In the seas off the Cochin coast of southern India, the steady drone of motorized fishing boats is often interrupted by the ringing of mobile phones. Even as they land their catch in the boats, fishermen are already in touch with the dozen-odd seafood markets around here, checking prices at different ports.
One fisherman, Ratish Karthikeyan, says that since acquired his BPL mobile service more than a year ago, his profit on each eight-day fishing run in his trawler has doubled. Two months ago, for instance, Karthikeyan, 35, netted an extra US$1,000 by using his phone to compare prices at Cochin with those at Quilon, a port 85 miles away.
The 5,000 fishermen who work off the coast of Kerala state are not alone in embracing wireless technology. From garment exporters in Tiruppur in the south to farmers in Punjab in the north, rural India has discovered the convenience of doing business on mobile phones. Many areas have never had conventional fixed-line service.
"There is so much happening in small towns and rural areas in India, both in terms of economic activity and cultural change, and that is creating a need for mobility and communication like never before," said Fausto B. Cardoso, chief executive of BPL Mobile Cellular Ltd. In some parts of the Indian countryside have more mobile phones for every 100 people than do some of India's biggest cities.
Sensing opportunity, two dozen companies, including multinational corporations like AT&T and Hutchison Telecom, state-owned companies like Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, and local operators such as Spice Telecom, are jumping into local markets. Some of these companies are already established in Mumbai, New Delhi and other big cities, but they are betting that there is money to be made by serving eager customers in the countryside, too.
For many people in rural areas, there is no alternative. Half of India's 660,000 villages were never wired for fixed-line service, and those places that were connected have outdated equipment and long waiting lists for new service.
"Rural telephony has been terribly neglected in India, and the demand has been artificially capped by long waiting lists," said Kobita Desai, a mobile-phone industry analyst for the Gartner Group, a research and advisory firm.
Phone companies are embracing some novel approaches to fill the gap. In the Bhimavaram region in the southeast, for example, Birla Tata AT&T -- jointly owned by AT&T and two Indian industrial conglomerates, the Birla Group and the Tata Group -- has successfully targeted shrimp farmers. "Our expanded coverage has led to the segment wholeheartedly embracing mobile phones," said S. Nagarajan, the general manager for marketing.
Even in territories like the western Maharashtra and Gujarat, populated by an affluent mix of people in industry and farming, as well as Madhya Pradesh, a less-developed region, the awareness of the benefits of cellular phones has increased tremendously, Nagarajan said.
The Gartner Group forecasts that the growth rate of mobile-phone subscribers in India will be the highest in Asia, reaching 30 million by 2005 from a mere 3.1 million at the end of 2000. By then, if the projections prove accurate, India will have moved well past the much smaller Philippines in the total number of mobile users but will still remain far behind China.
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