Mobiles - A 'last mile' success story!
Published by Mysorean on Friday, August 12, 2005 at 9:30:00 pm.
I still remember the hostel days during my undergrad when I used to walk upto an STD booth and wait in a queue to call up home for the customary once per week call. It's wierd that most of the times I would not call home and be comfortable with myself. Anyway, that's a different topic altogether. The point is there was something called an STD booth that was an integral part of my weekly routine. The presence of a routine is highly questionable you say? I agree unconditionally!
We were a gang of four as you have gangs during your student days. We always lived in our own world. Never bothered about what was happening to other gangs, or rather I should say that we were not even aware of who the other gangs were made up of! It was not arrogance, it was just a sign of how beautifully we complemented each other. We didn't need to look beyond the four of us for anything.
It was the flower of friendship that bloomed and has now grown into a well-nurtured plant of eight years old. I shall write in detail about our friendship some other time. Just to give an idea: Our autograph books (we never signed for each other) are filled by various people. There was one comment that has stayed in my mind very strongly. "It's surprising to see such pure friendship in today's world of opportunistic connections. Sometimes, I have felt envious of your gang and wanted to be a part of it. Such was the bond that you guys shared".
Yesterday, we had a conference call that kp (Krishnaprasad) enabled. Sam (Sameer, IITB) and I joined in. The other guy (Shastri) was on his way to his native. So, we couldn't get him into the call. We talked for about an hour. Needless to say, it went off as if it was 10 minutes. At the end of it, Sam wished us happy anniversary. This guy has this knack of remembering all kinds of dates. (One example: October 11th 1997, Sam and Adi met for the second time in the CET counselling cell, Bangalore! Of course, I don't remember the right date!) Both of were as usual waiting in silence for him to announce the Red Letter Day! But this time, Sam had a date that would hit the right emotional chord!August 14th was the day that our final sem exams had begun! Our last exam together.
After a lot of emotional discussion we arrived at one question. Did we ever think that we will be conversing over a conference call with each of us on our cell phones in the three metros? It was definitely out of our imagination at that point of time. As even cell phones were quite a technological fantasy for us. Today, merely 4 years from that day (only from the technological point of view please! We feel we have been away from each other for decades!), see where we are in terms of technology? We have cell phones. We are talking from our respective homes in our cities through a conference call! ?Undreamt of when we started our engineering!
Since, I was talking about the 'last mile' syndrome that India is affected with. Here is a standing example of how we can overcome the problem. The cellphone industry overtook the number of landlines in the country within 5 years of their entry into the market. As a market, we have totally skipped the landline lifecycle and have directly entered the cellphone or the mobile industry as we calll it.
BSNL, Airtel and Hutch are the primary players in the GSM arena. While Reliance and Tata Indicom are the prime movers in the CDMA sector. The combined coverage is astounding. The call rates is one of the lowest in the World. With Hutch introducing the STD Hutch to Hutch at Re. 1, the price war has now entered new ground. To even think where this will lead to is just so exciting. We are at 58 million handsets (I remember reading this somewhere. I am not good with numbers. Please do confirm if you have the right figures). The potential is estimated to be atleast 200 million more. With price points falling (of handsets and call rates) with increasing volumes, the Indian Mobile Industry is a space to watch out for! All of us stand to be benefitted.
Tomorrow: Gold! Ahoy!
We were a gang of four as you have gangs during your student days. We always lived in our own world. Never bothered about what was happening to other gangs, or rather I should say that we were not even aware of who the other gangs were made up of! It was not arrogance, it was just a sign of how beautifully we complemented each other. We didn't need to look beyond the four of us for anything.
It was the flower of friendship that bloomed and has now grown into a well-nurtured plant of eight years old. I shall write in detail about our friendship some other time. Just to give an idea: Our autograph books (we never signed for each other) are filled by various people. There was one comment that has stayed in my mind very strongly. "It's surprising to see such pure friendship in today's world of opportunistic connections. Sometimes, I have felt envious of your gang and wanted to be a part of it. Such was the bond that you guys shared".
Yesterday, we had a conference call that kp (Krishnaprasad) enabled. Sam (Sameer, IITB) and I joined in. The other guy (Shastri) was on his way to his native. So, we couldn't get him into the call. We talked for about an hour. Needless to say, it went off as if it was 10 minutes. At the end of it, Sam wished us happy anniversary. This guy has this knack of remembering all kinds of dates. (One example: October 11th 1997, Sam and Adi met for the second time in the CET counselling cell, Bangalore! Of course, I don't remember the right date!) Both of were as usual waiting in silence for him to announce the Red Letter Day! But this time, Sam had a date that would hit the right emotional chord!August 14th was the day that our final sem exams had begun! Our last exam together.
After a lot of emotional discussion we arrived at one question. Did we ever think that we will be conversing over a conference call with each of us on our cell phones in the three metros? It was definitely out of our imagination at that point of time. As even cell phones were quite a technological fantasy for us. Today, merely 4 years from that day (only from the technological point of view please! We feel we have been away from each other for decades!), see where we are in terms of technology? We have cell phones. We are talking from our respective homes in our cities through a conference call! ?Undreamt of when we started our engineering!
Since, I was talking about the 'last mile' syndrome that India is affected with. Here is a standing example of how we can overcome the problem. The cellphone industry overtook the number of landlines in the country within 5 years of their entry into the market. As a market, we have totally skipped the landline lifecycle and have directly entered the cellphone or the mobile industry as we calll it.
BSNL, Airtel and Hutch are the primary players in the GSM arena. While Reliance and Tata Indicom are the prime movers in the CDMA sector. The combined coverage is astounding. The call rates is one of the lowest in the World. With Hutch introducing the STD Hutch to Hutch at Re. 1, the price war has now entered new ground. To even think where this will lead to is just so exciting. We are at 58 million handsets (I remember reading this somewhere. I am not good with numbers. Please do confirm if you have the right figures). The potential is estimated to be atleast 200 million more. With price points falling (of handsets and call rates) with increasing volumes, the Indian Mobile Industry is a space to watch out for! All of us stand to be benefitted.
Tomorrow: Gold! Ahoy!
