include business domains. ``The areas of

opportunities for telecom players are Wimax, mobile as a distribution

channel, capturing greater share of consumer wallet, and device linked

opportunities.’’