25 years of Mobile Phone journey of India that lead to 2nd largest mobile phone market

July 31st marks the day the first mobile call was made in India

• On 31st July, the first-ever mobile phone call was made in India when West
  Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, sitting in The Writer‘s Building in Kolkata,
  spoke to Union Telecom Minister Sukh Ram
• The historic call was made on a GSM network, and between two Nokia handsets
  over Modi Telstra‘s MobileNet service
• This sparked the beginning of a telecom revolution in India — a movement
  spearheaded by the likes of Jio, Airtel, Vodafone Idea, and BSNL today

Historical evolution of Mobile Phones in India

• That cellular call inaugurated MobileNet services in Calcutta
• The company was one of the eight companies licensed to provide cellular
  services in India
• Two licenses were awarded each for the four metropolitan cities
• Interestingly, reports state that back then, the initial phone call rates ranged
  from Rs 8.4 per minute for both outgoing and incoming calls, and in peak
  mobile phone traffic hours, the cost also went up to Rs 16.8 per minute
• For the Modi-Telstra JV network operator, which later became Spice, simply
  establishing the network itself was a massive cost even after they estimated that
  their services would reach at least 10 lakh people in the near future, soon after
  premiering in 1995
• The situation now is completely different and India has come a long way with
  around 448 million mobile users. India is also the second largest country for
  mobile users after China
• Major credit can be attributed to Mukesh Ambani‘s Reliance Jio which brought
  the ―free calls and internet‖ culture in the country

Economy of Mobile prices and charges in India

• Back in the early days, call rates reportedly cost ₹8.4 per minute which was for
  both incoming and outgoing
• During heavy mobile traffic hours, the cost would go up to ₹16.8 per minute
• The phones themselves weren‘t affordable, either – they would cost upward of
  Rs 40,000, which after adding 25 years of inflation, is worth over Rs 2 lakh in
  today‘s valuation
• While it is not known exactly which mobile phones were used in India‘s first
  ever mobile phone call, they may have been something like the security-focused
  Nokia 2080, or the mainstream oriented Nokia 350, or for that time, the cutting
  edge Nokia 880 sleek and rugged mobile phone
• It had cutting edge features such as a snap-on, vibrating battery to give you
  silent call alerts, the ability to read three lines of text at one time to read the
  then-latest SMS service, and a ‗user friendly keypad‘
• Telecommunications in India has come a long way since 1995
• Today, just in the wireless mobile telephony market, India has around 450
  million users of ‗feature phones‘ – a term for non-internet-enabled mobile
  phones, and close to 400 million users of ‗smartphones‘ – swanky sheets of
  glass that puts the world at your feet
• Our telephony costs are next to a fraction of what it was back then – calling
  comes for free, while data costs less than Rs 4 per gigabyte

Historical antecedents of Mobile Phones in India

1994  First cell phone call between two Nokia hand sets
1995  Modi Telstra sets up the 1st mobile network in West Bengal
1997  TRAI sets up as regulatory authority
2001  Fixed line customers were allowed for limited use of mobile services
2002  Reliance Infocom starts CDMA mobile service
2003  Incoming calls were made free
2004  More mobile phones than the landlines
2005  FDI was raised from 49% to 74%
2006  Number portability proposed
2008  MTNL brought 3G service
2009  2G spectrum scam was screened
2010  3G and broadband wireless spectrum access was allowed
2011  Mobile phone portability was brought national
2012  2G scam fallout and Supreme Court cancels all the 122 spectrum licenses
2013  100% FDI allowed in telecom
2014  Micromax became the largest Indian supplier in India
2016  Reliance lanched VolTe technology
2017  Roaming charges went free
2020  Jio‘s indigenous developed 5G technology netwrok is ready for roll out in India

Pic courtesy : youstory.com