Telecom Operators in India

I use Airtel. And I know about Hutch because of its $20billion deal. Reliance is a CDMA operator. But I wanted to know who else are big players in the telecom field. And this is what I found ...

I did not know about BPLmobile. I think Aircel is big in South India and is also venturing into WiMax. Dolphin - not heard about this. And ... I see that TataIndicom is missing in the logo collection above. Any guesses as to where I might have found the logo collection? Think think ... its a big well known website!

cricket world cup 2007

Sms is big in India. Contests, polls, live updates, ringtones ... many things happen with sms. And when it is the World Cup Cricket going on, SMS can't be quiet. True that almost everyone is either watching or listening to it somewhere in the radio. So the question is who is using the SMS to get the updates and live scores. But in a country with more than 150million cell phone subscribers, sms cricket update is ALSO big. So next time there is a big match and you are not too keen to be in front of the TV or radio - which is very likely given the way India is playing with Srilanka - I am watching while writing- 255 to win and 112/6 @ 28overs - Yuvraj Singh just got run out! 5th wicket run out! Unbelivable DHONI out on the 1st ball ... I hope I saw it wrong ... phew --- Dravid can't believe it! Neither can I ... I think - I am almost sure - you will need the following SMS numbers to get your cricket update. How interested can you be to watch all the way now that India is out of Super 8!!!!!

Yahoo India Mobile
Sms: cri to 8243 : Recent score of all international teams.
Sms: cri country to 8243: Recent score of a particular team.
Sms: cri sch to 8243:: Schedule for the next week.

Sify
Sms: cri to 4545: Latest live scores.

Indiatimes
Sms:CRI to 8888 : Ball by ball updates for Indian matches.
Sms:MAT to 8888 : Live score updates on cricket matches from across the world on your mobile through SMS.
Sms:CRI SCH to 8888: Match schedules.

Happy SMSing.

Ombudsman

Facing flak over increasing consumer complaints, telecom service providers on Monday announced the setting up an Office of Ombudsman for telephone users.
Consumers will be able to directly take their complaints to the Ombudsman and the decision taken would be binding on operators. If you are not satisfied by their decision, you are free to take their grievance to any other forum like the consumer courts.
So bother with the Ombudsman when there is consumer court - because consumer court deals with all problems and not just telecom related; might take while for your case to be addressed.

What is Ombudsman?
According to dictionary.com ombudsman is -
1. a government official who hears and investigates complaints by private citizens against other officials or government agencies.
2. a person who investigates and attempts to resolve complaints and problems, as between employees and an employer or between students and a university.

Top 10 advertisers

I was reading the Tele.net January 2007 and came across a lot of statistics on Telecomm India. Subscriber growth, ARPU, market share ... many of these were given. What got my attention was the top 10 advertisers (January - November 2006). Here is the list

Television
------------------------%share
Bharti Airtel -------------- 25
Reliance Communications - 23
Hutch --------------------- 21
Tata Teleservices --------- 13
Idea Cellular -------------- 11
Spice Communications ----- 2
MTNL --------------------- 2
Matrix Cellular ------------ 1
Aircel --------------------- 0.8
BSNL --------------------- 0.5


Print
--------------------------- %share
Reliance Communications -- 35
Bharti Airtel --------------- 13
Tata Teleservices ---------- 12
Hutch ---------------------- 11
Idea Cellular --------------- 9
BSNL ---------------------- 9
Aircel ---------------------- 5
BPL Cellular --------------- 2
MTNL --------------------- 2
Spice Communications ----- 2

I believe this statistic does not include the cell phone manufaturers like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson!

IEEE 802

Last week I was at the 802 meeting. This time it was in Florida. Beautiful place. Lots of technical discussions. Different companies trying to find a spot for their proposals in the standards.
The IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee develops Local Area Network standards and Metropolitan Area Network standards. The most widely used standards are for the Ethernet family, Token Ring, Wireless LAN, Bridging and Virtual Bridged LANs. It consists of many Working Groups. An individual Working Group provides the focus for each area. Well known groups are the 802.11 and 802.16 groups.

Representatives from different well known companies like Nokia, Motorola, Samgsung, LG, Intel, Qualcomm, Netgrear, NextNet, Panasonic, Fujitsu, France Telecom, ... and from different geography participate. However, it was surprizing to see that there was noone from India. Of course there were many Indians; but not actually from India.

Then, I started thinking does it even matter what gets standardized and what doesn't. India has become a big telecom market; but it definitely is not the decider. Tried out and tested systems come to India. It is a very cost sensitive market - cheaper is better anywhere in the world but cheaper is the only way in India. Yes, Rs50000 phone gets sold in India. But the point is what gets sold more - its the Rs1000-Rs2000 phone. For a full time enigneer out of college the salary is in the range of Rs5000-Rs10000.

So, ya the conclusion I drew was ... what gets standardized does not bother/depend on India. But if a standardized system becomes big in India, then the companies with their IPR (intellectual property right) in the standard do make a lot of money.

Holi hai

I am in India on Holi after 7 years. Last I remember was 1999, the year I went to Japan. Holi for me was always a colour festival with lots of water. Now you must be thinking why am I talking about holi in a telecom blog. I was trying to see has telecom changed anything? And I decided to think aloud. So there is telephone.... its been there for long. But we have mobile or the so called cell phone these days which was not there few years back. So has mobiles changed anything? SMS! True I did get a few sms-s on holi. Other than that, I do not think there was any change. I actually thought that it was one festival where people forgot their cell phones. This I think is mainly due to fear of the phone getting spoiled due to water, gular (the coloured powder) and the real pukka color. But yes, people were carefree and enjoyed some water and colour time.
Bottomline - mobiles have changed our lives in many ways. But still for occasions like holi, people do forget their mobiles.

Budget `disappoints' telecom industry?

The first post in the month of March had to be about the BUDGET. What changes? What positive? Tax reduction? Any exemptions? Rural India? Infrastructure?

I thought I would write a good summary - impact of the budget 2007 on the telecom sector. But then, I really am not a financial analyst. And budget is all about money! So me too wanted to know what did the finance minister P Chidambaram have to say about the telecomm sector that has made a big bold presence all over India.

I found a good summary in Yahoo Finance.

Do let me know if the link stops working.