A high school dropout who farms tomatoes, corn and eggplants on his arid, 3.2 hectare patch of land in rural Sholapur, western India, Mr Dongre had never imagined his mobile could help improve his farm yield.
But that changed when he subscribed nearly a year ago to Nokia Life Tools, software by the Finnish telecommunications giant Nokia that transmits business and scientific information through the internet to phones.
For a monthly fee of 60 rupees (Dh4.73), Mr Dongre receives regular updates on the market prices of his crops. This means he is no longer vulnerable to the middlemen who swindle farmers, profiting from their lack of information.
He also receives weather forecasts and guidance from a panel of experts about seeds, pesticides and plant diseases.
Mr Dongre is one of thousands of farmers benefiting from the growing mobile wireless penetration in India, which a 2008 study by the Bangalore-based Centre for Knowledge Studies said is “revolutionising economic and social life in rural India, spawning a wave of local entrepreneurs and creating greater access to social services”.
With 635 million subscribers now, a number that will rise by 14 million every month, India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile market after China.
And now the country is gearing up to jump to the next level of the mobile phone boom.
Last week, the department of telecommunications (DoT) allocated licences to private operators for third-generation (3G) mobile technology, opening an array of new possibilities throughout the country.
The technology is set to redefine the telecoms experience in India, introducing subscribers to a faster and more robust internet and better access to value-added services such as telemedicine and e-banking.
With the advent of this new technology, India’s mobile subscriber base is expected to pass one billion by 2014, according to the global audit and advisory services company PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
“The transformative power of mobile broadband lies in its ability to enable greater access to the internet in India,” says Sivarama Krishnan, the executive director of PwC India.
“Everyone, from the telecom industry, government to other industries will be able to leverage a ubiquitous platform to reach out to a wide range of customers and provide diverse products and services more effectively.”
Rural subscribers will be largely responsible for the huge growth in subscriber numbers. PwC says 3G will initially be available in Indian cities but by 2015 rural subscribers are expected to make up 24 per cent of the 3G subscriber base.
The DoT estimates 250,000 villages will be connected to wireless broadband and 3G mobile services by 2012.
And by 2013, the Indian market is expected to have 395 million 3G handsets, the research services company Evalueserve says.
Analysts say the spread of next-generation technologies such as 3G are expected to boost economic growth.
A World Bank econometrics analysis from 120 countries shows that for every 10 per cent increase in the penetration of broadband services, the economy grows by 1.3 per cent.
The “growth effect of broadband is significant and stronger in developing countries than in developed economies, and it is higher than that of telephony and internet”, a World Bank report said last year.
India’s telecoms regulator this year announced an ambitious proposal to lay a countrywide optic-fibre network at an investment of 300 million rupees to connect every village with high-speed broadband access in the next three years.
But experts say broadband internet can reach villages more rapidly through mobile telephones.
“We believe that broadband access is critically important for the country’s social and economic development, and that mobile [communications] will play a significant role in delivering broadband across the whole of India,” says Robindhra Mangtani, a senior director at GSMA, an association representing 800 global mobile phone operators.
In May, seven private telecoms operators including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Communications won bids for the 3G licences in a government auction. The winning bids totalled 1.06 trillion rupees for the government, far exceeding most expectations.
Some observers say the operators paid too much for the airwaves.
After 34 days of intense bidding, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Reliance agreed to pay US$737 million (Dh2.7 billion) and $722m to provide 3G services in New Delhi and Mumbai respectively, nearly 10 times more than the base price of $71m set by the government.
This expense could significantly dent the operators’ profit margins and diminish future investment. Intense price competition in a crowded telecoms market is already shrinking revenues for telecoms players.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India says Bharti Airtel is the largest wireless services provider with a 22 per cent share, followed by Reliance and Vodafone, which control 17 per cent each.
A spokesman for Bharti Airtel refused to comment on the company’s recovery plan for its investments in 3G technology.
But analysts are upbeat about earnings. Mobile broadband services are expected to generate revenues of 940bn rupees for the entire Indian telecoms industry in 2015, according to PwC.
On the whole, mobile service revenue is expected to reach $19.8bn by the end of this year, nearly 20 per cent higher than last year, and is expected to touch $23bn by the end of 2014, according to the Mumbai branch of the global research company Gartner.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Anuj Chopra
Quelle/Source: The National, 04.09.2010
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