In India, where basic telephone service is scarce and telecommunications unfamiliar, the introduction of paging technology promises new opportunities for both service providers and consumers.
After the Indian government opened the paging market last year, granting 94 licenses in 27 cities among 15 companies, partners Modi Telecommunications Inc. and Motorola Inc. were the first to offer commercial service. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, Modi will use equipment supplied by Motorola Inc.’s Global Paging Infrastructure Division for paging systems in the seven cities where it holds licenses.
Modi’s networks in Chandigarh, Indore and Jaipur activated service in March, and collectively enrolled 3,000 subscribers after the first month, reported Lai Kok Hain, marketing manager for Motorola’s Asia Pacific paging division. System infrastructure in Madras, Varanasi, Kanpur and Lucknow is in the final stages of being installed and service is scheduled to begin this month.
Considering India’s current communications environment, Motorola anticipates the paging market will see explosive growth. Only 1 in 145 Indian citizens have landline phone service. Citizens wanting a telephone sometimes wait up to 3 years for service and pay several hundred dollars for installation, commented Motorola.
Hence, paging may serve as a fundamental means to communicate because it is accessible now, reliable and costs less than cellular, another new and potentially lucrative market in India. Analyst Roberta Wiggins, director of wireless mobile communications for Boston-based Yankee Group, noted another advantage of paging service in India. In view of communications being relatively obsolete, many citizens understand little about communications’ technologies. As such, the simplicity of using a basic pager is both necessary and helpful to affect widespread initial use, Wiggins noted.
Modi is offering customers both numeric and alphanumeric paging services using both automatic and operator-assisted paging. Customers in Chandigarh can access voice mail service as well, said Motorola. While alphanumeric paging has prospered little in the United States, text messaging complements India’s communications needs, since the receiver isn’t required to phone back the caller, as with numeric pagers.
Nigel Pestell, Motorola’s global communications manager, believes paging initially will target the business and industrial workers of India’s middle class, which account for about one-third of India’s 920 million people. Lai cited professionals-including doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants and individual business people-service firms, transportation agencies and hospitals as primary users.
Economic and Management Consultants International Inc. projected India will have 2.3 million paging subscribers by 1999.
Despite benefits anticipated by business and government alike, the process of appropriating spectrum for paging in India moved quite slowly, according to Pestell, because of legal complications and bureaucracy. In fact, the original applications for licenses were filed in 1992. To even be considered for bidding participation, each candidate had to demonstrate technical capability for implementing and operating a paging system, indicate how much it was willing to pay for licenses and finally, gain equity participation of a foreign partner and present the venture’s business plan.
Modi Telecom is a part of a diversified conglomerate with operations throughout India.
Lai expects pagers will cost between about $187 to $360, depending on brand and type, and $4.70 per month in service. Because of the initial costs Pestell expects most users will rent.
