CELL NOTES...

AIRLINES: Max Touch in Mumbai offers airline reservation.

MARUTI ON-ROAD SERVICE: Essar Cellphone in Delhi runs Maruti breakdown assistance on the mobile

NEWS UPDATE: Round-the-clock general, business and sports news headlines in Mumbai and Delhi.

VOICE MAIL: Most operators offer voice-mail facility on a monthly payment.

CALL DIVERT: Diverts calls to home, office or voice-mail on request.

CONFERENCE: Can connect, from a fixed phone, any number of mobile phones on conference.

SHORT MESSAGES: Cell phone sends and receives short messages (four-line text).

COST: Most handsets show cost of last call and total cost, complete with duration of incoming and outgoing calls.

CELL-HAZARDS

ETIQUETTE: Suddenly everyone in the cinema hall wishes you were going down with the Titanic.

ENVY: It's the only time when the man with the smallest one has the biggest smile.

DANGER: For the cell phone driver, like the drunken one, the lesson's more or less the same -- there's a fine line between mobile and immobile.

EXPENSE: The essential small talk instrument. At Rs 16 a minute, if your girlfriend keeps wailing on about her sick dog, it's cheaper to let her go.

PLEASE CALLATTER

Telephony is a business of time. The longer people talk on the phone, the more the cash register jingles. Unfortunately, the fledgling cell-phone industry in India is going through a maun vrat (silent phase), with the average subscriber talking no more than 140 minutes a month on the mobile phone. In 1992, when the Union government invited bids for cellular licences, both the government and industry estimated an average air-time use of 250 minutes. This expectation shaped the bids, with the service operators committing an astonishing Rs 27,000 crore as licence fees in the 10-year licence period. In addition, the operators have to incur capital costs that may run into Rs 22,000 crore. "The projections are a joke now," says T.V. Ramachandran, chief of the Cellular Operators' Association of India. Sunil Mittal of Bharti Cellular, which runs AirTel cell phone service in Delhi, says, "We expected each subscriber to spend Rs 1,800 every month." The present revenue per customer is Rs 1,100 on an average.

The inevitable shake-out has begun. For Mumbai operator Hutchison Max, Analjit Singh of Max Industries, the Indian partner in the joint venture, has lowered his stake from 51 per cent to less than 10 per cent. The industry is now lobbying for an extension of the licence period to at least 15 years, and a revenue-sharing arrangement with the state-owned Department of Telecom (DOT), in which the cell- phone operator splits with the dot the revenue it brings. If that happens, it is good for the consumer because the operator must then pass on a part of the benefit to the subscriber.

B.V. Raman of Motorola's cellular division expects cell phone usage to be spurred if India follows the Chinese model of a high monthly rental ($30 for India's $4) and a low average air-time charge (US 5 cents against India's 20 cents). That is perhaps the shape of things to come, for it makes no sense to charge only Rs 156 a month on a cellular rental when even a pager costs Rs 250 a month in rent. A high rent and low air-time charge will eliminate the tinker-tailor-plumber-cabby clientele but will encourage the well-heeled class to talk as long on the cell as on the fixed phone on the desk.
-Sumit Mitra

HAND-ITCHERS

Siemens S4-Power: Giant (150 mm high), heavyweight (235 gm), it is German reliability at the fingertips, with a phenomenal (10 hours) talk-time. Rs 19,990.

Nokia 6110: It can accept calls from a defined set, useful in conferences. Rs 34,995.

Nokia 9110 Communicator: With fax, e-mail, Internet access and compatibility with digital camera to transmit pictures. Rs 80,000.