Indian Telecom Sector

Highly divided Indian mobile handsets market is getting more players. Most of  them are Chinese and they are targeting the market left by grey market-sold, Non IMEI handsets, banned by Indian Govt due to security concern. Last to death-line for banning such handset is scheduled at Decemeber 1, 2009.

Worth Rs 26,000 crore Indian mobile handset market is mainly dominated by branded phones from Finland-headquatered Nokia (more than 50%),  Sony Ericsson,  Samsung,  LG and Motorola. Apart from these high profile handset makers, some major brands like HTC, Haier, Bleu, Spice, Videocon, Philips and some smaller brands like Simoco, Kyocera, Sagem, Micromax, Fly, Huawei, Xenitis, GeePee, Usha also peep into this market.

RIM’s Blackberry services are offered on country’s most networks like Airtel, Reliance (CDMA & GSM), Vodafone, Tata Tele(CDMA & GSM), BSNL, MTNL, Idea, Aircel. And last but not the least, Apple’s iPhone also reached India via Airtel and Vodafone.

Some months ago, Essar Group entered the handset market via its The Mobile Store retail chain, introducing China-made ‘Ray’ branded mobiles, while TCL Corp launched its Alcatel branded handsets through The Mobile Store.

Unbranded Chinese handsets are popular to price-conscious Indians, as those offers high-end features at comparative low prices. At the same time these cheap handsets also have demerits to their own – no service center and no warranty, and if it stops working, it is really hard to get parts n chips to repair. And the lack of International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers in unbranded handsets makes them non-traceable and creates security concerns.As a good percentage of people are using it, mobile operator are not likely to bar services, rather they want to implant a IMEI no to such handsets.

Chinese vendors are specialized in CDMA sector mostly, as a result equipment suppliers ZTE and Huawei already entered to India’s telecommunications market. ZTE, ranked among the top six mobile vendors globally has been selected by Russian telecom giant Sistema, which has partnered with Shyam Telelink, as a vendor for its pan-India roll-out of CDMA network. ZTE has sold over 25 million handsets in India through operators such as Reliance Communications, BSNL, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone. Now ZTE targets GSM handset market in India also.

Tata DOCOMO present Unlimited Internet Browsing

Tata has once again created a new race among the telecom providers with the unveiling of unlimited internet browsing from the handset. Tata DOCOMO, with its seamless internet browsing plan, enables customers to be in touch with information 24X7. Tata DOCOMO has plans for launching two unlimited GPRS packages. These packages, which are offered at Rs 15 and Rs 95 for the prepaid subscribers, provide unlimited connectivity over the internet.

The Rs. 15 GPRS pack comes with a validity of 3 days whereas the Rs 95 pack come with 30 days of validity. The latter pack provides access to internet via PC and laptop. While on roaming, on both the packs the user will be charged 10paisa for 10KB.

Once the user gets the GPRS pack, he has to save the settings to use the internet.To get Internet settings SMS INTERNET to 52270 (toll free on TATA DOCOMO HOME & CHARGED Rs.3 for the non- DOCOMO Network) and save them as default settings.

Opera Mini 5

A year after the arrival of Opera mini4 it is now time to graduate to the next version of Opera Mini, arguably the worlds most widely used Mobile Browser.

The Beta version of Opera Mini 5 has just been released, and as always, we take close look at the browser. The browser has been released at a time when quite a few contenders have been at Opera heels to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive mobile browser market. The players apart from Opera include Skyfire, Bolt and even Mozilla’s Fennec. With Opera Mini 5, Opera once again seems all set to retain its position in the mobile browser arena.

Opera Mini 5 takes a giant leap in terms of look and feel with almost nothing that makes it resemble its older brother. The icons the buttons and almost every element of the browser sports a new, fresher, rounded look – compared to the more “business like” approach of its older versions. Even the icons have been given a facelift. And guess what, the changes here are not just cosmetic. Under the hood, Opera Mini now gets some real firepower – tabbed browsing included. Perhaps the most sought after feature for the browser ever since its inception back in 2005. So, what’s new? Lots In fact! Let’s take a look.
The UI
The first thing you’d notice about the Opera Mini 5, right from the installation procedure, is the changed look and feel of the browser. The white installation window is now black and there is a “new” Opera logo as well. Post installation you get a welcome screen that mimics the look of the Opera Mini’s desktop cousin, the Opera 10, complete with speed dials that you can customize according to your browsing habits. Depending on the kind of device you are using, Opera will adjust itself and optimize its looks to suit your device.

Most of the screenshots you see here are on an Omnia HD and for the same reason some things might not look familiar for those using a normal keypad enabled phone. The interface is snappy and responds immediately to your commands. For touch devices, there is a slight resemblance to the Apple and Android browsers with buttons being easily clickable. The URL text entry field is STILL separate from the search box – but they are in the same line instead of being atop each other as in the previous version. A major change we found in the UI is that entering URLs is a lot easier now and clicking a text entry field doesn’t lead you to a page where you enter your text and hit OK to come back to the page. In fact, Opera Mini uses a QWERTY keypad of its own on full touchscreen devices (which works quite decently)

AT&T Voice Activated GPS App for iPhone: $10 per Month

A new application from AT&T brings voice activated, turn-by-turn navigation to the iPhone. That’s right, AT&T. Now you know that, take a guess as to how you might be paying for this application. A free “thank you” download to iPhone owners? No. An expensive but one-time payment of around $50? Nope.

AT&T, greedy-guts that it is, will charge you $10 per month for a rather pedestrian (ahem) GPS application, which makes it, along with Sirius Radio, one of the first apps to make use of the new in-application payments allowed in iPhone OS 3.

So what, exactly, do you get if you pay AT&T yet another $10 a month for your iPhone? First, the app is kind of voice activated: You can set a destination by talking to the unit, which is arguably the time you need voice control the least — at the beginning of a journey. The maps scroll by in 3D, as you’d expect, and there are voice instructions which issue from the iPhone. You also get routing around traffic problems and can search for nearby ATMs and the like.

Is it worth it? Well, you can buy a $40 (2 x $20) pair of apps that cover the whole of North America and do essentially the same thing without the monthly fee. But the up-to date maps and info it might make it worth $10 per month for many people.

LG’s ‘Arena’ Takes On Touch-Screen Rivals

With the introduction of the Arena smartphone, LG Electronics is trying to emulate the success of touch-screen rivals like Apple’s iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm. With a 3-inch touch screen, and at 0.47 inches thick, the Arena does bear a resemblance to Apple’s smartphone. LG is also positioning the handset as a multimedia device, and it has loaded the phone with a customized user interface to make navigation easier. The company’s 3-D S-Class user interface has a cube-based layout that can provide customizable one-touch access to videos, music, Internet services, and other features.

“The direct, intuitive and dynamic S-Class UI will be unlike anything that has appeared on a mobile phone before,” said Skott Ahn, president and CEO of LG Electronics’ mobile division, in a statement. “With rich 3-D graphics, touch sensitivity and exciting multimedia capabilities, it will truly make Arena a fully loaded multimedia phone.”

Users will be able to hear tunes through the audio player, and there’s also an FM radio. The large screen should make the Arena a good handset for playing videos on the go, and LG said video playback will be aided by Dolby and DivX technologies. The Arena can also be used for work purposes, as it will have an integrated document viewer, and will be able to receive e-mail on the go. To stay connected, the Arena has built-in Wi-Fi, and it has 3G HSDPA capabilities for up to 7.2 Mbps downlink speed. The smartphone packs a 5-megapixel camera that the company said is capable of recording “DVD quality” video.

LG hasn’t revealed the pricing or availability details for the Arena, but specifics are expected to emerge from next week’s Mobile World Congress.

Spice Mobiles Launches S-940

Spice Mobiles, one of country’s leading mobile handset company has announced the launch of Spice S-940, a technologically advanced VAS enabled mobile phone. An outcome of Spice Mobiles’ mission of offering innovative products and services to the customers, Spice S-940 is all set to lead a special category of VAS enabled handsets with unique features like M-Learning, e-mail2sms and social networking application.

Spice S-940 is all set to lead a special category of VAS enabled handsets with unique features like M-Learning, e-mail2sms and social networking application.

Spice S-940 comes equipped with M-Learning in association with popular learning portal mgurujee, a unique feature helping its users, prepare for competitive exams like CAT, MAT, IIT-JEE or CBSE etc. Targeted at students and youth, this gives its users, freedom to study and enhance their knowledge while on the move, mobile education in its true sense in this competitive environment.

Spice S-940 comes equipped with ‘e-mail2sms’ service – a unique platform which provides the e-mail as a SMS(s) in the inbox. Also embedded is ibibo’s New Friend Finder – a well known social networking platform.

On the features front, the device comes with a fairly large 2.4-inch screen and a 2 megapixel camera. It has 8 MB of internal memory and supports memory cards upto 2GB. The 240*320 screen is comparable with that of its peers. The phone weighs 96 grams and the 1000 mAH battery provides it a 350 hour standby and a 5 hour talk time.

The phone is on sale now and is priced at Rs. 5999 with 1 -GB card.