Catching the Wave

The antenna technologies in India are set to take the wireless communications industry to the next level.

Koya Kutty, a 78-year-old farmer who resides in Pilakkattiri, a remote village in the Palakkad district of Kerala, is now a happy man. Kutty, who doesn’t even know how to use a calculator, has a Nokia 1110 cell phone and talks to his two sons in the Middle East twice a week. “This device… mobile… has changed my life. I know how to make calls and receive it. Above everything, it helps me stay in touch with my children and relatives,” says a delighted Kutty.

Credit: Courtesy of elvissanta.com

MASS BENEFIT

Like Kutty, almost all villagers across India are now thrilled at the prospect of not having to depend on phone booths or a neighbor’s landline for receiving or making calls, thanks to the wireless technology and the war between the mobile phone operators. If initially there were only two state-owned players in the telecom market to cater to the needs of cell phone users, the number has now gone up to 14 with the entry of Norway’s Uninor, the newest Indian mobile phone operator. Uninor, a joint venture of Telenor and Indian property developer Unitech. It is among a clutch of foreign telecom services along with Britain’s Vodafone, Japan’s NTT Docomo, and Russia’s Sistema JSFC that have beaten a path into this country of 1.2 billion people, hoping to boost revenues and make up for saturated domestic markets. The Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) forecasts that the country’s mobile phones will number 1 billion by 2013, up from around 500 million currently.

India’s wireless market potential is second only to China and is rapidly moving towards the top slot. With 14 service providers across over 24 wireless metro areas, and six to eight providers in each circle, competition for customers is fierce. It is expected to heat up even more with the auction of the new third generation (3G) licenses and the introduction of mobile number portability.

“The competition between these mobile phone operators helped many people, mainly those in the rural areas, avail the service of wireless communication,” says Gireesh Kumar, a senior faculty at the department of electrical engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He has been doing research in the field of wireless communication, microstrip antennas and arrays, and broadband antennas.

THE WIRELESS

With the growth of the telecom industry emerged the industry of wireless communication devices. India now hosts hundreds of companies which produce as many wireless communication devices, which are mainly based on the telecom industry, such as mobile phone signal enhancers, jammers, radiation shields, amplifiers, attenuator, couplers, filters, GPS trackers, and mobile phone detectors. “In India, the industry of wireless mobile communication services is growing at a fast pace with the anticipation that communication to a mobile device anywhere on the globe at all times will be available in near future. An array of antennas mounted on vehicles, ships, aircraft, satellites, and base stations is expected to play an important role in fulfilling the increased demand of channel requirement for wireless services,” explains Kumar.

He adds that antennas help in improving the system performance by increasing channel capacity and spectrum efficiency, extending range coverage, tailoring beam shape, steering multiple beams to track many mobiles, and compensating aperture distortion electronically.

According to a study by the Nielsen Consumer Experience Mobile Test Program, quality of a mobile phone provider’s network is the most important factor that matters for consumers in India. The study says that as Indian consumers consider network performance as a major selection and retention criterion, there is a huge opportunity for network leaders to educate consumers about the superiority of their network performance to gain subscriber base. This can be a huge marketing differentiator in an industry that is reeling under hyper competition.

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

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Over the last few years, developments in wireless communications have presented many challenges to the antenna and microwave industry in terms of special requirements for antenna design, fabrication, and integration. These requirements include new characterization in terms of antenna performance, miniaturized size and shape, and new suitable fabrication and implementation techniques to fit with the devices. Let’s look at two very simple, yet effective devices that hit the market recently — mobile phone signal enhancer and mobile phone jammers — as a step towards adjusting with the new emerging markets.

With mobile phone signal enhancer the days of deterioration of voice quality or a broken network signal are likely to be over. Usually, the network problems occur because of weak signal caused by the distance between the user and the mobile tower or due to the shadow of buildings. Mumbai-based Wilcom Technologies has developed high-performance wireless coverage systems designed to repeat signal and ensure reliable coverage for cell phones along with data services such as Internet cards for laptops and PDA phones. According to the manufacturer, the signal enhancer has been designed for homes, small offices, rooms, vehicles, and rural areas. The company has filed a patent for the technology innovation.