Our friends at Packetology have sent us a report which points at super growth of CDMA technologies in India. Indian mobile user base has grown from 8 to 18 million in one year, and according to Packetology adds that “All signs suggest growth in India will be far slower than China, but CDMA’s prospects may be brighter in India.”
Lucent is providing gear to Reliance which has signed almost 4 million CDMA 2000 1x customers in 11 months. Still rest of the country is GSM but CDMA is growing rapidly thanks to Reliance Infocomm, which is helping with content development (e.g. Bollywood related content). Beyond Reliance, BSNL and Tata also have 1x deployments in select metros/circles. Within 1-2 years, CDMA 2000 may very well be the dominant air interface in India, Packetology predicts. And that should be welcome news to folks in New Jersey. Lucent is still based there you know. Ericsson is the other player in the Indian market with some CDMA traction.