Reliance GPRS Charges

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Incorrect comparision.

but yeah, might seem cheap for a person who earns in dollars and spends in rupee terms in india ...

Except that I don't "earn in dollars and spend in rupees in India". I earn in rupees and spend in rupees, end of story.

The fact of the matter is that the numbers *were* a direct comparison that takes this in to account: as a percentage of income, the expense of mobile is a lot higher abroad than it is here. To be equal, the income and expenditure on mobile services would have to both be around 850% higher, however there is a significant disparity between the two.

Let's say I earned a reasonably average urban white collar salary of Rs50k/month in India, my expenditure on mobile is going to be around Rs1k, and that will afford me what... 2.5GB of data at 3G speeds, 300-600 minutes and 3,000 SMSes (with relevant packs) - give or take. That's around 5% of my income.

Comparatively, if I were to earn NZ$1,200 in NZ, 5% of my income would equate to $60. For that price, the cheapest network offers 1GB, 100 minutes and 2,500 SMSes (again, with relevant packs)... so I get half as much data and less than half the amount of minutes... therefore the same value for money is not there, even though I'm still spending the same portion of my income. Even if I doubled the amount I earned (and thus the amount I spent), I *still* wouldn't get quite the same value as I do here.

India is a mass market, the where the consumer numbers count not arpu.

Biggest. Load. Of. Bollocks. Ever. All I ever hear when I'm talking to investors is "ARPU, ARPU, freaking ARPU" and "How do you expect to have obtain and maintain a higher ARPU"? Why are the cellular companies complaining that their ARPUs are "too low" to be healthy (yet, still surviving thanks to the numbers). Why is ARPU one of the first things mentioned whenever I see some ISP or cable operator for sale?

Also, the number of (SPTT) subscribers per telecom tower and the resultant congestion in India is much higher , so it would be incorrect to compare it with western countries.

becoz of this, indians are also having to keep up with congested networks & poor network at times. so telecoms just can't demand more for what they are offering here..

Fine, let's compare it with China, which, among many other superiorities it's managing to get over India in the last 20 years (such as size and quality of railways), is doing a helluva fine job in keeping it's billion-plus cellular subs online by comparison. Having only 3 operators may also be helping but I digress.

Additionally, this is also completely bunk because cellular towers in India don't just magically handle more than the technology was designed to handle. If a company in has a million subscribers, it's going to need the same amount of towers (give or take some arbitrary percentage) to service them whether in India or New Zealand or the USA or China or anywhere else. It's called "capacity planning".

The difficulty in India is that because such a large percentage of the population is mobile at any given time that such capacity planning becomes difficult - cellular reception is often pretty crap around railway stations in part because at any given time you could have thousands of people shifting from cell to cell thanks and so all of a sudden if you're unlucky enough to be already on the outer edge of that cell's signal as the load increases, the signal dissipates and your call gets mangled or cut (because the output radius shrinks temporarily). This all can vary pretty significantly based on the area you live in, size of your city and so on.
 
@mgSo, you're saying that, based on load, the signal strength can vary at the same place at different times of the day. Right ?
 
@mg

So, you're saying that, based on load, the signal strength can vary at the same place at different times of the day. Right ?

Basically yes, though it affects some more than others based on the equipment in use (not all phones are created equal, and it's well documented that having 3 or 4 or 5 "bars" on your phones signal indicator doesn't mean jack when comparing one phone to another) - and the actual location in question.

A episode of BBC Click from a couple of months back has a bit better explanation and if I can remember which one I'll tell you.
 
dear friend,

you observation about earning and spending capacities in India seems myopic. pardon me, if it hurts. Expecting the same spending capacity from all Indians is BUNK. If only White Collar job holders were to use mobile phones your argument might be correct. But all telecoms have entered this market knowing pretty well whom they are to cater to. If tariffs were such high as you mention, subscribers numbers wouldn't be as they are now.

your sentence ".....The difficulty in India is that because such a large percentage of the population is mobile at any given time that such capacity planning becomes difficult - ........." itself identifies the uniqueness of Indian conditions.
If it is "so difficult" to plan for capacity, such people/ companies should admit failure.

The fact to consider is constant load factor. these towers are constantly handling to their peak capacity & visitors to particular cell site at do get the signal but don't get their call handled. Cell towers capability of handling a certain number of receivers (handsets) at anytime is not a new discovery. It is a fact well known to companies. This is what needs to be addressed before crying for higher tariffs.

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Foreign companies might think they are successful in "profiting from the great Indian market", but I disagree. They could capture only fraction of Indian market by trying to replicate what they could do / observed in other so called developed or developing countries.

The problem is most of them intend to send back to their parent companies profits in dollar terms. This is the reason they find any amount of tariffs in rupee terms less. This is more so becoz of the ever weakening rupee. Weakening rupee is the real killer to these companies.

If companies find better price realization & business prospects in china, they could as well go and do business there.. I am sure you would agree that companies are not fools to pay such huge amounts in thousands of crores for 3g and 4g bidding in INDIA. They did so, seeing huge potential in India.

INDIA is INDIA. If one has to do business in India they have to study & adapt to India, not try to duplicate china, japan, korea, USA or Russia etc....

In any case, with a little investment and common sense they will achieve "some amount of success" even with or without trying to implement text book case studies and those from other countries.

becoz market & numbers exists here, in INDIA !!

what is the problem if indians collectively get a better value for rupee atleast for telecom services. there is no need to compare prices with NZ whose market is miniscule, where costs have to be recovered from few & limited subscribers prices would definitely be on the higher side.
 
dear friend,

you observation about earning and spending capacities in India seems myopic. pardon me, if it hurts. Expecting the same spending capacity from all Indians is BUNK. If only White Collar job holders were to use mobile phones your argument might be correct. But all telecoms have entered this market knowing pretty well whom they are to cater to. If tariffs were such high as you mention, subscribers numbers wouldn't be as they are now.

And you're suggesting that everyone in other countries earns exactly the same amount of money? I've got news for you sunshine, and it's all bad. Despite what you may be thinking, the income ranges (as a percentage) are remarkably similar here versus anywhere else. You have the lower classes earning the minimum wages and you have the middle/upper-middle classes earning upwards of 10-20LPA. All in all, it works out to a rough range of the top few percent (excepting multimillionaires, billionaires etc) are earning probably around 6-8x that of the lower classes, irrespective of what country you're talking about.

All I'm doing is comparing apples to apples: when you take in to account the income disparities and translate them directly from one economy to another at exactly the same percentages, my original argument that services in India are significantly cheaper per unit still stands. You can't sit there and tell me that paying 20x the price for a product in a country that earns only 8.5x as much money has anything to do with who is using the product or their usage profile, background or otherwise.

your sentence ".....The difficulty in India is that because such a large percentage of the population is mobile at any given time that such capacity planning becomes difficult - ........." itself identifies the uniqueness of Indian conditions.
If it is "so difficult" to plan for capacity, such people/ companies should admit failure.

Yet you completely glossed over the fact that numerous other countries actually have the similar situations in their respective mega metros. It's hardly unique to India at all - take any large city with a population of about 10 million or so and it can be applied in a very similar way. Capacity planning is difficult on any given day but I've never had such problems in Tokyo, Paris, London, Istanbul, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok - so there are clearly ways to have a network that does not experience the problems we get here.

The fact to consider is constant load factor. these towers are constantly handling to their peak capacity & visitors to particular cell site at do get the signal but don't get their call handled. Cell towers capability of handling a certain number of receivers (handsets) at anytime is not a new discovery. It is a fact well known to companies. This is what needs to be addressed before crying for higher tariffs.

If the towers *are* running at full capacity then this *is* bad planning. But has it occurred to you that perhaps the higher tariffs are needed to pay for the towers necessary to build a new network? I'm fine with paying the extra few paise a minute if it means I can actually hear my friend when he's in a rickshaw in Andheri rather than that thing where you only get half a word, then silence for 2 seconds, then a bit more, then silence and then *beep beep*, line's dead. Those towers really are not cheap, and with such low ARPUs, the minute you get enough customers in an area to warrant installing another tower, the minute it's activated it'll be running at full-tit again. This isn't helped by the stupid way bandwidth is distributed to the towers in the first place but that's not for this thread.

Foreign companies might think they are successful in "profiting from the great Indian market", but I disagree. They could capture only fraction of Indian market by trying to replicate what they could do / observed in other so called developed or developing countries.

Foreign companies were too late to the game, period. This was made worse because none of them really offered anything better than the incumbents. If someone like Uninor had been a big bidder for 3G and ran a 3G only network where ever they won (then they could say "to hell with the 2G spectrum" when the scam broke) there's every chance they not only would have been saved but they could have kicked some huge ass by, you know, being halfway decent.

The problem is most of them intend to send back to their parent companies profits in dollar terms. This is the reason they find any amount of tariffs in rupee terms less. This is more so becoz of the ever weakening rupee. Weakening rupee is the real killer to these companies.

This only applies to foreign companies which, let's face it, are the minority both in numbers as well as market share and 2. are not relevant to the tariffs of Reliance, Airtel, Tata or Vodafone. The weakening rupee on the other hand is a relatively new phenomenon and doesn't really apply to the argument in question.

If companies find better price realization & business prospects in china, they could as well go and do business there.. I am sure you would agree that companies are not fools to pay such huge amounts in thousands of crores for 3g and 4g bidding in INDIA. They did so, seeing huge potential in India.

Except that China's Telecom market is closed and all 3 operators are state owned, at least partially. The same is true in the UAE. And actually most of the Middle East and North Africa now that I think about it.

INDIA is INDIA. If one has to do business in India they have to study & adapt to India, not try to duplicate china, japan, korea, USA or Russia etc.


This is the reason why so many products and services are shit here: sheer arrogance on the part of Indian business. Everyone thinks they're right when often it's just not the case. Things are built broken here. Rules are flouted. Corners are cut. Many Indians are returning from abroad and seeing just how broken many things are. You can call me an ignorant foreigner all you like but I am in fact merely regurgitating the words of many returned NRIs.

EVERY country has it's quirks, ways of doing business, traditions and what have you - some might say it's great that you can pretty much do whatever the hell you like here if you're willing to part with a little extra cash (put aside the other indirect costs) but it's a double edged sword because it can and has led inferior quality results in all sorts of things, which can and have caused anything from industrial accidents or train crashes to potentially a bunch of people getting messed up by cellular tower outputs being set to "stun" (by which I mean, dangerously high). I'm sure there are other examples but I'm hoping my point has been conveyed.

Think of it another way: what would be wrong with duplicating, say, Japanese styles? It would mean cleaner cities. Cleaner air. Cleaner food. Clean water. Less poverty. Better healthcare. Trains that are NEVER late (average delay on the bullet trains is mere seconds). Cellphone networks that continue to operate even when disaster strikes. Internet that works during monsoon season. And is fast and relatively speaking, very cheap. Electricity that doesn't get cut even during an earthquake, let alone just randomly when the power company wants to do a bit of load shedding. Sure, Japan isn't perfect of course but it has it's upsides.

In any case, with a little investment and common sense they will achieve "some amount of success" even with or without trying to implement text book case studies and those from other countries.

becoz market & numbers exists here !!

India is less unique than you think. The tiger just needs a bit of taming, that is all.
 
All Indians are definitely sunshine to you and for all these companies.

No point arguing with me on this forum. Market is determining the prices which are perfect fit for Indian conditions.

I have myself worked for a leading cellular telecom company here in India in their Finance & MIS department, when the prices were Rs36/ minute outgoing + PSTN charges up until they fell down to Rs2/minute with free incoming.
I don't need your sermons. Market factors decide. If companies are finding trouble breaking even or making profit, they are always free to pack they bags.

Just as water finds its own natural path towards the lower levels, so too businesses / companies move towards places/ countries where prospects exists. They won't stay if they are genuinely incurring losses or to do charity to India.

Problem with you people is you earn & live in India, but brains are out of the country.
 

Now. Some stuff relevant to the topic. I'd been downloading a 400mb, after the downloaded ended, I realised rcom had deducted 800mb from my account. Now, when I'm observing the data transfer , it seems tgat mobile partner counts 2 mbs for each MB I download and so does rcom. I'm in a fix.
 
All Indians are definitely sunshine to you and for all these companies.

I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but ok.

No point arguing with me on this forum. Market is determining the prices which are perfect fit for Indian conditions.

Fair enough, but why then are all the Indian telcos calling to be allowed to increase the prices? Have they determined their positions to be untenable? I think so.

I have myself worked for a leading cellular telecom company here in India in their Finance & MIS department, when the prices were Rs36/ minute outgoing + PSTN charges up until they fell down to Rs2/minute with free incoming.

Frankly, doesn't mean much unless you were a higher-up and know the cost of operation.

I don't need your sermons. Market factors decide. If companies are finding trouble breaking even or making profit, they are always free to pack they bags.

The companies complaining loudest are not foreign.

Just as water finds its own natural path towards the lower levels, so too businesses / companies move towards places/ countries where prospects exists. They won't stay if they are genuinely incurring losses or to do charity to India.

Again, the companies complaining loudest are not foreign. Is it any wonder that Airtel has become so interested in Africa all of a sudden? Is it any wonder that the markup on data is several thousand percent? Could they be offsetting voice tariffs? I think so.

Problem with you people is you earn & live in India, but brains are out of the country.

Oh really? If my brain was operating like a typical telecom exec, I'd be trying to charge Rs50k+ a month for my most basic connection - like Primetel India does.

My brain, however, is definitely in India and when pricing my product took in to consideration that the average consumer can't pay that much, but also that I would be deep in the sh*t if I charged a more typical Rs500 a month - so came up with a nice compromise. But that's just my own example, I'm sure I could cite more.

Besides, is it really so bad that people might try to bring ideas that originated abroad to India? People like you are only too happy to trumpet success when an Indian does something great abroad, why not the other way around? I'm sure if my goals are achieved my country will trumpet my success too.
 
i don't think it is case of excess billing by rcom. I had a similar problem about 3 years ago with bsnl adsl. it was actually a minor config error which doubled my heart beat too, for a shortwhile. It was rectified soon. guess you should check if you have got your IP / proxy configuration correct.
 
Without going into details of my association with telecom company, let me tell you, I was very much THE person doing all these calculations / financial modelling and reporting directly to top mgt. No tariff plan gets launched without weighing its viability.I have already some info that voice calls are going to be totally free in the near future in India. Existing telecom companies will depend on data services for revenue, which could again drive down prices the way voice calls have gone. So existing data players (ISPs), I guess you too would get a shock if you continue with the present mindset. thank me for this advance information & make your calculations accordingly. 🙂
 
Without going into details of my association with telecom company, let me tell you, I was very much THE person doing all these calculations / financial modelling and reporting directly to top mgt. No tariff plan gets launched without weighing its viability.

How old are you?

I have already some info that voice calls are going to be totally free in the near future in India. Existing telecom companies will depend on data services for revenue, which could again drive down prices the way voice calls have gone.

It's already going that way.

So existing data players (ISPs), I guess you too would get a shock if you continue with the present mindset. thank me for this advance information & make your calculations accordingly. 🙂

Only if they charge reasonably.
 
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