Placement News Bulletin : 2019-20
Placement News Bulletin : 2020-21
the Oracle GD/PI Prep | Telecom
Telecom Terms Explained
• Subscriber: Term used in the telecom industry to refer to the customer who has subscribed to any tele-
com service. The Indian telecom industry has a subscriber base of 1146 Mn, 2nd larget in the world.
• Cellular: Services made available on the subscriber’s mobile handset ranging from calls, SMS, mobile in-
ternet to various value added services like score updates and caller tunes.
• Broadband: A term used to describe fast internet access. This a generic term that covers and internet
connection using any access method other than ‘dial up’ (aka narrowband). India has 705.4 Mn broad-
band subscribers, 2nd largest in the world.
• Latency: A measure of delay. In a network, latency measures the time it takes for some data to get to its
destination across the network.
• VoIP: Stands for ‘Voice Over Internet Protocol’ - voice translated into data packets and transmitted
across an internet connection or network - just like any other file or email you might send. Upon reaching
the other end data is transformed back into its original form and emerges like a regular phone call.
• ARPU: Stands for Average Revenue per User. This is one of the most commonly used and critical KPIs for
a telecom company and is often used to analyse the performance of the industry and compare across
firms.
• Prepaid: Often referred to as ‘pay as you go’. There are no bills, no contracts, just competitive call rates
and easy top up options purchased from the service provider before availing any service. More than 90%
of Indian subscribers are prepaid.
• Postpaid: Periodical bills generated, often monthly, based on the service package opted for and the ser-
vice consumption during the billing period.
• Tariff: Also known as a calling plan. It is made up of packages, offers and services including minutes, texts
and a browsing allowance.
• Talktime: The length of time you can talk on your phone without recharging the battery. The battery ca-
pacity of a phone is usually expressed in terms of so many hours of talk time or so many hours of standby
time. When you’re talking, the phone draws additional power from the battery.
• Spectrum: Refers to a range of radio-waves that are used for communication purposes. Spectrum is akin
to road highways through which telecom traffic is routed enabling communication. Bands are like road
markings which clearly mark which lane is to be used by which company for their operations. In any in-
dustry, having a larger share of the spectrum band means that the company has a larger area to channel
its communications traffic through.
Placement News Bulletin : 2019-20
Placement News Bulletin : 2020-21
the Oracle GD/PI Prep | Telecom
• LAPU - Local area payment unit, is a virtual credit given to retailer to make recharges for the customer.
One the customer does a recharge from the retialer, retailer collects cash and pays back the credit which
was earlier taken (analogous to PatymMoney). LAPU is still common form of exchange in Rural India
where penetration of online transactions is still very low.
• Predatory Pricing: A pricing strategy which underprices the services or products far below the industry
average in an attempt to acquire a major market share in a short period of time. Predatory pricing is
often not profitable and is employed only by companies who can afford to suffer short term losses in the
hope for long term gains. In the Indian context, predatory pricing model was adopted by Jio upon its en-
try into the sector in 2016 and since then, the industry pricing strategy has now changed to competitive
pricing.
