2009 is expected to see an upsurge in the use of mobile internet in India. With broadband restricted by cost and availability limitations, new age mobile devices and services will bring in the new internet user base that will prefer being web connected even when on the run.

 

With 30 million active mobile internet users, and having nearly 100 million mobile users with GPRS on their handsets, the mobile internet is no longer niche and is surely going to be the new mass trend.

 

Pradeep Shrivastava, CMO, Idea, said, “For Internet via mobile to have a deeper penetration in India what is required is a little bit of consumer education, on getting GPRS connection and access to relevant content. For the urban users, there is a necessity of more aggressive promotion and a handset that is more GPRS friendly.” 

 

Viren Popli, Senior VP - Mobile Entertainment, Star India, said “there isn’t a need to target the rural masses right now; I believe the first step really is to get the large cities sorted out, second is to get into category A and B towns and cities. Mobile Internet is no longer niche, if the mobile Internet penetration is 10 per cent, you are talking of 35 million individuals. I believe as we go forward, what needs to be done for further growth is that the speed needs to be better, accessibility to the Internet needs to be better and most importantly services and content needs to be better.” 

 

However, Saurabh Vartikar, Vice President , Mobile Marketing, Mauj Mobile, explained, “Villages are perhaps the best bet for mobile Internet to breeze through. In metros or even towns, we have multiple media that we can access, whether for information or entertainment. In rural India though, even a call on the mobile is an event. So, if there are regional portals and operators, make it easy for people to know about them and access them. We can then have a winner. Services like commodity prices, regional TV, etc. can fly.” 

 

During the 3G summit, 2009 Bharat Bhatia, regional director for Global Government affairs, had also voiced the need to address rural India. Bhatia said “Rural areas need more bandwidth compared to the urban areas of India. An Urbanite like me would use internet mostly for surfing the internet or for sending and receiving e-mails, whereas, in rural areas, where there are no discos, lounges, even the nearest theatre is 30 miles away, internet becomes the only mode of entertainment, apart from cable TV.”

 

With prices of handsets that fully support Internet, coming down to Rs,6000 the pace of mobile internet is assured to be fast. However, the follow up lies in the speed with which users will be able to connect to internet using their mobile handsets.

 

3G services in India which will be carried on 5MHz and have been in the news for a while now and question relating to 5MHz and why not 10MHz?  Bhatia at the 3G summit however, clarified saying, “5MHz is sufficient to support voice based services, later, we can think of increasing the bandwidth.”

 

According to Popli, “With 3G, you are going to get a better GPRS speed on your mobile phone and the 3G users will get high speed, high bandwidth usage and so on, therefore, 3G rollout will definitely change a lot of things as and when it’s going to happen. 3G is broadband Internet, so you are going to see very high speed of Internet connectivity when you are on a 3G network, you are definitely going to see speeds and services and ability as and when it happens.”

 

Popli reasons why mobile internet is reckoned to be sustainable to broadband:  “Mobile phones are far more affordable than a computer. We still haven’t solved our electricity problem, so unless we have a laptop that runs on battery power and is long lasting, the mobile phone is probably the best friend of the Internet in small towns and cities for surfing the net. 

 

Vartikar of Mauj Mobile said, “Both broadband Internet and mobile Internet have their own uses. The form factor like display, keyboard of mobile has limitations as compared to the PC. At the same time, the PC is restricted by its cost and the single utility that it offers, unlike the mobile, wherein browsing or mobile Internet is an add-on for most Indians. Today speeds are not beneficial to people spending time on mobile Internet, but the advent of 3G and higher bandwidth may well change that. Also, as form factors improve for the mobile, we will see a major shift in how the mobile is used more and more for browsing.” X