[MoMoBangalore] Regd Content Provision

kallol borah
Sat Jun 9 15:09:05 IST 2007


Sean / Akshat :
Good thing you mentioned Tata Teleservices - if they cost 50p per SMS to
users, what revenues do they share ?
One thing that could really make GPRS take off is if they charge only for
the data, not for provisioning the GPRS connection. Even a Rs 49/- rental
for GPRS is proving to be a barrier, if the operators instead charge only
for data, I think it will lead to more innovative apps that people use on
phones + they will make good the amount they lose (only notionally) for
provisioning.

- Kallol

On 6/9/07, Sean Blagsvedt sean at babajob.com> wrote:
>
>  The GPRS vs SMS debate is an important and tough one and in my
> experience, it really depends on your audience and application.
>
>
>
> Personally, I have thought for a long time that the GPRS services are
> over-invested and the interesting SMS services like twitter, information
> look-up scenarios and African style job sites are under invested.
>
>
>
> If you are looking to target the top 1% richest of India (and remember
> there are only about 35m people in India that work in the formal sector
> anyway making an effective upper limit on the number of credit card holders
> and post-paid users), GPRS may be a reasonable option, but the total number
> of GPRS users (which is different than capable handsets) is likely less than
> 500,000 nationally – though I admit that number is a guess . (I would
> appreciate anyone who knows reliable data on this – given that there are all
> 6.5m dial-up, 2m broadband (as of Dec 2006, source TRAIhttp://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/PressReleases/449/pr17apr07no35.pdf>)
> and the GPRS numbers are so small that TRAI does not even cover it – I am
> surmising that GPRS figure must be less than 1m).
>
>
>
> Compare that to the SMS usage in India. India now has 171.20m wireless
> subscribers (April 2007, according to TRAIhttp://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/PressReleases/463/pr24may07no48.pdf>)
> – even among those Indian users with the lowest ARPU – namely pre-paid, CDMA
> users – they are still sending 19 SMSs/month (Dec 2006 data, traihttp://www.trai.gov.in/trai/upload/Reports/35/Report1.pdf>).
> These are people that spend on average 196R/month on their phone bill.
>
>
>
> The real miracle of technology in India has been the mobile phone and
> importantly the very cheap pre-paid business model that allowed it flourish
> and be affordable to people who make less than 2000R/month. With 171million
> (and growing by 5-6m/month) wireless users – who importantly are sending
> lots of SMSs - versus 2m broadband users – it's really no comparison at
> all.  Until the GPRS usage increases dramatically, I don't see the point of
> companies investing significantly there now, unless they believe they have
> high-end customers that are actually using it (e.g. if you are selling to
> an Indian company that has rolled out blackberries or windows mobile devices
> with data plans to all their employees – then by all means leverage that
> GPRS connection to sell those employees other services).
>
>
>
> I know there are still issues of billing, stupid gateways and high fees to
> telcos (and users), the pain of GSM modems and the lack of any real
> programming standards. All that aside – SMS has the potential about 100
> times more customers in India and if your business wants to engage with
> those customers, you should support SMS richly, in my humble opinion.
>
>
>
> Sean Blagsvedt
>
> CEO, Babajob.com
>
> Head, PM and Prototyping, Microsoft Research India (on leave)
>
>
>
> PS – I've worked with bsmart a lot  for our gateway and they are not bad
> (about 10,000R/month, you earn 20-50p/incoming SMS after 50,000/month) Their
> biggest disadvantage is the cost to my customers for sending an SMS to me is
> between 1-3R. I'm exploring TATA http://www.tatateleservices.com/t-business-data-sms-gateway-features.aspx
> who apparently offer a 10 digit number that only charges 50p/SMS for
> customers. (thanks for the tip Akshat!)
>
>
>
> *From:* bangalore-bounces at mobilemonday.in [mailto:
> bangalore-bounces at mobilemonday.in] *On Behalf Of *ujj at mutiny.in
> *Sent:* Friday, June 08, 2007 7:55 PM
> *To:* MoMo Bangalore
> *Subject:* Re: [MoMoBangalore] Regd Content Provision
>
>
>
> Hi Sumit,
>
> Thanks a lot for the info. Your blog is really helpful. We will surely
> talk further on this
>
> Ujjwal
>
>
>
> *On Fri Jun 8 7:19 , 'Sumit Ramani' sent:*
>
> Hey Ujjwal,
>
>
>
> Albeit SMS is ubiquitous I won't suggest you to go with it. The better
> option is GPRS which i agree is used by less number of people but then it
> turns out to be much economical option boh for user and provider.Simplybecause you don't have to share your revenue.
>
>
>
> Moreover, if you use SMS I doubt if there is any way to extract
> information about the mobile device which, as you might agree is required
> anyway.In case of SMS based solution user will have to probably go through
> your website and will have to select the code depending upon model number of
> his/her device.
>
>
>
> In case of GPRS all you need to do is extract user-agent from the HTTP
> header and then use device database like WURFL
> http://wurfl.sourceforge.net/ to extract useful information.This makes the
> life of end-user simpler because he/she sees only those contents which are
> supported by his/her device.
>
>
>
> Yes, GPRS is still not popular but the onus is on us to make people aware
> about it. I have made a small effort (http://sumitramani.wordpress.com/2007/05/17/gprsloading/ )
> with the hope that it will serve the common cause.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Sumit
>
>
>
> P.S. Sometimes it becomes difficult to extract user-agent of the device
> but then there is no free lunch on earth :).
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 6/8/07, *kallol borah* kallol.borah at gmail.com > wrote:
>
> ujjwal
> getting your SMS gateway could cost a lot + it requires agreements with
> all operators in circles you want to launch in.
> i know unicell is an airtel partner and bsmart is the hutch partner.
> you could contact nikhil shoorji of bsmart at 9820645600 - smart guy to
> work with. nikhil operates the 7575 sort code and could add 2 digits for
> you.
> - kallol
>
> On 6/8/07, *ujj at mutiny.in *ujj at mutiny.in> wrote:
>
>  Hi,
>
> We are trying to enter the VAS domain as a content provider for music etc.
> Communication will be over SMS. We are looking for help in getting started
> in this domain, as in
>
> 1. who do we contact,
> 2. how do we get a 4 digit code for SMS etc.
>
> building our own SMS gateway is out of question for us.
>
> Looking forward to it.
>
> Ujjwal
> TempoStand.com
>
>
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