Mobile and FM

Mobile and FM.....

Two things that I am amazed in Bangalore! Mobile and FM

It’s since long time I didn’t write about any thing. Every day when I was walking back from the office, these two impressed me a lot and I was thinking about how these two industries has grown over the period of half decade

I remember some where in the year 2002, there were advertisements floated by reliance with the punch line “Roti Kapada Makan Aur Mobile”. This line impressed every one. No one realized that, it was a “just the beginning” for the mobile revolution.

Some where in the same year I read a piece of article in paper saying “Radio” is going to hit the market in next decade. After reading that I was just laughing about the survey conducted by them. My thoughts were, are we going back to same 1980s listening to Akashavani without the image?

Now those two above sentences are history and we are seeing difference! Almost after half decade I am seeing the future for both. Mobile and FM.

Mobile Revolution:

Fixed line to pager to mobile was a great story in the field of communication. Communication and networking are in boom every where.
Mobile revolution started way back in 1999 for India. When it launched, it was very expensive. Not all could afford this box. All in coming calls were charged. Hand set was more than 10k for the basic features. Keeping a mobile was part of the status symbol and all the mobile numbers were kept confidential.

But look at in year 2007! Situation is completely opposite. In fact I would say reliance’s “Roti Kapada Makan aur Mobile” cab be rearranged as “Roti Mobile Kapada aur Makan”. Mobile has become our integral part of life. Revolution and innovations that are happening in the communication industries are beyond common men imagination. Every one is trying to give best deals to the customer. Mobile network is reaching “where ever you go”.

All Service provider are trying to attract different classes of customers. So many different schemes are designed to meets every ones need.

For students you have options like 100 messages free every day. Even then I heard from one of my friend who is still studying saying those 100 free messages are not at all sufficient. This shows how much students are addicted to mobile. The simple calculation come to my mind when my friend says this is, Say in 100 messages u forward only 50 messages and remaining 50 u need to type. And Say one message takes a 2 minute (I have seen their hands going as fast as I can type in the computer). So total time spent on just typing is 100 minutes and to read replies to those messages takes around 100 minutes.For reading fwd messages it takes at least 100minutes. So total of around 300 minutes which is equivalent of 5 hours per day!! I will come back to this point later.

So many companies give the free calls to mobile from the office phone. Hence people so called “Highly paid” are completely utilizing this facility to reduce their Phone bills. In fact some of the people (including me) bought a new set for the parents so that they can talk to them with lesser prices.

For people who are in love, there is separate scheme. Pay some amount (which will be more than the normal rental) and get unlimited hours talk time to some chosen two numbers. And it continues…


Look the mobile model available in Market. All companies are trying to put their best to attract the customer. You get a mobile just for Rs 2000 with FM loaded with color display. I remember paying 11.5k for my mobile which had integrated VGA camera, FM and color display. The same features you get it for less that 50k. It is in fact huge depreciation for any market. I really cannot imagine researches that are going in this field. Every other day I see some new models released to the market with completely new feature. Mobiles are nearing to the personal computer in capability. Once the 3G enters in to Indian market with affordable price, then day are no longer where mobile becomes your outlook!

Below are some of the articles which highlights the mobile revolution happening in India

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3585257.stm

http://www.connect-world.com/Articles/old_articles/7Telecomm.html

http://www.rediff.com/money/2006/aug/19spec1.htm

http://fecolumnists.expressindia.com/full_column.php?content_id=87933



FM Revolution
To be continued….