[Mobile Monday Bangalore] [MoMoBangalore] Re: FW: MoMo Sept

Fri Sep 29 15:59:26 IST 2006

I would take this a step forward. The ULCH handsets (or rather the EMH program) are more about creating a sustainable ecosystem of mobile phones services the BoP markets.  Its about language, customization, cost, total cost of ownership (ARPU), innovation, value chain, service coverage, quality of service, everything in fact.

To think about it, its startling that around 75% of the people do not actually use the GSM network. There are multiple barriers to entry but nobody really has a definitive answer. It might be the cost, or it might be the cost of service or customizability, or value added services. From that perspective the cost of the handset is a good start and the easiest problem to tackle. 

I dont know how many people saw the moive Dor but there was a funny scene in there. The villagers used a mobile PCO service where they were given a handset, then they used to get on to a higher ground (for better service i guess) and then talk. Maybe that is really illustrative of the services that people in rural india need today. :)

-Rajiv.

----- Original Message ----
From: Sunil Maheshwari maheshwari.sunil at gmail.com>
To: Vijay S Anand vijaysanand2002 at yahoo.com>
Cc: MoMoBangalore at yahoogroups.com; Thiyagarajan thiyagarajan at gmail.com>; bangalore at mobilemonday.in; rpoddar at gmail.com
Sent: Friday, 29 September, 2006 12:42:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Mobile Monday Bangalore] [MoMoBangalore] Re: FW: MoMo Sept

            Low cost handset is not just about bringing down the cost but at the
same time you need to add flexibility, more features at the same cost.
India is adding close to 40M subscriber every year and you can't
fulfill that demand just by second hand handsets.

Projection for sub 1000RS. phones for Indian market is around 150-180M
handset by 2008 and there is a very thin line between low cost and
entry level handset. Chipset vendors are already shipping GSM modules
around 5$.

I know people are talking about downloadable local language fonts then
why can't we have embedded fonts in the device? Reliance has already
done it for their low cost LG/Samsung phones, so I do see feasibility
here in localization.

Regards,

Sunil

On 9/29/06, Vijay S Anand  wrote:
Just to add briefly to the topic:

Indian languages and a way to
effectively and easily input them on devices, has a potential for lot
of research and enormous revenue. That said, the barrier and the amount
of creative work, feedback and standardization efforts required are
enormous. The point is quite simple: English has 26 alphabets. Tamil
has some 200+ alphabets. How do you stick them all into the same
keyboard structure, especially when there can be combinations and
variations of letters as well. Same goes for most of the languages. Not
in the mobile space alone, but in computing in general, the need for
this is quite high.

On the low cost handset front, I think the
trumpet is a bit overblown here. Motorola has announced that they will
be making handsets available at about 999 Rs. sometime this year. Can
it get lower than that? Should it get lower than that?

They say,
close to 70% of indians, live in Rural india, and there is a mass focus
being put on developing low cost handsets and in going after that
market. What i am dont understand is that, as it is, people have
managed to get phones, and the second hand market for phones has been
quite in demand thanks to them, and plus they get much feature-rich
handsets. The question that begs an answer is... is it really need it.

That's my thought.

Vijay

Sunil Maheshwari  wrote:

                    We can also have discussion about Indian language support in the handsets at a lower cost. If we think about currently
 available solutions like T9, EziText, then they are on a higher side (they have royalty + one time payment).

Mass market apps will become usable only if we communicate in the same
language. Any idea or anyone doing work on local language font engine?

 Regards,
 Sunil
 Mango Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

On 9/28/06, 
Thiyagarajan  wrote:

Sunil,    thanks for the suggestion. Discussion around
low  end mobile phone would be definitely interesting  My
idea in the previous mail was to just to list out an exhaustive range
of topics. My knowledge is limited to the area of smartphone related
solutions thus the topics listed are mostly limited to that space J

Infact there are lot more mobile network related topic which have'nt
been listed at all. Mahesh, Sujai, Rajiv do you want add more network
related topics in the list. 

Sunil I will send out a mail to you separately and discuss with you
how/when can we have topic of discussion on MMI for low end devices in
MoMo. 

Cheers,
  Rajan

-- 
Regards,
Sunil Maheshwari 

How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger�s low 
 PC-to-Phone call rates.

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-- 
Regards,
Sunil Maheshwari

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