Analysys Mason is a trusted adviser on telecoms, technology and media. Based on a study that was commissioned by the GSMA (News - Alert), Analysys Mason has studied the impact of mobile broadband penetration on the Indian national economy and found that every percentage point contributed to a significant increase to India's GDP.

The focus of the study hovered around analyzing the micro and macro economic impact of mobile broadband. It also evaluated the kind of demand that was likely to be generated as far as mobile broadband was considered and also identified the constraints like spectrum availability that the growth was likely to encounter.

If mobile broadband penetration were to be successful, then the rural and urban areas of India should have widespread access to broadband. This becomes even more significant in the light of the connectivity target of 100 million that the government has set itself. Mobile broadband is the most scalable and cost-effective means to achieve this goal, while delivering a wide variety of social and economic benefits to India.

The exclusive findings of the Analysys (News - Alert) Mason report revealed that allocating just 5MHz of additional 3G spectrum per licensee could increase mobile broadband penetration by more than 35 percent and this would translate into increasing the number of 3G users to almost 160 million by 2015. In turn, this would increase national broadband penetration by 3.3 percent, resulting in an INR 538 billion increase to India's GDP by 2015.

If this were to happen, then mobile broadband could contribute a total of INR $190 billion to the Indian economy. Creation of a new revenue stream in the consumer and retail financial services and other vertical sectors would also be triggered. Findings also revealed that along with the economic productivity across industry sectors, the common man will also benefit.

Currently, the total cost of ownership for fixed broadband accounted for at least 20 percent of the per-capita consumption of Indian consumers, and further deployment would be challenged by time-to-market and operator economics. The answer to all this is found in mobile broadband, which would deliver cost-effective scalability that India needed to overcome the challenges of fixed broadband.