How phone-tastic

From Rs 16 a minute to now, we wonder how we lived without the cellphone

From Rs 16 a minute to now, we wonder how we lived without the cellphone

It's been just 10 years since cellular services were launched in India and we're already one of the leaders in the global telecom business.

As per statistics, in June 2007, we already had more than 225.21 million subscribers, with a growth rate of 19.35 million in three months. This is surely something that wasn't expected, especially in a country that stuck to old technology for a good half of a century.

Been around

Prasad Bidapa, stylist and fashion guru, was one of the first 10 people to own a mobile connection in Bangalore.
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He claims that the service has always been a pleasure to use, but his billing processes seem alien till date.

"I was one of the first to get a connection in the city.

"It's such a joke to look back at the size of mobile phones then. Funnier was the fact that we were charged around Rs 16 per minute and we mostly dialled landlines, because few of us had these gadgets," he reminisces.

"I am, however, extremely curious about a new service and finally, after so many years, I might try switching to a new number," he adds.

Young blood
Ganesh Venkataraman (pictured), a Mumbai-based actor, has always been a mobile buff. He has switched his handset so many times, he's lost count. He is excited about new phones and cooler connections, but has stayed loyal to Nokia and Vodafone.

"Only recently did I buy myself a new DOCOMO connection and well with all that publicity, it was an obvious choice. I did try using the iPhone too, but eventually stuck to my Nokia touch-screen. I look forward to a day and age when calling rates drop. I'm not too excited about all the applications on a phone. I'd rather my handset not hang up on me when I need to make an urgent call," he says.

"We've got enough of gadgets to do everything, people want phones to do all the work now."

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