Mobile phones in India

I left India when even US did not have cellphones. I still remember my graduate class friend coming over with a big backpack and a BIG cellphone. The big backpack was the cellphone battery. Even that was a novelty back then. (Wow, I feel old already!)

Since then the cell phone industry took off exponentially in India (partly due to privatization of the cell phone industry and the fact that land line infrastructure was lagging behind) So much so that I now need to educate myself on various technologies. Here is a helpful email from Rahul that explains the basics of mobile phones in India...

>> Email from Rahul
Welcome to the learning club. Be ready for 1 year of basic learning. It took me 1 year to get comfortable with the system.

Cell phone providers are:

• GSM: Idea, Airtel, BSNL
• CDMA: Reliance, Tata Indicom

CDMA is supposed to be more clear. But the phone is tied to the provider. You can't take the phone to a different country and use it. GSM gives more freedom. You buy the phone you like and buy SIM card from any provider. It will work. Essentially you can switch providers without changing phone. You can use the same phone in europe, part of US etc. Coverage wise the providers are almost at-par. Idea seems to have marginally better coverage in GSM. Reliance is probably the best in CDMA. Most of these guys offer the email/internet facility as add-on packs. Hardly anybody uses it though. Most people just use the mobile phone as a phone + text messaging device. Yes, text messages are quite popular.

Remember you are returning to a country (city) with least count of hours when measuring time. So no one is really bothered about checking email thru a cell phone. It can always wait till you get back to office/home.