At a recently held LBS conference, operators unanimously stated that a government subsidy will help them accelerate the LBS deployment process. Curated quotes from operators:

“Mobile operators can earn high revenue from Location Based Ads. The elections are approaching and this opportunity can give an immense amount of revenue through the Location Based Ads, leave the rest” – Sivarama Krishna, Executive Director, Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers

“In India we follow a mantra ‘High value low price’. We can tackle to the problems if govt. subsidizes us on monetary basis. Government needs to encourage competition rather than regulating it” – Rajan S Mathews, Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India

“Costumers understand the value of LBS but they are very concerned about the privacy issues and even they are not willing to pay for the service. We as service providers have to ensure that the information is secured and is not misused. To successfully deploy the service, we require to minimizing CAPEX, deploy adequate technology in CDMA and define the target group for LBS apps.” – Rajesh Gandhi, AVP VAS Technologies & Enterprise Solutions, TATA Teleservices

“Main problem in LBS deployment is intra-circle limitations. We need a third party, who can establish infrastructure compliant to both operators. In India, we have an infrastructure which is not secure in wake of changing future requirements”. He further added, “With the mobile phone enabling legal agencies to locate individuals and events it is necessary for government, service operators and DoT to enter into workable arrangements and protocols to fix legal onus to prevent avoidable legal complications to dog service providers.” [A K Bhargava, ED Wireless Services MTNL]

–

So in short, no action in the interim?

If we have some resource which is unique and abundant then we would like to sell at the fixed price but if the same unique resource is limited then we would like to auction it to maximize the return. The same basic principle was not honored by Mr RAJA and his team for 2G allocation in 2008.

Now congress party is saying that it was following the NDA government policy which was based on fixed price and FCFS (first come first served) basis. But the catch is the whole process is – in 2001 our total mobile base was close to 5 million and price was discovered at Rs. 1620 Cr (all India Licence cost) but Mr RAJA and his team also kept the price of spectrum at Rs 1620 Cr even when market was proven, our mobile base was 500 million (please refer the exhibit for more details in telecom licences). The price of 2001 can not be justified in 2008 (though it can not be justified in 2003 either), at-least he and his team should have adjusted the price for the inflation.

Govt sometime give national resources at through away price to create the market or to keep price of end services or product low. But here this was not the case as companies who got the licence got a very high valuation just after the spectrum allocation and part of this they realized after diluting some stake. If government had intentions to have low prices then they should have prevented trading after the allocation which was not the case. Price of telecom services in India is cheap not because of cheaper spectrum but because of the hyper competition in this sector. India is one the very few countries where we have 11-12 operators in each circle which creates a very high competition scenario but in case of US/Europe this number is 3 or 4 which keeps the competition away and prices are higher.

Exhibit:

1995: two operator in each circle, policy was auction based and price discovered at $750m. Third operator added was BSNL (MTNL in metros) – it resulted in huge loss for the operators and government returned auction money. Revenue sharing scheme was put in place lately.

2001: fourth operator added, policy was auction and price discovered was $350m for all India licence.

2003: fifth and sixth operator added, policy was fixed price and price was fixed at $350m (price discovered in 2001 auction) for all India licence.

2008: 122 new licences (about 5-6 operator in each circle total 11 or 12), policy was fixed price and price was fixed again at $350m (a price discovered in 2001 auction) for all India licence.

[Guest article contributed by Salil Agrawal. Reproduced from his blog]

- The share of Urban Subscriber has marginally decreased from 65.73% to 65.59% where as share of Rural Subscribers has marginally increased from 34.27% to 34.41%. The overall wireless Tele density in India reaches 74.15.

- Broadband subscription reached  13.30 Million in December-2011 from 13.13 Million in Novomber-2011.

Wireless subscription in Urban Areas increased from 581.33 million in November 2011 to 586.26 million at the end of December 2011. The subscription in Rural Areas increased from 303.04 million to 307.59 million during the same period. This shows higher growth in Rural Subscription (1.50%) than Urban Subscription (0.85%).

In terms of market share, private operators hold 88.54% of the wireless market share where as BSNL and MTNL, two PSU operators hold only 11.46% market share.

Out of the total  893.84 Million subscribers,  646.77 Million were active on the date of Peak VLR* for the month of December 2011 (i.e. 72.36% active).

MNP

• By the end of December 2011 about 292.40 lakh subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for  porting their mobile number.
• Gujarat leads in Zone-1 and Karnataka in Zone-2.

Summary

* Visitor Location Register (VLR) is a temporary database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area, which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR; hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

TRAI has received representations from the stakeholders that in view of the limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM, they are not able to send machine to machine and person to machine SMSs  which are sent by them to initiate process or application for their operational requirements (like OTP). TRAI has duly considered such representations and has excluded  all machine to machine and person to machine messages from the limit of 200 SMS per day per SIM (i.e. if the device used is not a mobile device and no manual intervention is required).

TRAI has categorized information sent by a registered company to its employees or agents or its customers pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to such customer under Transactional message. So a registered company may send  information pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to customer under Transactional message category. [link (pdf)]

Also see: TRAI SMS Regulation – 5p Termination Charge For Promotional SMS; eCommerce Exempted | SMS Spam: TRAI to Block Bulk International SMS Beginning with Alphanumeric Combination

TRAI today issued a  direction to all the Access Providers and the ILD operators mandating them to take the following steps, within 30 days, keeping in view the time required to put the necessary system in place:

• All international SMS  containing alphabet header or alphanumeric header  or +91 as originating country code should not be delivered through the network.
• If any source or number from outside the country generates more than two hundred SMS per hour with similar ‘signature’, the same  should not be delivered through the network. However, such restriction shall not be applicable on blackout days.
• Only valid codes associated with the network  of those entities  with whom agreements have been signed by the Access Providers shall be allowed in the network

Operators have been asked to implement the rule within 30 days [source: TRAI release/pdf]

The court has said that the Indian tax department cannot tax the transaction that saw Vodafone acquire 67 per cent stake in Hutchison Essar. The deal was for 55,000 crores or $11.5 billion.

“”Indian tax authorities have no jurisdiction over Vodafone.” – Loses I.T. Case

Vodafone gets a rejection from Supreme Court

Vodafone had argued  that India cannot levy taxes because the transaction was made between non-Indian companies outside the country. Vodafone lost its case in the Bombay High Court in 2008 and then appealed against that verdict in the Supreme Court.

“The government has no jurisdiction over Vodafone’s purchase of mobile assets in India as the transaction took place in Cayman Islands between HTIL & Vodafone,” [source]

Also, the apex court directed the tax department to return Rs 2,500 crore deposited by Vodafone in compliance of its interim order within two months.

This case has set the benchmark for cross-border deal and at least 8 other companies are facing similar litigation.

Important to note that Vodafone is also planning to file its IPO in India and has roped in investment bank NM Rothschild to assist the company in its listing plans. [Via: 1,2]

Important hires:

- Deepak Mehrotra joins as the new CEO from Bharti Airtel

- Khaja Muzaffarullah joins as the Feature phone division head from Sony Ericsson

- Ajay Sharma, Ex Country Head from HTC to lead the Smart phone division

Post these hires, Micromax aspires for 10% market share in the near future (especially smartphone).

“These are exciting times not only for the brand but for the industry as a whole. We are witnessing technology advancements every day and that further excites us at Micromax. The Indian mobile industry is growing at a rate of 12% and we would like to capture this opportunity and drive the next phase of growth for the brand. We would further leverage brand’s success in this high potential Indian market and build new capabilities.” [Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, Micromax Informatics Ltd]

Micromax has had a good run with its feature phone segment , but the key is to crack the smartphone which the company hasn’t been able to. We once asksed a qn to Rahul Mathur (ex-CEO, now Executive Director at Micromax) whether Micromax needs a new brand for smartphone, as the company is still known for its feature phones and is brand becoming a major inhibitor in cracking the smartphone segment?

Maybe, we will get to see some of the ‘answers’ now.

Mobile Number Portability requests increased from 231.66 lakh subscribers at the end of October 2011 to 258.37 lakh subscribers at the end of November 2011. In the month of November, 2011 alone
26.71 lakh request have been made for MNP.

Nov 2011: Telecom Data

- Broadband subscription reached  13.13 Million in November-2011 from 12.98 Million in October-2011.

- Share of Urban Subscriber has marginally decreased from 65.86% to 65.73% where as share of Rural Subscribers has  marginally increased from 34.14% to 34.27%.

- The overall wireless Tele density in India reaches 73.44.

- Out of the total  884.37 Million subscribers,  635.39 Million were active on the date of Peak VLR for the month of November 2011.

- Private operators hold 88.51% of the wireless market share where as BSNL and MTNL, two PSU operators hold only  11.49% market share

Operator Share:

- More @TRAI annoucement (PDF).

How To Select Your Own Number Online On BSNL’s Site:

1. Go to the BSNL’s Page here.
2. Select Your State and 1 number from the list of available numbers.
3. On selection, you will get a 7 digit PIN via SMS that your will need to re-enter on the site to confirm.
4. Now you can go to your nearest BSNL Service Center and quote the Number and PIN to buy the number.

The service is absolutely free. You just pay for the usual SIM charges.

Even if you don’t like BSNL’s network, you can get your number and then opt in for MNP. This is a cool little feature that other operators might wake up to soon.

As per the approval of the Cabinet, the action for establishing and operationalizing Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) has been initiated for management and operation of the NOFN and ensuring non-discriminatory access to all service providers. The network proposed, under the scheme, is to be completed in two years’ time. The cost of initial phase of the NOFN scheme is likely to be in the region of Rs. 20,000 crores.

India has close to 12 million broadband subscribers and we certainly hope that such initiatives actually see the light of the day (in fact, this should have been done, before launching the Akash tablet).

Here are a few insights from the report:

- 20 million images and wallpapers were downloaded by Airtel mobile users in the last one year.

- In the entertainment space, ‘Kolaveri Di’ song has topped the Indian mobile charts within 18 days of its launch. The song has beaten all previous record holders like ‘Munni Badnaam Hui ‘and ‘Tere Mast Mast Nain’. The song was downloaded 2,10,000 times within 18 days of its launch.

- In the Bollywood segment, Katrina Kaif and King Khan maintains the leading position in the category of images downloaded this year. Despite several new entrants in Bollywood – Imran Khan and Jacqueline Fernandes were the only new comers to feature among the top 5 categories.

- In the Hollywood segment, Kim Kardashian and King of pop – Michael Jackson holds the top position in the category of images downloaded.

- As far as sports stars are concerned, Sachin Tendulkar led the chart, followed by M.S.Dhoni.

Appia provides white labeled app marketplace to operators with a ready-to-launch catalog of paid and free apps from more than 32,000 global application developers. With this partnership, subscribers of Vodafone will now have access to 10,000 free apps in the app store.

Powered by Appia, the new Mobile Application Store provides Vodafone India’s over 145 million subscribers with a comprehensive and vast selection of over 10,000 free and paid applications for virtually any handset across major mobile operating systems including Android, Java, Symbian and Blackberry.

The Vodafone Application Store includes over 10,000 app titles across all popular categories including games, entertainment, social networking and local culture, offering a one-stop shop for all Vodafone India Mobile (2G/3G) customers to purchase and download applications and games for use on their GPRS-enabled handsets. The catalog also includes an extensive collection of content from local providers, including Hungama, India Games, Nazara, Spice, and Vodafone-branded apps like Portfolio Tracker, Vodafone TV, and Chhota Comics. Free applications will be available, along with a strong collection of paid applications.

Vodafone customers can SMS <VStore> or <Apps> to 111 from their GPRS-enabled handsets and click on the URL in the response message. Customers can also log in to live.vodafone.in and click the Vstore link on the Vodafone Live homepage.

Appia’s application discovery and distribution network provides all of the content for Vodafone’s mobile application storefront, as well as the end-to-end managed service platform for storefront merchandising and commerce. The store currently supports over 3,500 different devices, and is optimized to match applications to each subscriber’s specific device, offering thousands of applications across all major mobile operating systems, thus making it one of the best amongst all operator apps stores in the country.

1. In order to further deter the sending of promotional SMSs, the Authority has now prescribed ‘a promotional SMS charge’ of Re. 0.05 (five paise) payable by an Originating Access Provider to the Terminating Access Provider for each promotional SMS sent by a registered telemarketer from the network of the Originating Access Provider to the network of the Terminating Access Provider.

2. Authority has included the following categories of SMSes in the definition of transactional message:-

(i) information sent by e-commerce agencies in response to ecommerce transactions made by their customers;

(ii) information sent by a company or a firm or depository participant registered with Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) or Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) or Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) or National Commodity & Derivative Exchange Ltd. (NCDEX) or Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX) to its clients pertaining to the account of the client;

(iii) information sent by a registered company to its employees or agents or to its customers  pertaining to services or goods to be delivered to such customers;

In all TRAI has confused the access providers with more clauses and there is going to be more chaos. Though for now eCommerce companies can take a breather.

The main motive of the fight, which we have reasons to believe is between Airtel (max consumers) – Tata (max bulk SMS provider), is now finally being served with the termination charges on the SMS being enforced.

One interesting part remains as to how the international SMS providers would be blocked from sending SMS to a India number?

But if the recent developments are true, Bulk SMS will be back with a bang. With the Diwali around the corner, every retailer is pushing big time to somehow get their messages delivered (unsolicited) to the consumers. And so some of the SMS Providers have come up with a way to work around NCPR guidelines. Use an international SMS Gateway. 

NCPR restrictions (or guidelines to be precise, because there is no physical restrictions) are only for Indian mobile operators. Not for the international one. Yes using an international SMS gateway will indeed be costlier, but if retailers are ready to pump in that money, sms providers will definitely oblige. And you know very well where this money will go. If the demand only from India rises so much, the price itself will no doubt come down making Bulk SMS accessible to every one.

This shoot first and ask later attitude of the government (especially with NCPR) is hurting a lot of nascent mobile VAS company. Not only does it not solve the core issue (UCC SMS) it kills a lot of good innovation.

Doesn’t this remind you of a 80′s Bollywood movie, the Police (TRAI) laid a trap for the smugglers(Bulk SMS), but it was not long before Police realized they have been double crossed. oops double trai’ed?

What do you think the government should do about this? And fast.

[Article reproduced from Mayank Sharma’s blog. Mayank is part of Onze team (the company behind Latlong product)]

Recommended Read: TRAI TRAI….. and FAIL [The New Spam SMS Regulation]?

BSB will actively invest in the mobile internet ecosystem’s growth in India, with an emphasis on three key areas:

• Social Media,
• Gaming,
• e-Commerce.

Important to recall that Airtel shut down its Innovation Fund in September 2010 and from what we know, there was a talk with Singtel to launch an India specific fund, but it didn’t materialize.

What will this JV do? Well, only time will tell if Bharti can really execute a fund business – the Innovation fund was shut now to pump money into 3G auction (as many speculated), but it was shut down because lack of interest and too much of bureaucracy in the company.

Also, Softbank earlier invested $200mn in Inmobi.

–

Press Release

New Delhi/Tokyo, October 20, 2011: Bharti Enterprises, one of India’s leading business groups (“Bharti”), and SOFTBANK CORP., parent corporation for one of Japan’s leading internet company groups (“SoftBank”), are pleased to announce the formal launch of Bharti Softbank Holdings Pte. Ltd. (“BSB”), a 50:50 controlled joint venture between Bharti and SoftBank established to focus on mobile internet.

BSB will actively participate in the mobile internet ecosystem’s growth in India, with an emphasis on three key areas: Social Media, Gaming, e-Commerce. BSB aims to further accelerate the pace of development of India’s mobile internet market, which, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, had over 850 million mobile subscribers as of July, 2011.

“India, which has emerged as the second largest mobile market in the world, stands at the cusp of another revolution – mobile internet,” said Mr. Kavin Bharti Mittal, BSB’s Head of Strategy & New Product Development. “With a fast growing economy, a large youth population and access to cheaper and faster data, there is a unique opportunity to build services ground up for mobile, especially in a country where the first screen for most is a mobile device. We are delighted to partner with SoftBank, whose vast experience in this area will help us build and invest in services for India.”

“Over the decades, SoftBank has endeavoured to develop new markets for Internet businesses, starting from the U.S., China and now India,” said Mr. Atsushi Taira, a Director of BSB. “I believe that through the mobile internet, we can change people’s lives in India and empower each one of them, which will contribute to society’s exponential growth. I am very excited to be a part of this vision and delighted to have Bharti, with its unparalleled vision, knowledge and experience with emerging markets, as our partner. This partnership represents a significant step in SoftBank’s journey towards becoming No. 1 in the mobile internet industry.”

Tata Teleservices Limited has adopted a future-facing strategic approach to ring in the next growth wave in the Company, unveiling an integrated technology-agnostic structure to leverage emerging market opportunities. The Company will leverage its wide range of products and services and reach out to customers with one common brand—Tata DOCOMO—cutting across the CDMA and GSM platforms. With this move, brand Tata DOCOMO now moves into the CDMA space, and all Tata Indicom customers shall be migrated to Tata DOCOMO from tomorrow.

• Company migrates all Tata Indicom customers to Tata DOCOMO
• Evolved strategy built on belief that phones are not just for talking
• CDMA, GSM, 3G & Photon platforms available under new, unified brand
• Products & services available through a single, strong retail network
• To upgrade strong CDMA network to unlock next level of data usage
• Unveils exciting range of cutting-edge CDMA handsets & Smartphones

“Our new strategy will unify our brands and unlock the synergies across the CDMA, GSM & 3G platforms. We are pleased to welcome our Tata Indicom customers into the Tata DOCOMO family, offering them a new world of telecom and lifestyle-impacting experiences,”

TTL has also put in place a new integrated go-to-market approach—across the sales, marketing and customer service domains. For instance, the Company’s 3,000-plus-strong CDMA retail footprint will now become accessible for GSM as well, and vice versa. The migration of services to the unified Tata Docomo brand will happen in Delhi-NCR at a later date.

TTL’s new strategic direction in the Access, Content and Solutions spaces, enables the Company to offer compelling propositions to customers in a market that has been witnessing far-reaching changes in terms of usage trends and customer preferences. The growth of the Internet usage on phones, the arrival of Smartphones, the explosion of social-networking and the evolution of the Indian consumer—all will lead to a fundamental shift in the role of the mobile phone in everyone’s life. The phone is no longer just for talking; it holds the potential to impact lifestyles, even transform lives. To read more, visit http://www.tatadocomo.com/world-of-tatadocomo.aspx . or http://m.tatadocomo.com/world-of-tatadocomo.aspx.

Following are some key points relevant to users and startups.

Policy Obejectives:

• Increase in rural teledensity from the current level of around 35 to 60 by the year 2017 and 100 by the year 2020.
• Provide affordable and reliable broadband on demand by the year 2015 and to achieve 175 million broadband connections by the year 2017 and 600 million by the year 2020 at minimum 2 Mbps download speed and making available higher speeds of atleast 100 Mbps on demand.
• To reposition the mobile phone from a mere communication device to an instrument of empowerment that combines communication with proof of identity, fully secure financial and other transaction capability, multi-lingual services and a whole range of other capabilities that ride on them and transcend the literacy barrier.
• Achieve substantial transition to new Internet Protocol (IPv 6) in the country in a phased and time bound manner by 2020 and encourage an ecosystem for provision of a significantly large bouquet of services on IP platform.

Strategies Proposed:

• To make efforts to recognise telecom and broadband connectivity as a basic necessity like education and health and work towards ‘Right to Broadband’.
• To revise the existing broadband download speed of 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps by 2011 and subsequently to 2 Mbps by 2015 and and higher speeds of atleast 100 Mbps thereafter.
• To encourage digitalisation of the local cable networks.
• To frame an appropriate Exit Policyfor the licencees.
• To permit spectrum pooling, sharing and later, trading for optimal and efficient utilisation of spectrum.
• To prescribe sectoral Standard Operating Procedures for effective and early mitigation during disasters and emergencies. To mandate Telecom Service Providers to provide alternative reliable means of communication at the time of disaster by creating appropriate regulatory framework.
• To undertake legislative measures to bring disputes between telecom consumers and service providers within the jurisdiction of Consumer Forums/ Consumer Protection Act.
• To recognize the role of new technologies in furthering public welfare and enhanced customer choices through affordable access and efficient service delivery. The emergence of new service formats such as Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications (e.g. remotely operated irrigation pumps, smart grid etc.) represent tremendous opportunities, especially as their roll-out becomes more widespread.
• To create a special purpose Telecom Finance Corporation as a vehicle to mobilize and channelize financing for telecom projects in order to facilitate investment in the telecom sector.

What do you think of the objectives and strategies laid down? Is DoT thinking out-of-the box?

Much has been blogged about whether TRAI did the right thing in handling the spams on phone. For most people it is a welcome move but many are confused.

As TRAI has defined 7 categories, you can either choose to opt in for a category or opt out of all messages in that category. TRAI should have made the subscription, not by category, but by the sender which would be a win-win situation for businesses as well as consumers. TRAI, instead of solving the problem, has introduced limit to the flow of information.

Rather than criticizing TRAI over its short-sighted measure, let us envision a simple and holistic solution.

Firstly, the masks should be unique. As a business, you have to define a mask and share it with your customers, who will in turn decide whether to opt in or not. The details of the masks and subscription have to be maintained by TRAI.

Following is an illustration for a website that has registered for the keyword ‘DEALS’ and how customers can subscribe to it. Remember keyword ‘DEALS’ is unique to this business/website and cannot be used by anybody else.

This simple solution would be beneficial to customers since they can choose from whom they would like to receive messages. Every SMS sent has to pass through NCPR, and only if registered, it should be delivered to the customer. This way, TRAI need not keep adding exceptions to its list of businesses as it did by publishing amendment to its law within 12 hours. This is going to be a continuous process as more and more businesses will be approaching TRAI to white-list them.

Though it is good to see that TRAI is serious in reducing the spam, it should have put more thought into its implementation. Anyways, I would be missing texts from all kinds of deals, hair and weight loss programs and all the coming-soon projects by top developers.

—-

Beginning discussion from Pi Team:

Pratyush -The solution is OUT of scope of present implementation. There are other such solutions possible. There is also another fundamental – geeky flaw. Lets say TRAI says we have names till 6 chars – then number of options – = 26^6 + 26^5 … Most of these would be unusable e.g gtyyhg – so trai will sooon run out of such masks.

Naman – Nice. This might actually be a solution. It’s like each marketer has a channel registered with TRAI with permanent sender ID. Once this is implemented you can have 8 char IDs. Also then it will be a hot commodity like domain names. You use your TradeMark as sender ID. Pay a monthly fee to TRAI to retain the sender ID. While registering with SMS gateway, you share your certificate number for the that sender ID. Or share a unique token(like password) as an extra parameter till the msg reaches the operator, where the real scrubbing happens. Or the whole 11 char can be used as sender ID. TM / TD /TL etc.  operator code could be removed. If you allow only 8 chars also it is 26^8 = 208Bn . 26^6 is also 308Mn. Both are enough. Add numbers and symbol like “-” to it and it becomes 37^8 = 3.5Trillion. Even if 0.001% of that is usable it becomes 35Mn. It’s like 1 sender ID for each tax payer in India.
And even the unusable ones are better than random 6 digit codes that operators are using now.

Kunal Kant –  Just give you rough idea. Read Page 49 & 50 here from TRAI. I quote:
“The question of blocking by the service provider an unsolicited commercial communication sent by the telemarketer   to customer registered on NCPR was also discussed during the consultation process. Mixed views were expressed. While one set  of service providers have opined that filtering of calls and SMS may increase the load on the system and may be difficult to implement, others feel that technical solutions can be worked out to effectively block unsolicited commercial SMS.”
Second, all service provider need to provide telecom resource for handling complains, escalation, blocking & issuing service and lot more, which they are always short in allocation. Extra resource = increase in Opex. Hope this gives us some clarity.

What do you think? Is this a viable option given the technology overheads?

Businesses providing tracking services ( e.g. real time train timings, how driver is driving, etc), Group SMS using web are also badly hit.

SMS is an inexpensive, easy and silent mode of communication. Young India communicates extensively through SMS. Businesses use SMS as a cost effective and universally understandable communication medium. But on the flip side subscribers & businesses have also abused this mode of communication.

Political parties have also come out against the TRAI rule to gain more sympathy in the eyes of public.

“The government wishes to curb the endless and disruptive flow of messages, but instead of addressing the source of the problem, they are imposing limitations on the public. This goes against the basic rights of an individual,” Shiv Sena’s Aaditya Thackeray.

Every month, the TRAI receives some 40,000 complaints about telemarketers. Last month, it cut off 72,000 phone connections of registered telemarketers and more than 118,000 of those of unregistered firms for calling people even though they had subscribed to a do-not-call registry. Not all subscribers complain, even if they are at the receiving end.

Businesses are sending SMS or mail stating to unsubscribe from NCPR or unblock particular category, if you would like to continue our services. But aren’t these businesses asking their users to open door for Spam? We surely think so.

In fact TRAI has warned users:

“Customers are requested to be aware of such messages which are apparently based on misunderstanding of the regulations and customers already registered on NCPR are requested to not deregister,”

“Concerns have been raised that such provisions will impact flow of transactional messages such as from a bank to its customers or from Airlines to its passengers, and likewise from the schools to the students/ parents. This concern is misplaced. Under the Regulation, such messages are classified as Transactional messages [see Clause 2(ab)] and the limit of 100 SMS does not apply to the Transaction messages,”

Today businesses and subscribers both are confused and are in a dilemma. They are struggling to understand the fine prints and the technicalities of the rule and what would be cost effective alternatives.

What I recommend to TRAI is to communicate, explain and simplify the rules. It is important that the common man understands the logic behind the rules.
Note: The next article in this series includes how businesses are affected, some opinions and solutions. Please share your thoughts with kunal@pluggd.in

[Guest article by Kunal Kant, Operations Manger at Pluggd.in]

Where is my “Noida’s Best Location wala Flat” ka SMS? These guys used to greet me every morning, I feel Lonely today, thanks to TRAI. -inspector_kadamSeptember 27, 2011 at 10:3

They have started with a binary approach either 0 or 1 – which is usually the easiest to start off with. While it is easy to implement at technical level, it is not the last word here I believe (All SMS should pass through NCPR to find out whether it will get delivered or not). In a sense, they are testing how it should work and before incorporating all the required changes, they want to understand the right set of rules which will form the guidelines.

Since most startups & businesses rely on SMS, it now a tough ask for these service providers to find a working alternative. Obviously there has been lots of noise in the social media on the opt-in services. TRAI is being asked to consider opt-in categories or sub-categories.

What will Dr Batra’s hair sms team TRAI after DnD implementation? Jobless?
-noupdates September 27, 2011 at 10:49

With the present implementation, it’s going to be hard to implement  the logic for SMS delivery (at operator level). However this is an evolving process and if the set of rules is well defined, the operators have to fall in line. The onus also lies – to some extent – on the VAS / SMS bulk providers to implement as they have been the worst offenders in the past.

Coming back to businesses and brands, I believe brands will be more active over social media to persuade their users to use their services. Even for verification and information purposes, they need to find solid & working alternatives. Twitter & FB are possible alternative. What others do you think?

I can smell many of Indian Brands registering on twitter today after #TRAI

- nkumar_ September 27, 2011 at 10:57

What do you think? What are the possible alternative for businesses in order to keep their cost minimum and still be as effective as SMS?

[Guest post by Kunal Kant, Operations Manager at Pluggd.in]

TRAI has directed all Access Providers to exclude the following persons from the limit of one hundred SMS per day per SIM:-

(i) Dealers of the Telecom Service Providers and DTH Operators for sending request for electronic recharge on mobile numbers;

(ii) e-ticketing agencies  for responding  to e-ticketing request made by its customers;

(iii) The social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn and GooglePlus to its members pertaining to activities relating to their accounts based on their verifiable options;

(iv) Agencies providing directory services – Justdial, Zatse, Callezee, Getit and Askme.

The Authority received representations from the customers, telecom service providers and their associations  stating that in view of the restriction imposed by the clause (k) of sub-regulation (2) of regulation 20 of the regulations, the customers who need to send noncommercial messages to their employees, agents etc. for their genuine day to day operational requirement are not able to send such messages exceeding one hundred messages per day per SIM.

The Access Provider shall, before excluding the persons referred in para 8 above, obtain an undertaking from such person that he shall not use the said facility in any manner for sending commercial communications.

What do you think the implications of this would be? Anyone know what this would even help with?

Last week I travelled to Bangalore via bus. I did not carry the physical ticket as the SMS ticket was enough. It was such a relief- from taking the prints and carrying along. But soon, I’ll have to go back to the paper way as TRAI’s new policy on spam SMS is getting implemented from 27^th September.

Once again, TRAI’s intentions are good but they are full with some major flaws. In an attempt to curb unsolicited messaging, the new regulations are killing the whole convenience of SMS communication.

Consider some of the prominent issues:

1. Confusion-Confusion- And more confusion

TRAI should first stick to some of the terms it coined. They started with NDNC (National Do Not Call registry) which went on to become DND (Do Not Disturb) and it is now re-phrased as NCPR (National Call Preference Registry). What is the rationale behind changing the name each time a new policy is introduced? It confuses people more, every time. No surprise, almost all subscribers are bothered by unsolicited calls and SMS but only about 15% are registered in DND.

2. Transactional Vs Non transactional

TRAI has provided instructions on what are transactional messages, for example- SMS from banks, railway, airlines, educational institutes etc. According to TRAI, SMS from only these organizations will be treated as transactional and SMS from rest all will be treated as non-transactional (or promotional). The problem here is – ALL non-transactional SMS will be passed through NCPR and they won’t be delivered if the receiver number is registered in it. This essentially means all the solicited and important messages like those from- courier, auto service, corporate/community group messages, facebook/google alerts, yellow pages info, ticketing, event updates, news alerts, subscribed SMS and so on will NOT be delivered to you if your number is registered in NCPR.

3. 7 categories

To make things complicated, there will 7 categories of SMS (Mind it! The entire range of SMS communication is put in 7 categories) – 1- Banking/Insurance/Financial products/credit cards, 2- Real Estate, 3- Education, 4- Health, 5- Consumer goods and automobiles, 6- Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT, 7-Tourism and Leisure.

When you register in NCPR, you are by default ‘blocked’ for all non-transactional or promo SMS. However, you can ‘unblock’ yourself from any of the 7 categories mentioned above to receive the promo SMS. So if you want to receive say travel offers or travel related SMS, you may unblock category 7. But here is a big problem – You have the liberty to unblock a ‘category’ but you can’t control ‘who’ in that category. So for example, when you unblock category 7 for tourism, you are ‘legitimately’ opening doors to receive spam from every Tom-Dick &harry in tourism industry.

This is a complete fail. As a consumer, you can not specifically decide whose SMS you want (or don’t want). At the max, you can only decide category. Imagine this- You unblock to get deals from your preferred brand and you have to accept spam from all deal sites. You unblock to get health tips/updates from your chosen trainer/company and you have to receive spam from all those health service providers (Remember those Dr. Khatra Spam on haircare!).

It is also worth noting that, virtually, you may need to unblock from all categories to receive genuine, other useful messages as entire SMS communication is divided in 7 categories.

All it means, either you get all SMS (including pesky spam) or you don’t get anything.

Well, the problem doesn’t end here.

4. Numeric Sender Ids

The new regulations take out the ‘Alpha Sender’ system partially. As of now, you can see who is the sender (Ex. AA-SENDER) and delete the SMS there itself without needing to open/read further. As per new regulations, only transactional SMS (mind it again, only TRAI will specify who can send or what can be transactional SMS) will have Alpha sender (Ex- AA-MyBANK) and rest all will carry a numeric sender (Ex. AA-n11111, where n is the category you unblock and 11111 is the unique code assigned to the aggregator). Since India has major 6-7 bulk SMS aggregators, your inbox will be full of SMS with those (repeating) 6-7 numeric senders only. This means, one will have to open and read the whole SMS to understand who the sender is.

Is the new system reducing or increasing our pain?

5. Practical implementation w.r.t violations

The fine to be imposed on the aggregators is Rs. 25000 for the first offence and it goes upto Rs 250,000 for the sixth offence. After which the aggregator will be blacklisted from sending SMS.

The NCPR data will be updated and availed to telemarketers twice a week. As each of the aggregator sends billions of SMS per month, it looks impractical that they will not exceed 6 violations within one year.

The whole bulk SMS industry will be in turmoil if even 1 or 2 aggregators get banned.

6. 9 to 9 timing

All the non transactional SMS can be sent only during 9am to 9pm. This means, even if you are not registered with NCPR, you can not get important SMS like online transaction details, server down alerts etc in the night (9pm to 9am).

Importantly, what happens to opt-in services like way2sms, 160by2 in night?

7. 100 SMS limit

One can send maximum 100 SMS Per Day Per SIM (PDPS! Another term coined) under the cheap SMS packs. (It is still unclear if one can send more than 100 SMS with regular SMS pans, which are comparatively costlier).

What if a person buys 50 SIM in his name and spams to DND (sorry, NCPR!) numbers? He can still spam to 5000 people in a day, without incurring any fine.

An interesting observation from our research on smsBlocker- About 9 % spam SMS are sent via mobile numbers/SIM.

In one more attempt TRAI is trying to curb unsolicited SMS. This time the rules are quite stringent (and weird in many ways). With various loopholes, they might reduce spam to a certain extent but they will harm the very convenient and useful messaging system in a significant manner.

By the time I finish this post, I received an SMS from Pune Police-Traffic Department, which sends useful traffic updates via SMS. It reads-

“You are on NDNC & will no longer receive Traffic Alerts. If you wish to continue receiving alerts unsubscribe from NDNC registry by sending an SMS STOP 0 to 1909″

The point is clear- Be ready to get all or get nothing!

As a user or as an entrepreneur is the new policy going to help you or harm you? What’s your opinion?

[Image credit: Paull Young/Flickr. The title of this post is borrowed from a tweet by Ashish. Thanks to him.]

No National Roaming – It is not clear whether doing away with national roaming is a result of single license or would this come in effect even without the single license policy. Nonetheless, given the fact that roaming charges constitute of 10% of operators revenue, this policy will see quite some resistance. Though, this could also mean higher increased airtime from subscribers as they would be less worried about the costs.

Inter-circle MNP – Current MNP regulations allow only switching between operators of the same state. The new policy would make it possible to switch from one operator in a given state to another operator in a different state. Though, if national roaming charges is removed, there would be minimal need for this.

Unified Call Rates Across Country: As a result of the above regulations, telecom operators would need to keep a common tariff plan across all states.

But the enforcement of this policy does not seems to happen in near future.

According to a telecom department official, the introduction of a new licensing framework and migration of all mobile phone companies to a single permit will be time consuming.

The migration process will be further complicated by the fact that the permits of mobile phone companies expire at different time-frames across different regions, this official added. In addition to these consumer-centric measures, the draft policy has also specified several targets for the telecom sector. [Source]

According to senior DoT officials, Qualcomm was required to submit its application for an ISP licence within 3 months of the conclusion of the BWA (broadband wireless access) auction in June 2010. The regulator claimed it did not receive Qualcomm’s paperwork until December 2010.

Important to note that Qualcomm won air waves in four circles (Delhi, Mumbai, Kerala and Haryana) and paid Rs.4,912.54 crore for the spectrum.

Though Qualcomm denies this report, Livemint reports that Qualcomm application for ISP license has been rejected by DoT.

“It is noted that you have submitted the names of your nominee companies for obtaining ISP licence to WPC (wireless planning and coordination) wing of DoT only on 20.12.2010, which was beyond the validity period for applying or otherwise acquiring the relevant licence,” – DoT Letter.

Qualcomm created four firms in each circle where it won spectrum and these companies had applied for the licences. But there was no letter from Qualcomm stating that these companies were its nominees.

Key Take Aways:

1. Total telecom subscriber base is at 874.68 Mn.
2. Total mobile subscriber base is at 840.28Mn. Active mobile subscriber base is 70% at 588.13 Mn. Idea leads with 92.33% active users. MTNL has 34.39% active.
3. Broaband subscription is at 12.12Mn. Increase of around 101K from month of April.
4. Mobile Number Portability (MNP) requests increase from 8.54Mn subscribers at the end of April 2011 to 10.57Mn subscribers at the end of May 2011.
5. BSNL maintains highest market share in wireline subscription at 72.27%.
6. Total loss in wireline subscriptions was 176K.

TRAI Report May 2011 (in Mn)

Operator Share May 2011

[Naman is a startup enthusiast and has worked with couple of Indian startups as Product Manager. He writes at The Inspire Blog]

Popular celebrities using the service include Amitabh Bachchan, Lara Dutta, Priyanka Chopra, Yuvraj Singh, R. Madhavan, John Abraham, Radhika Pandit, Ravi Kishan and many more regularly update their ‘voice blog’ on bubblemotion’s platform, bringing it the much needed fan following among the mass.

While it sounds quite exciting, Bubbleblog’s success is mostly driven by Bollywood actors and frankly, it’s not right to compare the same with a channel like Twitter which democratizes the entire conversation. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to see how operators are maximizing their air waves and monetizing via these premium services.

What’s your take on Bubble motion service?

Bubble Motion Patents Voice SMS! | Indiatimes launches HiBuddy, Voice Blogging Service [Voice is Commodity]

The service would be powered by BigFlix. The service will give you access to 500 Movies along with 100 TV shows, 100 trailers and 100 music videos @just INR 229/month – all on your computer/laptop/tablet at home (advertising free).

Details:

• Over 500 Movies, 100 TV shows and more @ INR 229/month on your computer/laptop/tablet.
• No additional bandwidth consumption charges.
• Easy payment through your Monthly Broadband Bill– no credit card/debit card required.

Airtel Movies adds on its recent offerings- airtel Broadband TV and airtel Photos that does away with the hassle of payment through credit/debit cards.

So now, we have a Netflix of sorts for India – BigFlix, on its own failed to create one, lets hope an operator tieup works this time around.

What’s your opinion?

Also see: Airtel Money Goes Live in Delhi NCR, Brings 2,200 Merchants Onboard

In 2010, bharti airtel was granted the license to use the Semi Closed Wallet by the Reserve Bank of India (read: Airtel Gets RBI’s Nod for Mobile Payment Service [First Step to Mobile Currency]) and the company has added 2,200 merchants in Delhi/NCR (right from utility providers like NDPL, BSES Yamuna, BSES Rajdhani, Indraprastha Gas, LIC to organized retailers such as Easy Day, Chalchitra, Yo China, Costa Coffee, Hair n Shanti, DT Cinemas, Fun Cinemas among others as well as local chemists and grocery stores). airtel money customers will also receive exclusive offers (right now offers on the website are mostly from airtel, but do expect airtel to get into ‘deals’ to create awareness of the service).

Essentially, this is not a semi closed wallet service (as allowed by RBI) that enables you to add money, but not withdraw (instead, make payments/buy goods and services).

Where can you use airtel money?

• Load cash: Load cash on your airtel mobile by visiting your nearest airtel retail outlet [Minimum is Rs. 10, Maximum is Rs. 5,000 and monthly limit stands at Rs. 50, 000].
• Pay bills & recharge: You will be able to use this cash in your mobile for making bill payments (electricity, gas, financial services, etc.) and recharge – Limits same as above.
• Shop & make payments: Instead of cash, pay over-the-counter merchants such as your nearest kirana store, chemist, etc using your mobile phone. You can even sit at home and pay for services like booking movie tickets online.

How To use airtel money

• Register by filling in the application form and submitting KYC documents (2 photocopies of proof-of-identity, 1 copy of proof-of-address and a passport size photograph).
• After the above, your existing airtel SIM will be upgraded to the new 64K airtel SIM with airtel money
• Activate your airtel money account by choosing your MPIN.
• Load cash into your airtel money account by visiting your nearest airtel retailer
• You are now ready to send commands through the airtel money application on your phone!

Pricing/Charges

Airtel will charge a month subscription fee of Rs. 5/month and charges Rs. 5/payment.

Question to ponder: What happened to mChek partnership?

Also see: Nokia Launches Mobile Money Service in Chandigarh