[MoMoBangalore] Mobile Internet Access?

Thu Oct 11 21:19:16 IST 2007

I started using GPRS on my Pocket PC since May 2004 (seem to have been
among the early ones - even the Airtel tech guys were not very sure what
needed to be done then!). From those days of GPRS conking off for more
than a few hours every day, to today, when connectivity is pretty much
taken for granted, things have come a long way.

Access to Internet does not always have to be browsing. Email is one of
the biggest internet applications, and my belief is that a lot of people
will use email through mobile devices. Earlier, whenever I traveled, my
notebook was carried with me only for email. Today, more often than not,
I carry only my Pocket PC, leaving my notebook behind, even if I am gone
for 5-6 days. Connectivity, even in the US, is pretty easy, download
speeds are good, and readability, too, is good on my Pocket PC. 

While browsing still needs a lot to be desired  - I think we will see
the emergence of mobile specific sites, that are minimalistic on
graphics, and hence download fast.

And as many people have said, while no one can forecast the future
accurately, I am very optimistic about the future of mobile internet
access. 

With regards,

Samir Kumar

------------------------------

Message: 3

Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:21:51 +0530

From: "B.G. Mahesh" bg.mahesh at greynium.com>

Subject: Re: [MoMoBangalore] Views on future of mobile internet in

            India

To: MoMo Bangalore bangalore at mobilemonday.in>

Message-ID: 470CA0B7.3060302 at greynium.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

vishwas mudagal wrote:

> Hey all,

> We have been hearing that mobile internet is the next big thing. And 

> now that India has hit the 38 million mark of net-enabled mobiles, 

> this no longer looks like a prediction. We are witnessing a shift in 

> the primary medium of internet access from PCs to mobiles. I had 

> written a small post 

>
(http://revolutionnnn.blogspot.com/2007/10/net-enabled-mobiles-on-fast-t
rack-in.html) to 

> start a brainstorming session (in our group) to analyze what will be 

> the next steps in creating a mobile revolution.

>  

> I was wondering what you guys think about it? may be this discussion 

> has happened many times ( i have recently joined MoMo) What will be 

> the mobile applications? What will be the business models? Would be 

> great to know your expert views!

>  

> Cheers!

> Vishwas 

This topic is of interest to me as we publish all our content on our 

mobi portal. I started using GPRS from May 2006 (Airtel), other than the

main search engines I did not find many interesting Indian sites out 

there. The most disappointing part of GPRS last year was the speed - it 

was slow. A common man cannot think of activating GPRS on his phone 

without visiting the local mobile store, too complex a process.

The speed has improved and one can browse mobi sites better today. But I

cannot imagine using my GPRS connection as the "primary" medium to 

access the net, i.e. give up my broadband connection and switch over the

GPRS, I really don't think it is happening for anyone.

Everybody talks about broadband and GPRS but somewhere data cards have 

been forgotten. I see data card users (for laptop) have increased. Not 

sure under which category this comes under - the broadband sales manager

would want it to be reported under his category and the same would be 

the case with the GRPS sales manager ;-) I ultimately had to buy Airtel,

Reliance and BSNL (in the process) data cards as all were equally good 

and bad.

Coming back to the real question - what is the future of mobile 

internet. I personally feel "nobody" knows the correct answer, i.e. 

nobody can say with confidence "The number of users will be xx.xx 

million by 2008 March", however it is safe to say the user base will 

increase impressively. Not all portals have a mobi version, as we 

progress all portals will have a mobi version also. Content specifically

designed for the mobile users is required on the net. The GPRS market 

will mature as the speed improves and content-n-utilities are available 

for GPRS users.

As of now I think users are using it to access information quickly and 

get some updates - cricket scores, news, tv listing. We provide 

classifieds on our mobi portal but we have kept in mind that very few 

will "post" from their mobile and most of them will be viewing from 

their mobile. So to begin with we will have more viewers than active 

bloggers in the Indian mobile internet space. For me mobile blogging is 

an overkill in India - not happening in the near future.

regards,

-- 

B.G. Mahesh

CEO

Greynium Information Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Email: bg.mahesh at greynium.com

http://www.greynium.com/

http://www.oneindia.in/

http://www.click.in/ - Online Classifieds for India

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