Expert View

January 13, 2005
BPL Mobile: 50 percent handsets to be GPRS

Geetanjali Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty

MUMBAI -- BPL Mobile was the first operator in India, the second in Asia and fifth in the world to introduce GPRS in 2001, even as others had adopted a wait-and-watch approach. Convergence*plus met Kunal Ramteke, marketing controller, BPL Mobile, to find out more about GPRS in India and the role BPL Mobile envisages to play in the future. Excerpts from an interview:

Convergence*plus: How has GPRS evolved in India over the past year or so?

Kunal Ramteke: BPL Mobile was the first operator in the country, the second in Asia and the fifth in the world when it introduced GPRS in 2001. GPRS is an enhancement to GSM that integrates GSM and IP. GPRS offers an "always-on", high-speed connectivity to the Internet. You can check your email on the move and surf the Web at high speeds.

Till 2000, the telecom world was waiting for GPRS to beef up data transmission rates on WAP from 9.6Kbps to at least 64Kbps. Even as BPL Mobile launched GPRS in 2001, the rest of the industry had adopted a wait-and-watch strategy. Reasons, according to industry experts, ranged from a lack of handsets, the fear of technological obsolescence, the lack of applications, and a bad experience with WAP.

The market for enterprise mobile applications has emerged very strongly only in the recent past. More applications are hitting the market like banking services, MMS, mobile gaming, mobile email, etc. Going forward, the mass adoption of mobile applications will happen with mass penetration of GPRS. Further, handset vendors have strategically focused on ensuring that almost all of the new mobile phone devices being launched are GPRS compliant. This would mean that in about two years, over 50 percent of the handsets in the market would be on GPRS.

CP: What is your subscriber base for GPRS?

KR: BPL Mobile has over 25,000 GPRS subscribers in Mumbai.

CP: What services are currently being offered, and what major applications do subscribers use?

KR: GPRS applications offered by BPL Mobile can be broadly categorized into:

• Mobile applications - These include MMS, mobile games, emails, movie trailers, among others;
• Internet on the move (Mobile Internet) - Internet access while on the move. By connecting the BPL Mobile GPRS handset to a PC/laptop/PDA, you can surf the Internet;
• Office on the move - Secured intranet access to corporate intranet for emails, database, etc., can be done over GPRS; and
• Machine-to-machine (M2M) applications - Gaming kiosks/ATM machines can be connected over GPRS to the central location.

Mobile Internet and MMS are the most popular applications. Here, BPL Mobile has taken the lead to be the first operator to introduce MMS in India. These applications are specialized and cater to specific segments like high net worth individuals, corporates and the youth.

CP: How will the current applications, used by your subscribers, generate revenue?

KR: Currently, GPRS is a new technology and terminal devices are still innovating. Therefore, the key services on offer are faster access to the Internet, WAP and multimedia messaging. Newer technologies like GPRS bring with them a unique opportunity to create winning applications for latent consumer needs. BPL Mobile has demonstrated the effective use of GPRS in the M2M connectivity domain, an opportunity unique to India. The ZEE Play Win lottery kiosks are currently inter-networked using GPRS. Very soon, you will see other industries, especially banking, entertainment and services, adopting GPRS as the preferred mode of connectivity for their applications/devices. At present, the non-voice revenue contribution along with GPRS stands at 15 percent of the total revenue.

CP: Is there a mismatch between the number of GPRS handsets and subscribers?

KR: Yes, this is true for any new service. GPRS is still in its growth phase and like any new technology, has its own adoption cycle. Today, not every GPRS enabled handset user is a GPRS subscriber. Similarly, SMS was available on all handsets as a free service since 1995, but has become a phenomenon only during the last two to three years.

The encouraging sign is that handset vendors have strategically focused on ensuring that almost all of the new mobile phone devices being launched are GPRS compliant. As I mentioned earlier, this would mean that in about two years, over 50 percent of the handsets in the market would be GPRS.

CP: There is said to be a lack of compelling and attractive content. What are you doing about it?

KR: The first phase is to get consumers to see the value in the service, and content will ensure stickiness to the service. BPL Mobile has always been a technology leader and we will continue to innovate to bring the latest content and services for our 2.4 million users across the country.

On the business solutions side, BPL Mobile has demonstrated the effective use of GPRS in the M2M connectivity domain. A lot of other industries, especially banking, entertainment and services, will soon adopt GPRS for their applications/devices.

CP: Should the EDGE operators learn from the failure of GPRS operators, and provide rich, localized content?

KR: It would be too early to comment on this.