Social networking site users in the Asia Pacific are increasingly switching over to the mobile medium, according to the findings IDC’s recent survey report, ‘Examining Usage, Perceptions, and Monetization: The Coming of Age for Social Network Sites in Asia Pacific’. IDC is a global market intelligence company which focuses on IT, telecom and consumer technology.
As per the report, 50 per cent the users interviewed are now accessing social networking sites via mobile phones in India, China, Korea and Thailand. This is particularly widespread in China and Thailand, where 62 per cent and 65 per cent of the given users get news alerts and notifications, receive and reply to messages, upload photos, or update personal status and profiles on popular networking sites via the mobile internet. However, Australia and Singapore have the lowest percentage with only 19 per cent and 25 per cent of respective users using mobile browsers to access these sites weekly.
The IDC survey also indicates that the high cost of mobile internet is possibly keeping many customers away from mobile social networking. According to the survey, a majority of the respondents who have never logged in to these sites through mobile before have cited high tariffs as the main obstacle. These users have said that they would try out mobile versions of the sites if the data rates became more affordable. Apart from tariffs, availability of user friendly mobile applications is also required to up the usage of mobile web.
Debbie Swee, market analyst, IDC Asia Pacific Emerging Technologies Research, said in a company statement, “The prevalence of owning a cellular phone over a PC in China, India and Thailand has directly boosted the popularity of mobile social networking sites access. For mobile operators in China, India and Thailand, IDC believes a low flat rate Internet access fee would complement and increase mobile social networking site adoption. However, in Australia, Korea and Singapore where data tariffs are already relatively low, operators need to correct users’ misconceptions of pricey data plans through advertising and other marketing efforts.”
IDC’s Asia Pacific social networking sites survey was conducted by interviewing 1,400 social network site users, aged between 15 and 35, from December 2008 to January 2009. The survey is part of a series of studies that evaluate the impact of Web 2.0 on Internet users in Australia, India, China, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
Social networking on mobile gaining momentum in Asia: IDC
BSNL launches m-learning service
State-owned operator BSNL Mobile has launched a spoken English mobile learning service called ‘Learn English’. It has been designed by VAS companies EnableM Technologies and OMobile Global.
Created especially for the mobile medium, the voice and SMS service teaches spoken English through simple stories and everyday situations that the common man can relate to. Subscribers have the option to select their level of learning based on their proficiency of the language. They can also select specific professions, situations or conversations to learn English. Similarly, subscribers can listen to conversations based on situations they might encounter everyday.
Daily SMSs and practice tests are a part of the learning package. To make the service user-friendly and self-paced, certain options such as bookmarks, pause, etc have also been introduced. As part of the service, subscribers also receive a new word daily through SMS.
Users have to dial in at a number to use the service, which is available in nine Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu and Malayalam.
The service is available at a subscription cost of Rs 20 per month and call charges of 30 paise per minute.
Bharti Airtel builds connectivity to Far East
Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of its Far East Connect network, which the company claims will meet both the expansion and diversity needs of its network customers in the region.
Through the network, Bharti Airtel will be able to deliver connectivity on the Asia America Gateway, a 20,000 km high Bandwidth fibre optic submarine cable system that will connect Southeast Asia to the United States. A consortium of 19 companies, including Bharti Airtel, AT&T and BT, have developed this cable system that will carry commercial traffic in the region. The company claims that this has made available an additional one terabit per second of capacity to the region.
Bharti Airtel has also entered into partnerships for providing connectivity to Japan, Taiwan, Australia and South Korea through multiple alternate routes.
Manoj Kohli, chief executive officer and joint managing director, Bharti Airtel, said in the official statement, “Our investments of over $500 million over the last two years are designed to create a global network that offers unmatched resilience and maximum diversity. Asia and the Pacific represent one of the fastest growing markets for ICT and as industry leaders in India.”
RCom, Tata best in network reliability: Nielsen
The Nielsen Company has revealed in its findings that Reliance Communications is the number one service provider in network reliability in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, while Tata Communications ranks first in Uttar Pradesh. The findings are based on Nielsen’s network Benchmarking programme in India known as Nielsen Consumer Experience Mobile Test Program. The program measures wireless network performance for all national and select regional telecom operators, covering nearly 100 million people in the country.
The results indicate that out of 18 circles (regions of operation) tested on reliability, a clear leader exists in just four circles and in ten out of eighteen circles tested. There is a tie for first place for network reliability. In the remaining four circles, there is neither a clear leader, nor a tie for first position.
The programme, launched in India in August 2008, measures the performance and quality of top six service providers across India by taking into consideration voice and data networks.
As per the company’s release, the study shows that in India there is a huge disconnect between what is important to consumers and what is being focused on by operators. Due to this consumers don’t know who the market leaders are in network quality in their circle and are compelled to make choices based on popular perceptions.
“The Indian service providers are in a frenzy to capture market share as quickly as possible. Thus, new service providers will find it difficult to gain market share in the crowded wireless market. They will face challenges in terms of high subscriber acquisition costs, lower ARPU customers and lack of adequate spectrum quality. Getting superior network quality and communicating the same to the consumers will prove helpful,” said a spokesperson in the statement.
Nielsen’s Consumer Experience Mobile Test Program data has been integrated with its Mobile Consumer Insights data to understand the customer perception of a service provider compared to its actual network performance. The Nielsen Mobile Consumer Insights survey indicates that network satisfaction is driving overall satisfaction with services, offered by the service providers, and has increased from 50 per cent in the latter half of 2008 to 54 per cent in the first half of 2009.
3G auction to take place in two stages
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) organised a conference on third generation (3G) spectrum in New Delhi on Monday to explain the auction and bidding process for the said spectrum. The process, slated to take off on January 14, 2010, will be carried out in four stages: invitation, pre-qualification, auction and grant of spectrum.
The India 3G auction had been pending for a long time and the final date was announced only in October. DoT has said that December 21 is the last date for applications for companies who are planning to take this auction. The auction will enable operators to offer better voice quality, improved mobile broadband speed and richer value added services.
At the conference, DotEcon Ltd’s Dan Maldoom, an economic advisor to companies and regulators, explained that the auction is divided into two stages – the clock stage and the frequency identification stage.
In the clock stage, there will be simultaneous bidding for slots in each of the stated circles (regions of operation) where the spectrum is available. At the end of this stage, for each circle, each bidder’s highest bid made so far in any round will be reserved. The provisional winning price associated with these bids will be equal to the lowest price at which the provisional bidders submitted their bids.
The second stage or the frequency identification stage will allocate specific frequency blocks to successful bidders in circles where they have won a slot in the clock stage.
For the 3G auction, the government has decided to auction 20 MHz of spectrum in the 2.1GHz Band in the telecom service areas where 25 MHz or more paired spectrum is available. Blocks have been reserved for BSNL and MTNL in their service areas.
DoT has kept reserve prices for the auction at Rs 320 crore for Delhi, Mumbai and Circle A (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu), Rs 120 crore for Kolkata and Circle B (Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (W), Uttar Pradesh (E), Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal) and Rs 30 crore for Circle C (Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa, Assam).
At the conference, Maldoom also spoke on the scheduling of the auction process. He said that there is a default timetable for clock rounds, which goes on from Monday till Friday between 9 am and 5.30 pm. If any bidder fails to submit the bid on time, the system automatically triggers a time extension. The bid will be carried out through an electronic auction system.
New service allows uploading, sharing of videos
Reliance Communications has launched of mVDO, a service for its mobile subscribers that will enable watching, sharing, searching and uploading of videos across on WAP.
Users can search for any video across various categories, genres and download it to their GSM mobile phones. The download feature makes videos optimised; converting them at the backend, so that users can receive the formatted videos which are played on most of the handsets available in the market.
The upload feature allows users to upload the videos from the mobile phones. In return a video link of that uploaded video is shared with the user via SMS for him to be able to access it at a later point in time, thus allowing the user unlimited storage for his videos. Soon, with the share feature, users will also be able to share that link with anyone, who can then download that video.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra about the service, Krishna Durbha, head, VAS, Reliance Communications says, “Earlier, one could search videos on the internet but now users are extremely mobile and prefer having access to information on-the-go.” He further stated the service is currently available for GSM subscribers and eventually they will have it on CDMA too.
The mVDO service will be made available to users through subscription offers varying in different price points for different periods of validity from a month to as less as a week. However, all prices for varying validities cost no more than rupee one per day.
GSM subscribers growing twice as fast in non-metros
GSM operators have added over 10 million new subscribers in October, an increase of almost three per cent over September, according to figures released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). The total number of GSM users in India stands at 355 million.
The figures reveal an upward trend in the number of subscribers in non-metros. Rajasthan saw the maximum increase in the number of subscribers. The circle has about two million GSM subscribers, which grew by 4.24 per cent over September. Uttar Pradesh (East) and Bihar circles registered a 4.14 per cent rise in the number of subscribers.
These three circles from B and C category were followed by Orissa (growth of 3.94 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (West) (3.82 per cent), Himachal Pradesh (3.72 per cent) and Jammu and Kashmir (3.23 per cent).
Other circles and metros from Category A predictably registered a slower growth, with Delhi at 1.91 per cent, Mumbai at 2.17 per cent and Chennai at 1.6 per cent.
The trend clearly shows that metros and larger cities have reached a saturation point and maximum revenues for the telecom sector will come from smaller towns and rural areas in the coming times. Going by the current figures, the growth is non-metros is about twice as fast as in metros.
Kolkata is one exception to this trend. The metro still registers a growth rate of three per cent month on month.
In October, Vodafone Essar saw the maximum increase in the number of subscribers by 2.9 million over the previous month. However, in terms of percentage, Aircel LED the operators by registering a growth of 7.84 per cent. Aircel has been actively promoting its service in small towns through on-ground and outdoor campaigns.
Idea Cellular follows next with an increase of 3.69 per cent, Airtel (2.45 per cent), Loop Mobile (2.01 per cent), MTNL (1.5 per cent) and BSNL (1.13 per cent). The operator has recently launched its operations in three new circles – Jammu & Kashmir, Kolkata and West Bengal and is planning to launch in Assam and North East circles by the end of this year.
Bharti Airtel and Idea cellular have registered 2.7 million and 1.9 million new subscribers in October respectively.
According to COAI, Bharti Airtel retains the maximum market share of 31.87 per cent in October, followed by Vodafone Essar (24.16 per cent), BSNL (15.19 per cent), Idea (15.02 per cent), Aircel (7.81 per cent), Reliance Telecom (3.99 per cent), MTNL (1.25 per cent) and Loop Mobile (0.7 per cent).
MTNL introduces prepaid broadband in Mumbai
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), in association with Sterlite Technologies Limited, a transmission services provider, has announced the launch of prepaid Broadband for its residential and enterprise customers in Mumbai.
The state owned company, which currently has 400,000 broadband subscribers in Mumbai and around 340,000 in Delhi, says that this service will enable users to customise their broadband subscription plans, based on their Bandwidth usage.
In an email interview with Telecom Yatra, GVRS Kumar, general manager, marketing and public relations, MTNL, said that vouchers for this service will be available at MTNL customer care centres located in all MTNL offices and will be shortly available through distributors. The recharges can also be done online.
On why MTNL is also targeting corporate customers for this service, Kumar said, “The enterprise customers will have better control over their usage and there are no hassles of paying bills at counters.”
He added that prepaid broadband will be shortly introduced in Delhi, the other circle where MTNL operates.Sterlite Technologies is providing end to end solution to MTNL for its pre paid broadband service. Sterlite’s scope of work for this project includes project management, installation and deployment, network operations, network maintenance, integration and testing.
The pre paid broadband service comes in three plans – Rs 499 with 1.3 GB free download and one month validity, Rs 3999 with 15 GB free download and 12 months validity and Rs 5999 with 25 GB free download and 12 months validity.
New mobile service allows access to emails on SMS
Mobee Mobile Services Pvt Ltd, a mobile solutions provider, has launched an email Messaging service called Mobee, which enables users to access emails and documents on a mobile handset even without a GPRS connection. It provides full access to emails via SMS and works with all mails such as Outlook, Gmail and Yahoo.
Aroon Kumar, business head, Mobee Mobile Services, told Telecom Yatra in an email response, “We are targeting all mobile phone users who are using normal mobile handsets without GPRS and want to access their emails from their handsets. Currently we are looking at five per cent of the total mobile subscribers in India.”
Any person with a mobile number and an email id can use this service by registering on www.mobee.in. According to Kumar, “Mobee does not have any platform and operator limitations as it works both with CDMA and GSM and with all the service providers in India.”
Commenting on the promotion plans for Mobee, Kumar said, “We have sales teams in all metros and major cities who take care of the enterprise segments. Apart from this we have tied up with some leading portals, social networking sites, business journals and publications to promote Mobee.” The company is looking at BTL (below the line) and traditional promotional exercises.
For retail customers, the service is priced at four plans of Rs 30, Rs 50, Rs 79 and Rs 99 per month. For enterprise customers, the service comes in the form of a corporate account.
Based in Bangalore, Mobee Mobile Services Pvt Ltd is a joint venture between Bitla Software Pvt Ltd in India and two individual investors from USA, offering solutions for telecom, travel, tourism, transportation and logistics industries in India.
Diamond Comics ties up with Rediff.com to go mobile
Diamond Comics, the publisher of comic books based on characters such as Chacha Chaudhary, Billoo, Pinky, Phantom and Shaktimaan, has entered into a special arrangement with Rediff.com to make available its content on mobile phones.
Speaking to afaqs!, Gulshan Rai, managing director, Diamond Comics reveals that according to the arrangement, Rediff.com will source content from Diamond Comics and package it for mobile consumption. To distribute the content, the Internet company will develop a downloadable mobile application, which will be offered or pushed to mobile subscribers through various mobile operators.
Rai indicates that the company has already tied up with Loop Mobile and Vodafone to push its mobile applications and is in talks with other mobile operators as well.
Apart from mobile application, content of Diamond Comics will also be offered through Rediff.com mobile site (Mobile.Rediff.com/comic). In addition, Rediff.com will sell Diamond Comics or accept subscription offers on its website.
Comic books related to characters Chacha Chaudhary, Billoo, Pinky, Phantom, Shaktimaan and comics digests such as Panchatantra, Tenalirama, Vikram Betal, Akbar Birbal, Ramayan and Mahabharat will be made accessible on mobile.
Consumers will be charged Rs 10 to access each comic title. Rai says, “Rediff.com will share about 80 per cent of the revenue earned through mobile content with Diamond Comics, while the Internet company will charge a 10 per cent service charge for selling subscription or comics through its website.”
Diamond Comics is also talking to some other websites to distribute its content online. Rai says, “We have already tied up with Malayala Manorama and will provide our content for its website.”
Other than online and mobile distribution, the comic books publisher plans to distribute content through the IPTV platform and launch a TV channel as well.
Although Diamond Comics had announced it plans to launch a TV channel in 2008, it has not launched its channel as yet. Rai says that the TV venture will go live in July 2010. He adds, “We have tied up with MediaGuru, a media consultancy firm based in Noida, to launch our TV channels. We have plans to launch four TV channels in different languages – Hindi, English, Bengali and Malayalam, in association with MediaGuru.”