Opera Mini

http://imgur.com/PZwCF

If you look carefully, bulk of the developing and the underdeveloped countries utilize the mobile web to access social networking sites. US (and some other developed economies) are lower down the scale.

Interestingly, the data transferred per user is a pathetic 7 MB (averaged over the month perhaps?) which means that operators are still being generous with their limits. However,  this is a crude approximation. For once, we have a clear proof that mobile internet is definitely a part of their value added services kitty but is NOT the revenue driver for them. They are offering it because there is no alternative.

This also explains their aggressive stance to get the 3G spectrum; primarily to add more voice customers than to offer data services.

If you look at the snapshot of the popular phones, Nokia is still leading the pack but majority of them are NOT smartphones. These java based handsets are pathetic in terms of functionality and at best useful for “checking the status updates” on Facebook.

A surprise entry is that of “Micromax” handset; they have capitalized on aggressive marketing and low price entry point.

Unfortunately, this does not portend good for the broadband initiatives. A cursory glance at the top sites (Google leads the pack) is only indicative. Google has benefited from being the default search engine on the browser and hence the port of call for any search. I barely use my handset for GPRS (or EDGE) for web surfing because smartphones (and their form factor) is basically useless to transact anything useful. For me, the only reason to invest is for email.

Nevertheless, this report can again be questioned in terms of “growth of users”. It is not clear about how the methodology has been arrived at and what has constituted the “growth in real terms”. However, one thing is clear. Most of the web sites focused on Indian content don’t have mobile strategies to counter the growth in the user base. Pathetic.

Indeed, with majority of the young adults unable to read/write or even engage in meaningful conversations on Indian polity, this “dumbification” was expected.

Facebook, although shows some presence (in terms of mobile access), mobile broadband is still “not hot” in US of A. There could be myriad factors but then Opera’s state of web access is best a “snapshot” of the handsets and it’s deal with the OEM‘s to bundle the product.

Related articles

• New mobile Web Google Maps highlights sorry state of native iOS app (arstechnica.com)
• Small world on small screens (opera.com)
• Google Maps For Mobile Updates With More Features (techie-buzz.com)
• Half of India uses Internet only through Mobile [Infographic] (trak.in)
• Mobile Web Content in East Africa [Report] (whiteafrican.com)
• Mobile Web in India grows 308% – Micromax one of the most popular mobiles to access Internet (trak.in)
• Opera to supply its mobile browser solution to Spreadtrum (opera.com)
• Book Review: Professional Mobile Web Development (books.slashdot.org)
• Web App Masters: Native or Web-Based Mobile Apps? (lukew.com)
• Maxis customers to surf the Internet up to six times faster with the Maxis-Opera Mini browser (opera.com)
• Opera Mini now sports Indian content by default! (trak.in)
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• Google revamps Google Maps browser edition for iOS and Android (mobile-ent.biz)
• Saatchi mobile marketer: Mobile web is better value than apps (briefingmedia.wordpress.com)
• State of the Mobile Web (francescofederico.net)
• Why I’m Not Excited About Mobile Applications (samirbalwani.com)
• 58% Of Mobile Web Users Get Their Content Fix Through Browsers: Jumptap (techcrunch.com)
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I could give a rebuttal to each and every slide posted here.

And of course, it’s not hunky dory. So despite the huge potential (because of population), why are we not seeing the explosion of opportunity in this space?

Fact is that VAS (value added service) is an unproven concept. In the Indian market, no one wants to risk out a potential investment of crores before finding out that this is a dead dodo. I don’t have authentic figures for the existing services available and in any case, no one releases them publicly as a matter of fact. It is safe to presume that VAS is a market that never took off beyond the “ring tones” market. It is unlikely that we are going to see any action in this space in the near future. Indian mobile “revolution” is seriously voice based though.

The same analogy holds true for the data services (GPRS and 3G) as well.

I have written about it extensively earlier (Do have a look at the related entries).

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• XOP Networks Introduces Mobile Service Provider Value Added Services (VAS) Package (prweb.com)
• My Mobile Interview: Scope of Indian language in VAS (mahesh.com)
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• Reliance to launch VAS for Indian rural community (globalthoughtz.com)
• Mobile Content: Where the f*** it is? (broadbandblog.in)
• Mobile based location services (broadbandblog.in)
• Indian government considers cellphone tracking as part of National Telecom Policy (thenextweb.com)
• Limbo (chloewantstobechic.wordpress.com)
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NYT has a “poigant coverage” of Vodafone India. It gets some facts right. Vodafone is embroiled in a legal case stuck in Supreme court regarding tax evasion. I am not aware of the complexities but Vodafone is still awaiting the final decision.

The second fact is about heavy investments in advertising. If you can’t make up for anything else, scale up the bullshit and so goes the Vodafone’s motto.

Now comes how NYT is unable to refine the issues.

It says,

Vodafone has also been trying to get higher-paying customers on board, by offering monthly unlimited service for BlackBerry users, for example, for 899 rupees ($19.98). But all mobile companies compete fiercely for BlackBerry users, and at around a million people, they make up just a sliver of India’s population of 1.2 billion.

Vodafone has the WORST package in terms of data access. Period. If they feel that they can scale up the revenues by trying to milk the “blackberry” users, they are obviously mistaken and have their heads up their asses.

Vittorio Colao, Vodafone’s chief executive, alternates between enthusiasm and frustration when discussing India. The country’s “communicative, talkative society is the ideal ground for a communications company,” he said in a telephone interview.
At the same time, he said, “in the Indian regulatory system sometimes there is a tendency to see the telecom sector as a lemon to be squeezed.”

Fuck you moron. No one asked you to come here to try and lick the regulator’s ass. If you feel frustrated, leave the damned country. I would have nothing do with your screwed up zoozoo (or whatever contraption you have invented).

Oh here comes the veiled threat: (emphasis mine)

Despite their travails, Vodafone executives say they are committed to India. But they hint that they may rethink things if they are still left with a multibillion-dollar tax bill after the Supreme Court decision this summer.
“We like India, it is an important part of Vodafone; but we need to be reassured that it is a business-friendly environment,” Mr. Colao said. “For the time being we continue to invest.”

Hmmm. Business environment is as good as the fact that a company complies with local laws. If Vodafone decides to evade the tax (as per the Indian tax authorities), then the tax people have a good enough reason. Why should vodafone try and evade the taxes and not play along with what’s fair?

I’d be happy to see it rid of the damned pug and the zoozoo.

If Vodafone is so keen to grow “organically or inorganically” (whatever the fuck that means), they need to listen to their customers first. Arguably, not hide behind a customer care unit, bring in transparency and open up the VAS. For example, there is a huge disconnect in the price for Internet access in pre-paid and post paid segment. How come? In any case, the GPRS sucks (as an end user, I’d never touch this with a barge pole), their VAS is pretty useless.

I’d try and focus something on Content issues later; how mobile customers get shortchanged and what is the possible way out. Seriously, their Indian team needs to gird up because giving service is not a cake walk.

If some dingbat from NYT is reading this, first ascertain your facts. There is lot of PR bullshit mentioned in your write ups; before you hold up the mirror for “responsible journalism”. So far, Vodafone has grown taking advantage of lax regulations (by crowing about continued business interests) but customers are being blatantly ripped off.

I would strongly suggest to avoid Vodafone because it’s post paid plans get pretty expensive in the long run if you use the data services because as they mentioned, they like to squeeze their customers like lemons.

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• Impressive Marketing, the ‘ZooZoo’ Style (globalthoughtz.com)
• Spat Delaying Vodafone’s India Tower Assets Sale (online.wsj.com)
• Vodafone says OK with Essar IPO of Indian JV stake (reuters.com)
• Will Vodafone discard the Zoozoo? (adpunch.org)
• India court defers hearing on Essar Telecoms merger to April 1 (reuters.com)
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The beauty of the mobile browser is that it is cross platform. I have covered this browser (for mobiles) in earlier write ups too but I think the most significant advance is the pinch to zoom that has come in Opera Mini.

I am currently upgrading the app from Android Market; nevertheless, I suspect that financial agreement with Google stays. Of course, you could always sync with Opera Mobile (the buliker cousin minus the “pre-fetching” of content), but I prefer Mini because in India, the GPRS sucks. I think Opera has a lot to gain with HTML 5 specifications. This would eliminate Flash completely and possibly deliver the videos in real time reducing the overheads in terms of infrastructure.

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Forget the statistics, the “key words” or even foward looking statements. Although strictly not under the purview of the blog, mobile Internet has attracted the attention of lot of people. Even though, it cannot support the applications that a true broadband needs (due to inherent limitations of medium), it is perceived to be cheaper than laying down optic fibre cables. The existing mobile towers can be rejigged and made to serve the customers with fewer incremental investments.

In any case, this again is a reflection of state of mobile internet in India. Opera has launched Appia powered Mobile App Store which would serve the needs for “apps”. I am not aware of how the apps are coded but perhaps they are platform agnostic.

Opera Mini is on a roll. Not only they have a clear dominance in over 200 countries but a simple elegant Java powered mobile app is awesome. I have used it on my Android and can testify to it’s usefulness. Infact, it is easy to download and run it on an emulator and use it tethered to your GPRS handset.

Mini has also been sucessful over it’s mobile counterparts (or something like BOLT which are alternatives in mobile space) for one simple reason; it’s ability to compress the data and serve it to end user. So far, they have not mentioned about the huge amount of data flowing in through their data centre but nevertheless, they would be willing to scale up, build profiles (if I am not mistaken, best way out would be individually numbering each download) and then serve it up for targetted advertisments. It is all a matter of scale.

On the flip side, it’s petition in EU against Microsoft has not really worked “the wonders” that it was required to. It’s desktop share is still a pathetic 2% worldwide despite being ahead in the innovation game. I am using Firefox 4 presently (nightly builds) and can testify that it is one of most significant advances in the history of open source browsers. Though Web Kit based browsers are cool (over proprietary engines like Presto- which again is a matter of debate), I can see some real heavy lifting done by Firefox; be it in extension development or all around stability fixes.

At least, on my Linux Mint installation (with a few other extensions) it is a great product; in consonance with Thunderbird, the migration to Open Source is complete.

Getting back to Opera, it still needs to tone up it’s work flow. At least, that seems to be a despondent mood on the forums/ news groups. After sticking out years crowing about web standards (yes, they are important) but persistent arguments about Acid 3 compliance and being the “fastest” out their are wearing thin. I care not about the fancy “tests” for they have no meaning for me as far as the page is rendered on my useless BSNL. I see the lag where it matters the most and is hurting Opera users.

Still, I wish them the best for their app store which would be a significant gain of revenues; it could have been implemented with some form of micropayments (which would be a pain to implement it) in an ecosystem where there is no clear defined “way out”. App based advertisments (like Angry Birds for Android) is surely a way to go.

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This news has come in from FastCompany

As it says:
The Webbox is externally just a 14cm by 25cm QWERTY keyboard that has an RCA cable dangling from its rear–this coaxial cable will connect to a domestic TV tuned to a particular channel, and lets Webbox content appear on its screen. Inside it’s pretty sophisticated, with the guts of a 3G smartphone powering it–it runs over EDGE or 2.5G networks to get its data, and leverages Opera’s Mini browser suite (which compresses web pages to much smaller file sizes remotely) to ensure that the data burden on cell phone networks is low–which is good for low-income users and struggling cell networks alike–and that the device works swiftly.

It is an interesting concept. It combines a ‘mobile telephony’ through 2.5G (or horrors of horrors through GPRS) and thence output through your television.

I have run Opera Mini on my laptop through Java Emulator; it’s brilliant access at times when I don’t have access to Wifi. This Internet TV is something similar in it’s approach although they have routed the output through a usual TV.

However, this is not the end all. Heavy Java Script sites would not work; although the demo is not clear, Opera Mini is expected to run the mobile versions alone; this is not a very pleasant experience.

What gets my goose is that India has been lumped with the bygone nations -Kenya, Ghana and others. This only reflects their “poverty of thought” and generalized assholism. I am not a fan of Vodafone at all; despite their slick advertisements, it does nothing to “serve” it’s customers and perhaps one of the worst telecom companies. Nevertheless, this is a good innovation; it remains to be see how well they are able to capitalize on this, if and when it is launched.

Oh by the way, expect some rather crude “download limits”; these buggers are going to charge you per kb. Their billing systems are pathetic and try wrangling out the details from their customer care executives. You’d be appalled.

Last but not the least. Beyond certain “platitudes” and ass licking in the media (with crumbs thrown at the journalists and news papers), I really doubt whether they would have a mass market for it. They could have easily loaded up Opera Mobile instead.

And yes, as the dingbat in the advertisement says about “technological leap”, it isn’t so. The mobile phone circuits (and the RAM) is cheap with an output for the TV and external keyboard. It’s not big deal but it’s a good idea.

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I am not here to be a party pooper but if you look at the profile of the countries where broadband is a laggard, it speaks for itself. It only reflects a huge pent up demand for a “regular internet” than a crippled version of the mobile internet.

The beauty of Opera is that it’s available for a huge range of handsets; including java based crapware that is lowly bottom of the end stuff. Agreed that most people cannot afford a smartphone (it’s an overkill), still it reflects the pattern of usage.

This is bound to create a lot of interest for advertising which surprisingly Opera has been able to keep it as a free platform. Although I have tried the beta version of their mobile browser on Android, there is nothing to write home about; I invariably fall back on the Mini version. In case I have to tether my useless Docomo GPRS to my laptop, I use an emulator which makes checking email and going through some mobile optimized web site easily.

This also means that the desktop version is going to lag in “love”; something that Opera employees deny strongly. As a company, it has one of the worst outreach towards it’s customers; try getting the contact details of the key people. They seem to have “hired” forum trolls because any word of criticism is hushed up immediately or the forum thread locked up. Their extensions are bare bones (unlike the Chromium API which is fairly stable) and does not allow interaction with the key features of the browser.

This isn’t technical debate about how the browser wars play out in the real web but in my opinion, Chromium (on Linux) is perceptibly fast. Although Firefox Beta has seen a wonderful improvement over it’s previous versions but it’s useless implementation of extensions means that a bare bones browser is as good as useless.

Ironically, this post on Opera is made using Chromium; I use Feedly (intermittently for RSS Feeds), Google Reader with a focussed tab and souped up with wonderful extensions to make my life easier when going through over 500 articles per day. I have (yes, wonderful) Thunderbird for IMAP Access; although a bit of pain to focus on one window to another but Opera has screwed (and fucked) up it’s Mail implementation.

Hope that opera now implements it’s Fastmail acquisition properly. If I can read the tea leaves properly, Opera would want to leverage itself as a “leading brand for mobile applications/other than desktop” category. Primarily reason is that internet access is now moving away (slowly and steadily) from the desktop/laptop combination. With huge profit base in the mobile applications, I see that there is no reason to innovate on the Linux/BSD/alternative platforms over a period of time.

That’s where Chromium is slowly becoming the centre stage; with a slow but steady shift to cloud computing as a platform. Mobile access is one part of the key in this game.

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Docomo was supposed to launch it’s 3G services from today but it remains a classic example of how NOT to do things. First and foremost is that there ought to be a clear line of communication about the services, what it entails, the expected costs and charges and how the existing GPRS users are going to be migrated to 3G. Common sense dictates that customer care should be informed accordingly and be trained instead of a dumb shit moron trying to answer the queries from “educated and enlightened customers”. Instead, Docomo has failed to inform me in advance about the same. I registered for their “newsletter” but it seems that their backend has conked off. Who is their provider? IBM? Pooh pooh.

Spewing out the venom is not going to help here and neither going to make a difference to the dodos sitting at the top. But we have some expectation from a company that has made a big name for itself in Japan. Yet, at the same time, one should not forget that it is a the Tata’s pedigree which is at work and they are known to pick up the worst among the best for manning their services. This is reflected in their thought process, their work and general approach to telecom services.

Ideally, instead of ham handed approach, they ought to have been clear and transparent. They should have clearly mentioned the service areas, the expectations from their service, the expected speeds and network and the possible charges.

I have always opposed the 3G services and instead always argued for stepping up investments in wireline. The major reason is that 3G can support “fast speeds” but is limited to spectrum and when more customers join the party, it is going to be a major disaster for the company. This has been seen in mature markets where 3G is synonymous with pathetic services. Further, high costs for “unlimited access” is plain stealing. No one likes the crap of “fair usage policies”. For most, GPRS is decent approach because mobile broadband sucks.

Lets see what the company has to offer and how it plans to market it. It has set up a separate page for the same and I am wondering who okayed this kind of pure crap. (with loads of grammatical errors and mistyped words- emphasis mine).

Here’s from the horse’s mouth:

Now DO the new with 3G, at a refreshingly fast pace. Coming from the world leaders in 3G, Tata DOCOMO 3G is an all-new way to experience life on the go!
Life on 3G is definitely fastera, richer & exciting. With Tata DOCOMO 3G, your mobile phone is no more just a device that makes calls – it””s a TV, a theatre, a gaming console and a satellite camera all at once. Do much more with your smartphone than you ever imagined!

Now can anyone of these dumb fucks ever care to explain about “satellite camera”? PMSL

It also makes tall claims about playing “3D games”. And it speaks about “better network security”. WHOA!!

Here’s one for starters:

Selection_001 –

Here’s another monstrosity:

Selection_002 –

Instead of a cluster fcuk of news with overdrive of PR agencies to bombard the message, Docomo should be clear of what they want. Assholes.

I suspect that some research agency is behind their PR efforts. Here is what one dumb fcuk had to say about Tata Docomo 3G on DNA (Newspaper) and I quote:

Sujay Misra, managing director of AZ Research Partners, says one of the reasons for this is their subscriber-base is predominantly low-end. “You need to have the right instrument (high-end mobiles and smartphones) to get access to 3G services. Also, BSNL and MTNL have not bothered to educate their customers about the 3G services,” he said.

Really? Why would they even bother to put you on print? This is what you get from paying your way through, you moron?

Hence, Tata Docomo is a MONUMENTAL FAILURE even before it has seen it’s commercial activity. There are people crowing about this company getting it’s “first mover advantage” but other companies in the fray are investing in 3G for spectrum and more customers. Data services are not even on their minds. The reason? There is no dedicated system for “apps” and they are sold as “value added services” to shore up “extra revenue” but not at the expense of voice calls. They still make profits on voice calls. This is a heterogeneous market and no one size fits all. Despite the marketing chutzpah, voice still remains bread, butter (and jam) for these companies. Give or take SMS.

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3G is expected because of the “faster speeds” to access online. The current crop of GPRS providers sucks like a fly sitting on a pile of shit. Most of the operators are milking it to the hilt because there are no “established standards”.

Madmoron and his team have no control over the rampaging idiot called as Raja; the public exchequer has already borne the brunt of his mad policies while his swiss bank accounts would have multiplied manifold.

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I still cannot understand the “mobile story” and “fastest growth” crap. More and more people are migrating towards parallel connections instead of the trickle down effect as expected. Agreed that “lifetime incoming offers” have appealed to the segment of population who keep their mobiles only for incoming calls, the precentage is far and few inbetween. We have no break up of the demographic profile and if the trends are to be seen, much of the money and the effort is being poured in the metros where there is more of a spending power as compared to other cities.

I have three telephone connections; one for regular use, the other a landline for broadband access and the thrid for calling up other Reliance numbers. Overall, I fail to understand as to how they would account for the “churn” or the “fastest growing segment” because I have never been enamoured of using the VAS. The operators know that there bread and butter segment is the voice calls and I am sure that they would implement the VoIP solutions to cut down on their costs. Everything else is flotsam and media generated hype.

In the same vein, most of the other handset manufacturers are clearly not making any efforts to address the cost of the handsets. Barring the advertising costs, if they implement open source solutions for the newer PDA’s, it can reduce the cost of the handsets to a large extent. Google’s Android would effect this to a large extent; though, I would reserve my comments on it till the time I actually get to use it. It’s still in the nascent stage; I am sure it would mature with the next release as they learn from their mistakes.

Vodafone has not addressed the GPRS connection charges; I still have to come across a reliable operator who can ensure a seamless connectivity across the major highways. I would want to access the Internet on a long boring journey; it remains a pathetic experience to even open up the mailbox. I don’t favor the mobile net on the move partly because of my bais for broadband and partly because it’s assinine to peer in the small screen. Unless of course, one has an iPhone and Safari which makes it a pleasure to surf on the small screen. Brilliant conceptual implementation.

The elections are nearing and I am keeping my fingers crossed for some semblance of the maturity on the following government to provide a clear direction to the broadband access and policy. We can do a lot more once we have a reliable connectivity. We dont need fancy laptops for kids in rural India to demonstrate the “modern with rural” mating. Its assinine to pour in money for something which just remains a showcase and earns you f***ing brownie points for “corporate social responsibility”.

This is just a loose string of thoughts as I was travelling back down. Although, it is a fascinating experience to see the rural landscape change. We realise that there is a lot of untapped potential and there is a chance to “change”.

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They have a lousy network and I have been experiencing frequent call drops and network congestion to connect to other operators. They have among the worst tariffs for GPRS access and it’s a nightmare to get them to respond to simple queries. I am entitled to my opinion for all practical purposes.

Unfortunately, despite the littany of complaints, it becomes very difficult to communicate the change of phone number to other people. I have a feeling that the regulatory watchdog should come up with a solution like detailing the network parameters and perhaps a survey which measures the various parameters of the service operator like complaint handling etc.

I was surprised to read that any complaint being sent to the Appellate Authority needs to be sent in “duplicate” and that it takes 3 months for the complaint to be resolved. 3 months! I’d be better off minus their services.

I have just emailed to their nodal officer and got an auto reply saying that they need two working days to respond. I shall be updating their responses here on the blog. Let the world know what they are up to.

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Nokia 6300,

This is my latest acquistion after considering a lot of other factors. The recent price cuts also fuelled the decision to buy one.

I have had an excellent review of this handset; my sibling was using this handset for the past 1 year and reported no loss of functionality with it. It has a brilliant colour screen which makes it readbale in full daylight.

I wouldn’t go in the technical specifications; what got me interested was that it comes with Opera Mini preloaded. Unfortunately, my current service provider, Vodafone, has one of the lousiest GPRS access with sky high rates for access. This makes it unviable in the present context.

It would be worthwhile to shift to Reliance GSM, as and when they launch and when the number portability kicks in. It doesn’t get better than this, isnt it? You get to retain your number and expect to look in for a better service.

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Apple announced opening up their development platform by releasing their Software Development Kit. Anyone with coding knowledge would be able to design the applications for the same. Apple being Apple, has also announced support for Microsoft Exchange; in effect it is aiming for a slice of corporate market for push email services aka Blackberry. (Read another excellent write up here)

I would risk my own set of predictions; Apple would be looking forward to upgrade the hardware and offer higher capacity drives and 3G compatible handsets. It would then kick some ass. And make it worthwhile for me to buy one too as a productivity tool.

Frankly, the current crop of handsets is disappointing. There is no doubt about the technological developments making mobile phones as a true convergence device but the proof of pudding is eating it. Frankly, their software is clunky and most of them have slow response times enough to make you yawn. With Intel’s launch of low power chips, that should make a difference.

Nokias lack the “cool factor” because they are seen around with everyone. There is no air of exclusivity with them. I’d rather be caught dead with a Chinese branded handset; although most of the lower end handsets from Nokia are rebranded Chinese or Taiwanese throwaways. Interestingly, Nokia and other handset manufacturers can easily sustain the price cuts over a period of time; they make a killing in the initial months of launch.

Apple iPhone would grow on the mania and frenzy created in the market place. If you have buckets of money and don’t have an Apple, it’s of no use. I’d agree about getting a diamond studded Vertu and getting a personal concierge on beck and call, but that’s too uncool and very very dry. iPhone is hip; much like the old world charm of listening to Black Sabbath and smoking grass. I endorse Black Sabbath but not grass though. Yes, you get the drift.

When would anyone get this here in India?

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If Sunil Bharti Mittal is not shitting in his pants yet, he is the biggest moron in the industry. Reliance would be smart enough to upstage the existing players by slashing the costs ruthlessly. I am sure they would sweeten the deals with subsidised handsets or may even give them free initially. Imagine the multiplier effect it would have! They would make their money with locked in handsets and if I can see the situation right, they would go in for bottom of the pyramid where the real voumes lie. Unlike Airtel which has not been able to differentiate it’s offerings or establish it’s brand identity or the typical South Delhi crowd that ohhs aahh’s about the Vodafone screwed up pug. You get the drift.

Raja changed the rules of the game. Videocon (and notice the word “con”) too joined in the fray. Dhoot Sahib is the newest entrant to the millionaire club though would appeal to a typical pan chewing marwari unlike Bharti Mittal who gets himself invited to fancy conclaves. Dhoot too has the foresight to hit below the belt; even though he is an also ran in the electronics market, he has enough foresight to cash out his investment and make a neat pile. Interestingly, a company called as Swan Telecom has been allocated spectrum. I have heard (from my sources) that it is a front end for Reliance only.

In the game of shakers and movers, Airtel can look forward to monetise it’s investment in fixed line telephony. Even though there is a lot of brouhaha about the 3G licences on stake, it would not happen overnight. India is a volumes market and GPRS/EDGE is seriously a load of bull crap multiplied several times over. 3G handsets wouldn’t be affordable atleast for the next 5 years and crowing about Mbps wireless speeds makes no sense. Atleast to me. Unless we speak of Wifi networks in public places. Of course, being powered by fixed lines….

Raja has done a great deal of disservice to the nation by not auctioning off the spectrum. It’s difficult to quantify the exact money that has played in here. We need to know as to why cross over licence was given to the select few. Further, GSM companies have had to eat crow for their insistence on subscriber linked spectrum allocation and for too long they have been getting away with it. When TRAI declared that the subscriber’s number should be 2-3 times the existing number (and all kinds of Government agencies came into limelight to ascertain the spectrum issue), the companies had to sit back and huddle in silence.

The next move is being planned by smart ass lawyers who are going to make a killing in the next few weeks. The legal eagles would surely feast on this unholy carcass.

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I remain opposed to foreign interests in a vital sector like telecom and there is no way I can ever endorse the idea that they should remain in this nation. Having a pug as your mascot only means that this company has gone to the dogs.

It was stupid of them to launch an advertising blitzkreig to change everything to pink. And now everything to be changed to Vodafone. Oh boy! They surely have a lot of money to burn. Incidentally, their website is full of coding errors and cannot even render itself properly across a standard compliant browser like Opera.

I dont think that Vodafone would be able to really shake up the telecom industry. They would remain behind Airtel for times to come unless they consolidate and dish out something worthwhile. Maybe unlimited GPRS or something exciting in their portal. At times I wonder as to how a company can make oodles of money selling caller tunes. Or something like an exclusive deal for Apple iPhone. I am sure there are many to sink in their money for that overpriced gadget.

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Depsite “millions of broadband hooked subscribers”, the Internet penetration in India remains a measly 0.04%. This has been because of the short sighted policies adopted by the Government. When they realised that it wouldn’t be feasible to service the wireline, ISP’s of all hues are now are crowing about the WiMax as the next best thing to have happened to Indians for Internet access. I see beaming executives go to that “extra” mile to ensure that the word gets hammered about the all pervasive Internet access. And understandably so. They are only concenterating in metros and class A cities. This means that the poor guy getting his fix of porn in Jhumritalliya via dial up Internet would still have to wait for atleast another generation before Broadband reaches him.

This becomes interesting. Much of the energy is being squandered away in setting up parallel networks. Railways has a HUGE optic fibre network and while there was a lot of hue and cry about spinning off a seperate arm to provide a backbone, nothing seems to have come off it. While most of us are still bandwidth starved for online applications. Guys, if speeds of 2 MBps are “fast” enough, imagine what Gigabits speeds would do to your Internet access.

Spectrum issues are difficult to get rid off. It is next to impossible to imagine a situation when Indians would think rationally. It is a “me too” syndrome affecting all the nuts who control your access to Internet. Reliance, VSNL (yeah, those morons too), BSNL (the bastardised sonofabitch of Department of Telecom) and what not are jumping in the fray. I read about BSNL were holding trials in Pune. What came of it?

There are people who claim about selling Wimax “enabled” notebooks to ensure “always on” connectivity. If I am not mistaken, Intel has sunk in millions to create a “standard” for Wireless access and their future stock prices (and hence profits) hinge on the early adoption of this “standard”. I condemn this for all practical purposes. Because, we would be locked in a certain format and the airwaves are a public property. How the F*** they decide to dictate us the laws of the game? In my opinion, the Wireless Access Standards should be based on Open Source (if there is any) so that the public property remains in it’s hands. Since the custodians in the form of Government have already sold off their souls to the Devil incarnate, it makes no sense to petition to them. Yet what the F*** the media watchdogs are doing?

A single company by virtue of it’s dominance should not be allowed to rule the airwaves just the way it is doing. In a way, all these companies would have to pay their “taxes” to the “patent holder” and we would be subsidising their efforts. A sad scene anyway.

In any case, the Wireless Internet sucks. It would be a novelty indeed but ask those people who have been using GPRS enabled handsets to access Internet. With snailish speeds (if the access can be called as a speed), it is akin to two snails “f***ing” away to glory. And trust me, that takes forever and forever!

I hope that better sense prevails and wireline networks get rolled out to challange BSNL’s rat infested networks. This is the least I can expect; anything more would be a disaster!

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I believe that the future might as well belong the Blackberry like devices. They allow you to stay connected with your email- big deal really? It is an expensive toy (with expensive subcription fees) and comes as an add on to the moronish grey suited corporate types who act as if they are important. Arguably, Airtel wanted people to adopt this on a mass scale and recently reduced the rates for the same.

Reliance once held a promise of “fast download speeds of upto 144kbps”; though those who are spoilt for speeds (even though on so called wireline broadband) would find this a chore to connect to their email accounts. GPRS sucks majorly; even though this has been sweetened to some extent by the excellent Opera Mini browser. ( I would endorse Opera anyday). The best deal in Wireless remains for Wifi in India. I believe that community powered wireless, providing free access to the people (as opposed to the likes of frigging ISP’s like Sify) is the way to go. Jaipur is in the process of introducing the wireless Internet in the future and I shall be looking forward to know about it’s progress.

One of the reasons for this post was Mozilla’s chief commenting that mobile internet is a dead dodo. Even if they comments were quoted out of context, I am sure that there is a reason to give him a benefit of doubt. Mozilla sucks anyday as a browser and it is a clear cut case of grapes turning sour. Being beaten hollow in the browser innovations, Mozilla is sucking to whatever it can.

Meanwhile, Cingular is offering streaming video clips to it’s subscribers in US; thus ushering in the 3G networks in US. The content providers never had it so good. Though, I am seriously wondering as to who would want to watch the whole episode of Lost ( some kind of a sitcom which excites the brain dead Americans) on a teeny weeny screen. I am sure that content moghuls would find some more innovative ways to monetise their collections.

P.S. There are interesting articles posted on Business Standard though their URL’s don’t seem to last forever. I would definitely want to have permission to copy and paste their write ups. Does anyone know how to apply for the permission? Any information would be surely appreciated.

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Much like the classical “chicken and egg problem”, it is difficult to build up a case for higher speeds than current 256k. The biggest problem is that there is no built up ecosystem that could possibly sustain the need for content; higher speeds are not going to solve any problem.

For the same reason, the latency to access the game servers is horrendous. As I am told, it is timed in hundreds of milliseconds; which only means that local cache or game servers need to be set up within India to host the massive online multi player games.

However, higher speeds have no meaning for the gentle folk whose sole purpose is to check email or talk. Video Chats would be jittery, but those blue button hitting morons (who abound in abundance on the face of this earth) would hardly notice. I have personally seen people signing up for GPRS access just because their mobile supports that! Beyond that, their access is limited to chatting.

What can you do with higher speeds? Watch videos online? Anything else? File sharing? That is akin to shuffing up a chilli laden object up their backsides. Hence, they would only seek to block you actively. VoIP is good enough in 256k.

Hence, there has to be a strong case for MbPs. The demand has to be created by localised content developers. All this boils down to a very small installed computer base which would make it useless to invest money; something that is not guranteed to bring in the revenues in the short/ long term.

We could blame the PR spin and gibberish spouting from the telecom companies when they hold expensive campaigns and press conferences to crow about the ” in thing”. IPTV is an alien concept and has not been tested as yet on a large scale. Or the scale that Reliance has been talking all about.

This brings us to another question. Which is more important? Content or Distribution? Distribution is far more powerful; witness the near monopoly of your local cable operator and you’d know. They cannot be reined in and mafia money is invested heavily. In the tug of war between the content creators and distributors, it is the consumer who is forced to cough up huge sums and pay for the “paid channel” with ads screaming in full glory.

This is the reason why the majors have invested money in distribution. Zee has Dish TV and their Sity Cable; Star has it’s Hathway and to- be- launched DTH. Reliance has invested/ investing in it’s IPTV and DTH- Bluemagic.

Broadband or higher speeds could radically alter the contours of the content. In my opinion, the next progression would be towards the so called triple play. However, the current last mile access hassles means that laying down optic fibre cable would be an expensive proposition.

Unwittingly, we need to depend on BSNL to make any first move. Given it’s sloth that could shame a herniated tortoise, it can’t be expected in the near future.

Hence, I can only foresee being stuck in the 256k gamble with a awful capped upload, to be the order of the day. We could only swallow the insults they heap on whatever little intelligence we have.

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Spice. Among the first few mobile operators. It had licences in Punjab,Karnataka and West Bengal. They subsequently sold off the Calcutta circle to Airtel and concenterated on Punjab and Karnataka.

Priyanka Chopra is the current mascot for Spice. Despite her awful acting/ screen presence, she stares and smiles from bill board hoardings where street dogs pee every day. Including some species of humans. (Humanicus Indicus). This isn’t saying much for a company whose service levels have seen a massive nosedive in recent times. It is often joked that Spice is turning in another Cell One (the “sarkari cell phone service”). It is nothing to be proud of!

Hutch has consistently been showing a good performance. While it definitely trails behind the other operators, people have been sticking on to it like goo on the wall. In other words- loyalty to the company. However, their charges for GPRS access are atrocious which makes it a joke to call it as an access anyway. Rest all, it heavily advertises for it’s value added services and as a result need to re coup it’s ad spends. Stupidity? Or increased ad spends leading to higher usage? I have no firm answers.

However, there was a refreshing change from Spice to Hutch. The customer care numberwent in through the first attempt- a rarity otherwise in Spice. This happened a couple of times. The “executives” or the glorified idiots knew their work anyway. So, less of glorified idiots or higher up in the evolution scale.

Now, the initial impression with Hutch was good. They had a slick welcome booklet and obviously, they have taken great pains to communicate their product.They do have an website- however, painfully slow to respond to any queries. It’s been over 50 hours I sent a mail which hasn’t been replied to. That isn’t saying much for a company at all.

Spice was in the pits. With network congestion becoming worse day by day, it became a routine to see “Error in network”, “No network” et al. It almost reminded me of crashing Microsoft Windows. Just like it gave “fatal errors” and refused to budge. Of course, Linux is class apart….

I hope the impression with Hutch stays good. I d keep you informed

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This post is triggered by comments appearing in Indian Economy blog and a Financial Express story.

There is however a fatal flaw in assumptions. Has anyone cross checked or verified the numbers? The incremental growth in numbers is assumed to be static. The whole addition of the mobile subscribers is dynamic affair. Much like the addition of new subscribers or churn in the old ones.

Let’s see it this way. Absolute numbers mean nothing for the mobile telecom party. It’s hogwash and sadly people who report on these issues are ignoring this fact.

However, mobile telecom numbers shouldn’t be quantified in this manner; we need some alternative methodolgy. How do you account for the same person carrying different telephone connections; seasonal visitors et al. Statistics can be definitely misleading.

At the end of the day, it’s just the mobile congestion is getting worse with every passing day. That is a DEFINITE proof of growing numbers!

Intersting links while I stumbled on these blogs here:

Santosh makes a pertinent observation that VoIP should be brought in to play an increasing role in the mobile revolution.

However, I personally feel that it won’t happen. First, the existing service providers have cartelised and it would be very difficult to break through the existing entry barriers. Any new incumbent would have to scale up; it would ahve made sense in underserved areas but “lucrative cities” are a strict no no now.

I really wonder whether the telecom equipment behemoths would have VoIP equipment to retail to these operators. They are happy to pander their own technology and earn royalties. Since there is no competition in the real sense of the term, innovations aren’t welcome.

GSM at best can be scaled up to WAP, GPRS or the 3G services. All for “faster” downloads. Does that really translate in better customer experience? So far, GPRS et al haven’t shown that to be possible; I am deeply circumspect about 3G roll out. Plus, GSM is inefficient user of spectrum.

So, VoIP would be good in theory for mobile networks; as for offering it on landlines it remains to be seen whether the existing arrangements would work or not. Suppose a Skype like thingy comes up; BSNL would be very happy to block it. Given it’s opposition to sense and sensibility.

Another link from Mr Dawra’s post was from BBC which said that Internet penetration can be increased by using Railways since they own huge amounts of fibre.

The main virtue of the plan is its ability to reuse the existing cable system, avoiding the time and cost of laying a fresh cabling network.The electrified railway tracks contain communications and control cabling, which almost always has spare capacity. This can now be exploited for sending modern telecommunications services to outlying areas.

With Prof.Jhunjhunwala at the helm of affairs, this is a sound idea.

He designed the CoRDECT systems- which is, I believe, based on CDMA for wireless Internet. As far as I know, HFCL Connect is using this system to offer wireless Internet.

So, the ideas abound; more than the numbers we need some action on ground.

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