IndianWireless.com

All About the Wireless Services in India

   The mobile service has seen phenomenal growth since 2000. In fact, in September, 2004 the number of mobile phone connections have crossed fixed-line connections. Currently there are an estimated 89 million mobile phone users in India compared to 45 million fixed line subscribers. Earlier there were rules that allowed only up to 4 mobile phone companies in each circle (one is always BSNL) but that rule has now been removed, resulting in some circles having as many as 7 mobile operators. India primarily follows the GSM mobile system, in the 900 MHz band. Recent operators also operate in the 1800 MHz band. The dominant players are Airtel (almost all over India), Hutch, Idea cellular (from the Tata group) and BSNL/MTNL. There are many smaller players, with operations in only a few states. International roaming agreements exist between most operators and many foreign carriers. A recent entrant has been the Reliance group, which originally only had licenses for landline service. Loopholes in the regulations allowed it to set up mobile operations across India using CDMA technology. Since it hadn't paid the high fees for mobile licenses, it could offer calls at very low rates. This resulted in high competition with the established mobile players, with lower prices and increased features all around. Eventually the telecommunications regulator (TRAI) stepped in and leveled the playing field, but the low prices have stayed.

   Dialing System: On landlines, calls within cities are considered local calls. Calls to other cities (beyond 200km) are considered long distance calls and are metered according to distance. For local calls, you just dial the local number. For long distance calls, you dial the area code prefixed with a zero (e.g. For calling Delhi, you would dial 011-XXXX XXXX). For international calls, you would dial "00" and the country code+area code+number. The country code for India is 91.

   On mobile phones, calls within a circle are considered local, even if they are intra-city. For calling mobiles, you dial the 10 digit mobile number 9XXXX-YYYYY. When dialing any landlines, you dial the entire number, including the area code with the 0 prefix.

   If you were calling a mobile phone in the same circle from a land line, you would dial the 10 digit mobile number (9XXXX-YYYYY). If you were calling a mobile number in another circle, it would be a long distance call, with a zero prefix (0-9XXXX-YYYYY).

There is a conversion process underway to make all numbers in India 10 digits long.

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