Indian telecom companies, which are bullish on a data and a broadband revolution in the country, better watch out. International research agency Gartner has predicted that there will be no more than 210,000 broadband subscribers in the country by 2007, i.e., a three-fold rise from the current 75,000.

Gartner has also predicted that in the next four years, the mobile subscriber base will grow to 70 million -- a conservative estimate compared to the government's gung ho projections of 100 million mobile subscribers by 2007. Gartner expects the fixed-line subscriber base to go up to around 65.4 million in the same year.

The research agency also expects the market for broadband to be slow as customers will still have to fork out high tariffs for the service. "We expect broadband to grow slowly in India. There is still a difference in prices between broadband and narrow band and until this gap is bridged the market will remain very small," Betrand Bidaud, a Singapore-based telecom analyst with Gartner, told Business Standard over the telephone.

According to Gartner, the cut-throat competition in the mobile telephony market will cause new investment to shift away from the broadband to the mobile business.

"We believe telecom companies will concentrate their funds on the mobile business rather than the broadband business as voice will generate the revenues," Bidaud added.

Bidaud said the broadband experience had been disappointing in many countries. In Korea, where broadband penetration is over 70 per cent, companies like Korea Telecom that offers broadband service have been losing money due to costing pressures.

Gartner, however, predicts mobile players to shift to a revenue model, in which data will be a key element. The agency expects telecom companies to earn as much as 17-18 per cent of their overall mobile revenues from data, including the short messaging system, by 2007. This is up from the current average of 7 per cent.

The agency is also of the opinion that there will be a major consolidation in the Indian telecom industry with only three to four national level players continuing in the mobile arena.

Key predictions

• Gartner has predicted that the mobile subscriber base will grow to 70 million by 2007.
• The research agency sees high tariffs and low investments as hurdles to the growth of the broadband market.
• Gartner expects telecom companies to earn as much as 17-18 per cent of their overall mobile revenues from data, including SMS, by 2007.