Hardware Changes Spell Disaster for Indian Mobile Manufacturing: ICEA
The Indian Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) said on Thursday that any mandatory mandate to implement “immature” hardware changes will make India’s mobile industry a “costly testing ground” and adversely affect the country’s mobile manufacturing.
The Telecommunication Engineering Center (TEC) under the Department of Communications (DoT) is evaluating the implementation of the ATSC 3.0 standard approved by the Telecommunications Standards Development Society and equipping smartphones with this hardware to receive live TV signals without cellular networks.
Tech giants such as Samsung, Qualcomm and Nokia have opposed the new standard, saying it will increase the cost of a smartphone by at least Rs 2,500.
In a statement, ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo said they welcome innovation and standards that provide greater choice and better deals for Indian customers and let market forces decide adoption.
“However, we have always been against mandates for technology adoption, especially if they are immature, unproven and increase the cost of ownership of mobile devices in India,” Mohindroo said.
“We believe that any mandatory authorization at this stage will make the Indian mobile industry a costly experiment that we cannot afford,” he added.
The mobile device is designed for the global market according to technologies based on globally accepted 3GPP standards.
According to ICEA’s letter to DoT, it is impossible to get space in the device itself for new generations of communication like 5G, 6G, satellite etc. if manufacturers have to support old technologies indefinitely.
“The design and manufacture of cell phones incorporating ATSC 3.0 will adversely affect cell phone manufacturing. Incorporating any technology that is not proven and globally accepted runs counter to market forces and derails the pace of domestic manufacturing and the nation’s most important export,” the letter states.
Exports of mobile phones from India are currently around $11 billion and we aim to be the largest exporter of mobile phones.
ICEA said in the letter that adding ATSC 3.0 chips would incrementally increase the price per phone, which would in turn be “passed on to the consumer.”
“Furthermore, ATSC 3.0 does not seem to be popular with consumers, if there was a demand for this feature, manufacturers would have responded. Since ATSC 3.0 is not available in commercial form anywhere in the world, no major mobile phone manufacturer has deployed the technology globally, ICEA claimed.
The association asked the TEC to consider all aspects during the ATSC 3.0 implementation process.
“There are currently no ATSC 3.0 compatible phones available from any of the major cell phone manufacturers. Real deployment scenarios have not been analyzed, so true feasibility is unknown and potential gaps have not been identified or analyzed. We urge TEC to carefully evaluate the impact of ATSC 3.0 on cell phones,” ICEA said.
