Fifteen years ago on this day, two veteran politicians, the late Communist Party of India (Marxist) chief Jyoti Basu and the then Union Communications Minister Sukh Ram, made mobile history when they exchanged pleasantries in the first mobile phone call in the country. Little did they know that within 15 years 63.5 per cent of the population will own it.
As on June 30 this year, the number of mobile phone users stood at 635.51 million, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In the past year-and-a-half, the number of cell phone users, or SIM card owners, has been increasing by 10 million each month. The ubiquitous cell phone, having come a long way from its shoe-box sized and pricey avatar to a sleek, ‘anytime, anywhere' device, now awaits a the next quantum jump into 3G.
The 3G services, currently being offered only by the State-owned BSNL, have met with tremendous response. In Bangalore alone, roughly 74 million users have logged on already. A top BSNL official told The Hindu that there has been considerable excitement. However, users have not caught on to the various applications it offers. Most current camera phones are not 3G-enabled and this prevents many from jumping on to the bandwagon.
The mobile phone has come a long way. Ask chartered accountant K.S. Shankaranarayan, one of the 15 mobile phone users who logged on to the JTM network (later taken over by Airtel) in its testing phase, and he cannot believe how drastic the changes have been. From being charged Rs.32 per minute for an outgoing and incoming call, to being accessible to almost everyone now, Mr. Shankaranarayan recalls how people would stop him on the road to ask him what it was that he was talking into. “Nobody imagined it would become so big,” he said. His clunky phone, which cost him no less than Rs.25,000 those days, was, in fact, spurned by his daughter as being too dowdy.
For millions like him, today the cell phone has become indispensable. From an ‘exclusive' contraption, shared by multiple users, the phone has now transformed into a personal device, an extension of the user. As some say the mobile phone is a revolution fitted into each user's hand, and is today changing the way people talk. And the changes are continuing, with no one sure where it will all lead to — such has been the power of this gizmo.
When the Communications Minister made that first call to Mr. Basu, they could not have imagined that the little rock they rolled on that day would become the huge communication juggernaut that we are today riding on.
