Documentary:
India GSM Operator Tour
Kalla Muthuraghavan, Mobile Data Initiative, September 1998
Introduction
The Mobile Data Initiative (MDI) is an industry alliance founded by Intel and comprised of some of the world's leading mobile telecommunications and information technology. The MDI aims to drive mobile data adoption forward through infrastructure improvement, ease of use and standards compatibility.
MDI's vision is that mobile professionals can stay connected on the road and be as productive as they are in the office by having access to the same data and applications as in the office. In addition to the familiar mobile access method of plugging a laptop (via a modem) into a walljack, users can also connect wirelessly by using a laptop PC with a digital cellular phone. Either way, users can be mobile and continue performing tasks like exchanging e-mail, accessing corporate databases, browsing the Internet, and sending faxes. To achieve this, there needs to be a network in place and all the other components that make data usable on the network. MDI has been involved in widespread mobile data adoption and infrastructure improvement through its interoperability workshops, marketing and data testing activities.
As part of the MDI group, I used a recent trip to India to meet with local digital cellular operators as an opportunity to test wireless GSM roaming and data services in four of the major business regions of the country. To do this, I put myself in the place of a businessperson traveling around India with my mobile PC and GSM phone, to experience first-hand how well wireless data works in different regions. For cities to visit, I chose Bangalore, Bombay, New Delhi, and Madras, since they represent major business hubs in India. Here is an account.
Getting Started
I arrived in Bangalore equipped with a GSM cellular phone and SIMs from two European network operators. (A SIM is a Subscriber Identification Module - a "smart card" inside the phone that identifies your account to the network, authenticates it and allows appropriate billing.) I also had a Toshiba Tecra* laptop and two phones - a Nokia 8110 and an Ericsson SH 888. To connect my Nokia phone to my laptop, I had a Nokia data card (that slides into the PCMCIA Type II slot) and a cable. To connect my Ericsson phone, I used the IRDA port. I also tried out the Nokia CardPhone*, which is a combined data modem and cellular phone in one card that plugs into the laptop.
International Roaming
The first thing I did upon disembarking the plane at Bangalore was, as always, to switch on my GSM phone with hopes of seeing ‘ROAMING’ appear on the screen. If it did so, this would indicate that my European operator has a roaming agreement with the local Indian operator to allow customers to "roam" in each other’s networks, with billing back to the customer’s home carrier. Sadly, the local networks turned down both my Finnish and German SIMs, leaving me incommunicado, at least for the time being. This turned out to also be the case upon arriving in Bombay, Delhi, and Madras
Curious about the current state of international roaming with India, I asked several GSM operators I met during the trip what roaming they presently supported and what their plans were for the future. The answers were the same; many operators indicated that they are currently working on roaming agreements with European and Asian Operators such as SingTel, Vodophone and France Telecom. Testing is scheduled with international operators late '98 and ‘99. (I made note of this for my next trip.)
The fact that international roaming would be here next year didn’t solve my problem of getting a GSM ‘dial tone’ now. For my tour to get off the ground, I needed a SIM that worked in India. So I went to JTM House in Bangalore, home of operator JT Mobiles, to inquire about a SIM to use in Bangalore which would be able to roam in the other cities.
After evaluating the options, I chose a pre-paid SIM card, which allows you to pay up front for a fixed amount of airtime usage. This seemed to be the best deal for a trip duration of 2 or 3 weeks. The final cost was 20 USD for SIM initiation plus 55 USD for airtime, which at 20c per minute during peak hours translated into 275 minutes of airtime. (This is much better than you see in Europe, where pre-paid SIM airtime typically costs in excess of 1 USD per minute)
Now in possession of a working SIM card, I proceeded to connect my mobile
PC to my laptop via the datacard and cable. Then I got ready to download
my e-mail, browse the web and send a fax.
Then came the next blow: I discovered that pre-paid SIMs do not support either data services or fax! Going back and getting a full-service SIM that does national roaming was out of the question, because the deposit required is really high (about 600 – 700 USD) and most operators were unwilling to sell SIM’s for short term usage (less than a month).
A change of plan was in order.
I ended up being saved by the operators themselves, with whom I had prearranged visits, one per city. Most of them were happy to let me stay and test data with their own SIMs.
National roaming
The situation for national roaming was better, as most operators have roaming for all major metropolitan areas (Bombay, Delhi, Bangalore, and Madras). Automatic national roaming as a standard feature does not exist. Some operators, however, instead offer a value-added service that they call ‘automatic roaming’. They offer various options such as subscribing to Global Connect Reach, with access to 21 networks, and the Metro Card, with access in major metropolitan cities. Also available are regional roaming arrangements that allow access in five out of 21 networks, for instance. These are provided as options, because operators subsidize rates for subscribers who don’t need roaming or only need partial roaming.
Data and Fax Services in India
Over the next week, I was able to test data and fax services with one operator in each city. These were JT Mobiles in Bangalore, BPL Mobile in Bombay, Skycell in Madras, and Airtel in New Delhi. Testing involved running common desktop applications that use some aspect of data communications and seeing whether they behaved in a similar or acceptable manner to the way they do back at the office. The applications I used included Microsoft* Outlook* 98 for e-mail access, Symantec* WinFax* Pro for faxing, Microsoft Internet Explorer* for web browsing, and AltaVista* Tunnel* 98 for secure tunneling back to my corporate LAN.
I tried faxing first in each city, since faxing is extremely popular in India. This is probably due to the fact that e-mail is not yet widely used and is less accessible to the Indian population than is fax. Faxing was supported fairly enough by each of the networks, was simple to use, and performed flawlessly 80-90% of the time.
GSM data services also worked well, as every operator provided services. They seemed to behave in a consistent manner in each region. Although mobile data works well in India, data services have not yet taken off among subscribers, as the wireless market is a relatively new one. From the various feedback that I got from network operators, it was apparent that the percentage of data users is still small (1-2%). Most of this number is made up of corporate users - of which 60% of them are high-end technical users who know how to use mobile data.
Data and fax services are expected to gain momentum next year with more data users. Some analysts say that in the next few years Internet usage is expected to grow about 150 percent in India, compared with a global growth rate of more than 50 percent and an overall growth in the data market.
Operators are taking various steps to market and promote data usage. For instance, some operators offer a 'Mobile Office' package - phone, SIM, datacard combination for data. The possibility of an alliance between operators, notebook manufacturers and phone/datacard vendors, to bundle products and sell as a whole package to subscribers, seemed appealing to many operators. They said they saw it as a good opportunity with good revenue potential, and some are considering such a proposition.
The problem with using data, as it turned out, was not in the services themselves, which worked well. It was in obtaining local access to the Internet.
Remote Access: The Internet 
In my usage model, the Internet is central to all of the ways I need to access data. I need to access information on the Internet itself. In addition, the Internet serves the function of being my long-distance carrier back to the corporation, so that I can access both my corporate databases and e-mail without making long distance calls. If dialing long-distance is required to reach an Internet Service Provider (ISP), then I have failed at saving long-distance charges.
Therefore, vital to the success of my model, at least cost-wise, is to be able to access the Internet both locally and inexpensively wherever I happen to be. If my own ISP doesn’t have a presence in the city I’m in, this presents a problem. Fortunately, the ISP community has recognized and responded to this problem with the advent of Global Roaming Associations which are associations of independent ISPs, each of whom allow users of other member ISPs to use their access points. Two existing associations, iPass* and GRIC Communications, each already have hundreds of member ISPs worldwide. Many people who use ISPs every day do not know that they can access their ISP when they travel abroad!
So while in India I tried out Global Internet Roaming with both GRIC and iPass. Although I’ve had good success with both of these services in Europe, North America, and eastern Asia, I had no luck here. This turned out to be due to the present lack of ISPs in India, which is in turn related to the extremely high cost of Internet access there.
Access to the Internet is extremely expensive for users in India. The average price a customer pays for Internet access in US or Europe or even parts of APAC is about $20 for unlimited dial-up access, which amounts to about $240 per year. Comparatively users in India pay about $400 per year for only 500 hours of access, in addition to call charges. By Indian standards, this is an impossible figure for most people to spend on accessing the Internet.
Happily, current deregulation efforts may soon change the situation by lowering the access cost. Deregulation of this industry will undoubtedly provide other benefits including lots of potential members for GRIC and iPass. Click here for more information on Internet Access in India.
Again, I made another note for my next trip to India to bring my GRIC and iPass ‘Dialing Wizards’ with the prospect of having ubiquitous Internet roaming next year. But for now, I had to be content with dialing long-distance to my ISP in the U.S. in order to complete my testing.
Local Access Rates
The local access charge in most of the cities I visited was pretty high (relative to the Indian currency) – it roughly amounted to about 20c/minute during peak hours (7am – 10pm) and 10c/minute off-peak (10pm – 7am). Some of the operators offer deals such as free calls on Sundays. JT Mobile, for instance, offers special dial numbers as a value-added service, where users can designate one or two frequently used number as special access numbers. These numbers,numbers would not be charged for up to a pre-defined amount of usage.
Conclusions and Future:
To put it in a nutshell, I successfully tested data and fax services with about five networks in different cities. Mobile data services work well in India, as long as the connection is made within the user's home network. National roaming as a standard feature does not exist today, but some operators have various options for regional automatic roaming. International roaming doesn’t exist today, but discussions between Indian operators and those in other countries are in progress, with service expected next year.
From my discussions with operators, I gathered that the first half of 1999 might see more progress in national roaming; international roaming is also expected to gain momentum in ’99. In conclusion, I see good potential for a viable GSM footprint in India in the ’99 timeframe.