‘Full Wi-Fi Coverage in top 20 Indian Cities by 2015’
At a time when the country is launching another round of spectrum auctions in February and telecom operators are vying for allocations, global telecom infrastructure provider UTStarcom is confident that India’s top 20 cities will be fully Wi-Fi enabled by the end of 2015. “Wi-Fi will compliment data offload applications, which is something that all operators are implementing worldwide. India also has started (on this).
By the end of 2015, Wi-Fi will be a reality in India. It will be there in top 20 cities in India, full coverage,” Rahul Pandey, director – sales (SAARC Countries) at UTStarcom, told IANS. Wi-Fi is the popular term for a high-frequency wireless local area network technology. UTStarcom, with its operation headquarters in Hong Kong, recorded a $160 million turnover in 2013, with India being the second highest market after Japan.
The company has been present in India since 2000 and has worked extensively with private and public players in deploying telecom infrastructure. “After 2G, everyone (operators) came to 3G and paid for spectrum. There will be a stage they will be running out of spectrum to expand. So, that is the time, typically, when Wi-Fi comes in,” UTStarcom chief executive officer William Wong told IANS. “When Wi-Fi comes in, the cost of carrying data will be around one-tenth.
If they want to offload the traffic on 3G or 4G and move it to Wi-Fi, the operating expenses will be dramatically reduced. That’s what exactly we see in Japan,” he added. The company is working with a host of operators and they are bullish and determined on Wi-Fi connectivity. “They will be doing in phased manner. Some of them have started in trail phase,” Pandey said, declining to name the operators.
The company met Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg in September 2014. Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad went to Japan after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit. Prasad inspected the UTStarcom deployment there. “We have deployed more than 500,000 hotspots (Wi-Fi area), which means 1.5 million access points. The telecom secretary showed interest to replicate it in India,” Pandey said. The Indian government is extremely keen on speedy rollout of Wi-Fi services in the country. “No policy problems.
We have met all the telecom operators and they are finalising their budgets for Wi-Fi. The company is ready for deployment. We have expertise available. So it’s not a challenge for us,” Pandey added. The company is focussing on the government’s National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) that will help it to deploy Wi-Fi in rural areas. NOFN is set to link 600 million rural citizens of India across 250,000 gram panchayats spread over 6,600 blocks and 631 districts through a broadband optical fibre network.
“We talk about affordable connectivity. By affordable connectivity, we are looking at things like what the country is already doing in 4G deployment. There is lack of spectrum. One of the quickest ways to reach high percentage of deployment would be the adoption of Wi-Fi,” Wong said. “We did half a million in Japan in half a year. With NOFN on schedule, we could be coupling hand in hand with NOFN deployment.
The minute NOFN deployment is done we can connect places with Wi-Fi,” he added. Wong said UTStarcom’s platform supports a very dense number of hotspots. One controller can manage up to 120,000 hotspots. “Now we are looking at the government for acceleration in deployment in both public and private sectors.
The Modi government is active in connecting not just the Metros but also rural areas. So, I believe they are taking the right steps. So India can catch up on the global stage,” Shalin Shah, general manager, India operations, UTStarcom, told IANS.
Top Hero not looking for Superstar Tag
Akshay Kumar, who has been in the film industry for over two decades, wants to be known for his acting skills. “I would like to be called an actor and not a superstar. That is not the tag I am looking for. I am doing ‘Brothers’. It’s about martial arts, then I have ‘Gabbar’ which is a different film again.
So, as an actor I am looking forward to something different,” Akshay told reporters. And now, Akshay is seen as an undercover agent in “Baby”, which released Friday. “I do everything I don’t think I will do. Only one film a year or so.
If I like the script, I do it. I don’t want to be typecast as an action hero or comedy hero. “You can’t do too many patriotic films because it will get preachy. Do the film in a limit and pass the message to the young audience in a subtle way,” he said.
Is This A New Strategy In Prostitution?
Common people have a perception on most of the actresses. They think that heroines do all kinds of other things to earn money, apart from acting in films. Nobody wants to get into that debate and here we are referring to a particular actress who made her debut in Tollywood some time back.
This heroine became famous in other language (Not in Telugu) for her erotic roles. She has been trying hard to start her second innings in Tollywood, but none of the filmmakers are interested to sign her. So, she has been sending some of her hot photo-shoot pictures to get noticed in Tollywood.
Film Nagar people are gossiping that this heroine is charging 4 lakhs per night and she has been spotted at many star hotels in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Looks like this heroine adopted a new strategy to lure men.
Parachuri Remembers MS’ Intercaste Marriage
Tollywood celebrities are remembering the sweet memories in a tearful manner following the sudden demise of ace comedian MS.Narayana today. Parachuri Gopala Krishna, renowned script writer Parachuri Gopala Krishna revealed the secret of MS Narayana’s marriage.
He said he taught MS as a lecturer and he himself convinced his parents when they did not give green signal to MS’ intercaste marriage with Kalaprapoorna with whom he fell in love. He remembered that MS.Narayana used to work as a booking clerk at a theatre for his livelihood.
Parachuri said MS and his wife used to work in Bheemavaram and met him even before he came into the industry. He said MS’ nature is to do what he thinks and never to hurt anyone.
He also said it was he who convinced MS not to lose heart when he planned to quit Tollywood when offers did not come his way and he plunged into financial problems.
NTR gave Voice over for Noble Cause
NTR has been aggressively promoting his elder brother Kalyanram’s ‘Patas’. As per reports Dil Raju bought the movie rights after getting recommendation from young tiger.Apart from that Jr NTR also gave voice over for his brother movie ‘Pataas.’
Many expected that NTR will introduce the characters in the film.But he neither introduced Kalyan ram nor any other role. NTR voice over will be heard before the rolling of titles and he said that Patas is dedicated to his elder brother Janakiram .
Apart from that Young Tiger requested his fans to be careful while driving as their safety is his utmost priority. This is not something new for NTR as he previously did. NTR has earlier lent his vocals for hero Ram’s ‘Rama Rama Krishna Krishna’ movie.
This is a Sai Karthik musical and the feedback over the film has fetched more confidence in Kalyan Ram.Kalyanram appeared as a powerful cop in the film while Shruti Sodhi is making her debut in Tollywood with ‘Pataas’.
Power shock in AP – Jagan get ready
In what may be seen as first major burden on the people of Andhra Pradesh post-bifurcation, the residuary state’s power utilities have reportedly decided to hike tariffs for the year 2014-15.
The hike, as part of the Annual Revenue Requirement (ARR) that would be submitted to the AP Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC), aims at mobilising an additional Rs 3,000 crore during the next financial year.
Since ERC tariff hike comes into effect from April 1, 2015, CM Chandrababu Naidu has held a round of discussions with energy officials where he reportedly told them to exempt the poor and low-power consuming houses from the tariff hike.
At the same time, there are chances for a substantial hike which might result in the sensitive issue of power tariffs hike. With such news in the offing, fans of Jagan feel this is the right time to take the plunge and shatter TDP government.
BO Report: Pataas starts well at the BO
Nandamuri Kalyan Ram’s Pataas released today Worldwide in decent number of theaters. The movie did not get more screens as Gopala Gopala, I and Baby occupied fair share of theaters. There is an ‘average’ opening for the movie for the morning shows across the Telugu States. But the talk of the movie is very good with Comedy working out big time.
The remix of Balayya’s ‘Arey O Samba’ from Rowdy Inspector will work wonders with Nandamuri fans. With the positive word of mouth, the movie has improved well from the Matinees. Going by the talk, the movie will have a good weekend for sure and Kalyan Ram has got a hit after a long time.
His last hit was Athanokkade several years ago. Anil Ravipudi who is debuting with this film is getting superb response from all quarters and he seem to have got perfect blend for a perfect mass masala entertainer. He will for sure have foray of offers coming to him.
Kalyan Ram has been producing his films in the recent times and suffered severe losses especially with his 3D venture, Om. This movie success will come as a huge relief for him. Also this hit will bring in the much required joy for Nandamuri fans who did not taste success after Balakrishna’s Legend last year.
Pic Talk: Trisha Engagement Photo
Actress Trisha is engaged to Bollywood Producer Varun Manian a short while ago. The above picture is from the engagement ceremony which was a private affair with the close friends and family members of both the sides.
The engagement ceremony happened according to Hindu Traditions. The wedding date is yet to be locked and Trisha already announced to continue acting after marriage. Trisha was linked to several heroes in the past. More importantly with Rana.
Their special photoshoot to a magazine further ignited the rumours. But all of them got busted with this. Trisha who was once reigned the Telugu industry as a Star heroine slowed down significantly in the recent times with the advent of heroines like Samantha, Kajal etc.
She currently has only one Telugu film in hand, Lion opposite Nandamuri Balakrishna which is being planned for March release. Anyways we wish the newly engaged couple all the best for their future.
