Wireless

January 6, 2005
Ringtones, wallpapers, popular apps on GPRS

Geetanjali Wadhwa & Pradeep Chakraborty

Though GPRS has been around for some time now, it has had a slow start, perhaps, owing largely to factors such as lack of consumer awareness in using the handset itself and the service, as well as lack of compelling content. However, all this will soon change as operators and vendors are taking steps to improve services and content to boost subscriber numbers and subsequently, revenue. There is a clear case for EDGE as well to enable high-speed multimedia and graphics.

NEW DELHI, MUMBAI AND CHENNAI -- Wireless, and specifically, 2.5 and 3G technologies, barring CDMA, was held responsible for the telecom downturn in 2001-02. Hence, growth for GPRS, a 2.5G technology, has since been slow and cautious. The story has been no different in India. Though GPRS has been around for a year or so in India, and the fact that it has created awareness among mobile subscribers in using data services, the customer base is not that large.

According to N.K. Mangla, director (C&M), BSNL, this may be due to the non-availability of compelling content. Revenue from data services is said to be currently around 5 percent or so. Customers are said to be showing some interest in data services and many developments are taking place in new applications. All the service providers are fully aware of the tremendous potential of data services, if the content is compelling enough.

Sukanta Dey, chief marketing and commercial officer, IDEA Cellular Ltd., said GPRS has been evolving rapidly in India as cellular operators are propagating it aggressively in all the major cities by launching a wide range of products, talking to handset vendors for GPRS handsets, advertising, communicating and thereby, educating the consumers of this multi-dimensional product offering. "GPRS will primarily be used for increasing productivity and for entertainment," he added.

Mohit Bhatnagar, vice president, value-added services and new product development, Airtel Mobile Services, pointed out that GPRS initially began as a tool to access the Internet. However, from 2003 onward, it has become a means to access content and applications for more and more people. He noted: "The most important thing to remember is that GPRS is merely a bearer and its success or failure depends on the over riding applications. Over the past year, the number of GPRS applications has grown significantly. The typical business user uses it to check emails and browse by using the phone, Airtel's Blackberry or a laptop. Popular consumer services include downloading ring tones, wallpapers, games, video clips, etc."

GPRS always ON for users
If GPRS is just a bearer, is it solely about providing higher speeds, or is there more to it? Vijay R. Singh, vice chairman and managing director, Hyundai India Telecom Ltd., (HIT Ltd.) dwelt on its technical side. A cell site splits radio channels into time slots with each time slot having the capacity to move data at 9.6Kbs. When a normal or circuit-switched data call is made, the user occupies the entire time slot and gets the whole 9.6Kbs to himself. In other words, the user has switched the circuit on and all of it belongs to him or her. If there are as many users as the cell site can handle and another user tries to place a voice or data call, the second user gets a 'network busy' tone or signal and will have to try later.

Singh said: "Circuit-switched calls are good as you get the time slot all to yourself and hence, a pretty much guaranteed data rate of 9.6Kbs, but you are also paying for the call for the entire duration that you are connected. There is also a lengthy process called a 'hand shake' at the start of each call to establish a connection. There is a method of linking several time slots together to give multiples of 9.6Kbs, and this is called high-speed circuit switched data (HSCSD), though it is unlikely that many networks are going to implement this as it takes a lot of capacity away from the network."

GPRS on the other hand does not take control of a whole time slot when you have data to be sent or received. Instead, it sends packets of information out onto the network whenever capacity is available. This is a good and a bad thing! If the cell site is very busy, then there may not be much room to send many of the packets and the effective data speed may be reduced. However, GPRS will keep trying to send and receive data all the time leaving the user free to carry on working, while it takes care of sending the information. When the cell is not busy, data will move much faster. The other major advantage of GPRS over circuit switched data is that it will appear to a user that he or she is always connected to the network. "There is no hand shake to perform. As soon as you have data to send or receive, the packets start to flow," added Singh.

Sandeep Saxena, general manager, head-technical sales, Mobile Networks, Siemens Public Communication Networks (Pvt.) Ltd., elucidated that GPRS is a solution to provide data services at reasonably high speeds. The examples are Internet browsing, MMS, WAP over GPRS, etc. He said: "With the help of GPRS, the whole Internet world is available to mobile subscribers. It not only provides data services, but also helps in better resource management, SMS over GPRS being one of the examples. In comparison to a circuit-switched data connection, GPRS is always ON. It gives more flexibility in having content and volume-based charging, instead of time-based charging in case of circuit switched data calls, as well."

GPRS default feature on handsets
Bluntly put, GPRS is expected to be a default feature in most handsets nowadays, owing to the technology exposure that consumers are subjected to. Hyundai Telecom India is said to be working on getting in models with the latest EDGE and 3G technologies to cater to such projected demands. Saxena added that among the high-end customers, there was definitely more demand to get handsets capable of providing data services. He agreed that most mobile handsets today had GPRS capability by default except for a very few, low-end models.

There is also a need to add more memory and storage on GPRS handsets. Singh at Hyundai India Telecom said that since they themselves were consumers and as its market surveys suggested a consumer's convenience in terms of storage capacities, the vendor was working at being able to deliver cost-effective solutions, while keeping in mind that it cannot compromise on quality, size of handset and battery performance. "We are working with the latest architectures and technologies to be able to deliver this need which we feel is a preliminary requirement," he added.

Ring tones, wallpapers and Internet access: popular apps
Getting back to the operators, BSNL recently rolled out GPRS services. Mangla expects the customer base to be of the order of one million by March 2005. IDEA's Dey added that considerable education was required to obtain subscribers. "First we have to obtain a list of subscribers who have GPRS handsets and then promote the product to them. We have made good progress and the response of GPRS users has been encouraging," he said. Airtel's Bhatnagar declined to give a figure on the operator's current subscriber base, but added that it ran in the hundreds of thousands.

So, what services are being currently offered to users and what major applications they are using? According to Mangla, content applications like downloading ring tones, wallpaper and Internet access are very popular among end users. He added that BSNL had realized the potential of such applications and developed a Web/WAP page for such applications that can be accessed by any GPRS subscriber. The subscriber can download contents from the Web at the prescribed tariff. In addition, the same Web page can be accessed through the Internet to send greetings, etc. It may be of interest to note BSNL is rolling-out EDGE enabled networks early next year.

IDEA is offering a host of services. In the WAP domain, it is offering premium content such as polyphonic and true tones, wallpapers, games, animations, videos, themes, etc. News, cricket scores, astrology, My Tools, amazing facts, entertainment, Freezone etc., are available as non-premium content. In the Web domain, it is showcasing premium content and allowing download via SMS. Tariff information is also available on the Web.

Airtel's Bhatnagar highlighted that services could be divided into two types by user -- corporate or individual, and by the application or usage -- business or personal. In terms of types of users, Airtel offers its corporate users like online lottery retailers, ATMs, etc., GPRS connectivity for offering services in remote or unconnected locations, giving the clients instant access to their servers and databases. An online lottery retailer, for example, can set up shop virtually anywhere, and register a customer's lottery purchase in the online lottery database using GPRS to connect to the main terminal.

On the other hand, an individual can use GPRS to access emails, chat and browse the Internet. Considering the types of applications that may be used, GPRS browsing may be used for business purposes, like connecting a laptop to the Internet via infrared, data cable or Bluetooth. On the other hand, personal services like downloading ring tones, wallpapers, games, video clips, etc., are becoming popular as well.

If applications such as those described above are indeed popular, it should be a matter of time before these start generating significant revenues for the operators. BSNL's Mangla said that GPRS and MMS services were being launched along with content. BSNL already offers SMS-based services. Keeping the response to SMS based applications in view, it is likely that approximately 10 percent revenue will soon be contributed by data services. This is likely to pick up with more awareness and applications. According to Dey, IDEA's subscribers are making use of applications such as Internet on mobile, MMS, Magic MMS, MMS Composer, etc. Majority of revenue is generated from Internet on mobile and premium content downloads.

Bhatnagar pointed toward Airtel Live, where the more popular applications center around content downloads like ring tones, games and wallpapers. Contribution from such services on Airtel Live has been steadily increasing. "In fact, content downloads from Airtel Live have seen a 500 percent jump this year itself. Also, more and more premium content is being offered by many of Airtel Live's 100+ content providers, and this is also beginning to generate more and more revenue from content and applications," he said. Other than content downloads, usage of Mobile Office (the ability to browse the Internet using the phone plus laptop) continues to gain popularity with people on the move.

Mismatch between number of GPRS handsets and subscribers?

If the operators get their act right, it would be a matter of time when data services over GPRS start contributing significantly to their revenue. However, there is a minor glitch. Do we have an adequate number of GPRS subscribers and are there enough GPRS handsets out on the market? Or, is there a mismatch between the number of GPRS handsets and subscribers!

Mangla at BSNL said that a mismatch between the number of GPRS handsets and the number of GPRS subscribers was natural. "A large number of customers have GPRS handsets, even though they have not subscribed to GPRS services. This has happened during the last one year since the prices of all types of mobile handsets have reduced quite substantially," he added.

IDEA's Dey cited three reasons for this mismatch. One, a subscriber could be having a GPRS handset; however, the area in which they reside, did not have GPRS connectivity. Two, consumer education -- the subscriber has a GPRS handset but is not aware of how to use it. Three, the configuration is cumbersome -- even if a subscriber is interested in getting the service, he cannot configure his handset. Bhatnagar at Airtel said that approximately 8-10 percent of handsets in the country were GPRS enabled, but the customers were not using all these for GPRS, though Airtel has a significant number of customers who have experienced GPRS on its network.

Attractive content now available
Another popular reason floating around as the cause of this so-called mismatch is said to be a lack of compelling and attractive content. Mangla admitted that all the service providers had realized that the end user is not interested in the technology only, but on how best that technology can be used for his day-to-day affairs. He said: "The subscriber expects value for money. That could be the reason for the slow start of GPRS. Where this has been realized, corrective action like development of Web page with the latest attractive content has been developed. The content of the Web page is updated periodically and in a few cases, this update periodicity can be daily so that the end user always gets new content or an experience."

Dey stressed that IDEA had fairly rich and appealing content, as borne by the early response of its GPRS users. Its current content library has 1,000 Java games, 2,000 polyphonic tones, 8,000 wallpapers, 2,000 singtones, 2,000 realtones, 1,000 MP3 files, 1,000 themes, 2,000 color logos, 2,000 animations and 150 videos, respectively. Subscribers can view this content, which Dey claimed as the widest offering to the consumer and the best in the industry. (View www.ideafresh.com for a better understanding).

Airtel Live probably has the best width and depth of content available online on the mobile today. This had been made possible through the 100+ content partners that Airtel Live works with, who in turn have dedicated teams developing content, or are aggregating content from some of the best content sources in the world. Airtel Live has offered some of the best branded content to its customers, which includes the likes of Bryan Adams, Enrique Iglesias, Lakshya, Main Hoon Na, Spiderman, The Day After Tomorrow, and more recently, Sholay and Veer Zaara. More importantly, all the content is made available in six to eight Indian languages so that the local relevance is maintained. Bhatnagar added: "In order to provide attractive and exclusive content that our customers desire, we will continue to establish relationships with new content partners, and continue to offer more interesting applications and services to our customers. Moreover, we have continued to offer localised content."

Vendors buoyant on India
So much for the operator side of the story. What of the vendors, who need to constantly push new GPRS handsets in the market, as well as set up actual networks. Hyundai India Telecom is pretty buoyant and has placed considerable emphasis on technology, and that is what it aims at delivering reasonably to the consumers, currently in the form of handsets. It recently entered into an alliance with the State Trading Corporation of India for the same.

Hyundai Telecom India's Singh said: "The reception of the brand and the expectations that we will try and deliver, have really interested the market. Our customer (India) centric attitude will surely pay us dividends in the long run."

According to Siemens' Saxena, almost all of the operators have commenced rolling out GPRS infrastructure. Services like MMS, Internet browsing and ring tone downloads over GPRS are seen to be getting popular with the consumers, and the customers' feedback has been satisfactory so far. Siemens has provided the complete GPRS infrastructure node to telecom operators in the East zone circles, and for the radio side in the Northern and Southern circles. Saxena added: "Networks keep expanding and we have been a part of the expansion plans of all the operators to whom we have provided the GPRS network elements. Providing GPRS and EDGE infrastructure has been a part of it."

He said that GPRS infrastructure could be broadly classified into two parts -- infrastructure on radio side (RSS) and on core (NSS). On the RSS side, not much is required except for a hardware function unit known as the packet control unit (PCU) and compatible software. On the NSS side, GPRS specific infrastructure, namely SGSN (serving GPRS support Node) and GGSN (gateway GPRS support node) are required.

Clear case for EDGE
Another issue that generally does the rounds are whether the data speeds currently being offered over GPRS adequate. If not, does it point to a clear case for deploying EDGE as well. Hyundai India's Singh said that GPRS was currently the foundation for high-speed data and voice. "Technology has advanced a point where we are realizing that we are only starting off with GPRS. With the advent of EDGE technology for enabling high-speed multimedia and graphical data and 3G technology aiming to take mobile data usage convenience to ecstatic heights, our requirement for speed will be satisfied with relevant licenses being released shortly," he noted.

Siemens' Saxena felt that the adequacy of data speed was dependent on the services provided. "Data services are still on the initial phase in the mobile telephony in India where the huge growth is taking place to cater the telephony needs of the subscribers. For some services on offer, GPRS speeds may be adequate. However, to introduce other value-added services like audio streaming, video streaming and faster Internet access, we would need to go for EDGE (enhanced data rates for GPRS evolution), which provides data rates three times more than GPRS. The NSS infrastructure generally remains the same for GPRS and EDGE, while on radio side, you need EDGE functional TRX and the related software support," he added.

Lessons for EDGE operators
Given that the service operators are fully aware about the slow pick up of GPRS because of lack of compelling content, and awareness, there are lessons that EDGE operators would do well to look at. BSNL's Mangla said that newer applications and content were being developed. "There is a definite focus on the localized content for that circle/region/area for generating interest and penetration of the services," he added. IDEA's Dey said they had learnt as they had grown, and currently had regional content like ring tones and videos of Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu songs in their content library.

Airtel's Bhatnagar said that EDGE provided the ability to offer up to three times faster higher speeds than GPRS. This had allowed Airtel Live to launch the first ever Live TV stream in the country, as far back as in July 2004. Airtel Live currently offers news and entertainment channels -- live on the phone, which could be viewed for as many minutes or hours as desired. Airtel Live was also the first to offer multiplayer games, again made possible due to the higher speeds available due to EDGE. This had allowed game users to play online with each other, as they were connected over the high-speed EDGE networks.