Indian Government asks Operators to ban Chinese and Korean Handsets without IMEI

The DOT of Department of Telecom has asked all Operators to ban handsets without a legitimate IMEI number on January 6th.

This directive comes as a fight against terror as these handsets are being used by terrorists as they do not have an IMEI number in them.There are as many as 25 million unbranded handsets imported from China and Korea that are believed to be on the knife’s edge.

They have asked operators to block mobiles with fake IMEI numbers like all zeroes .

The Indian Government has postponed the previous deadline for Operators from 6th January 2009 to March 31 2009.

So be careful when purchasing these Chinese or other imported handsets ..

You might even be questioned by the authorities .

Gen X choose functionality over looks

India will soon become a Nation of mobile users. The steadily increasing mobile using population expands due to the ever increasing usage by the youth. A recently completed IDC study confirms that mobile users perceive they derive one of the following sets of benefits from using mobile phones – safety and security, productivity and convenience, or style and status. We spoke to a few from Gen X to find out what their mobiles do for them and what handset models are popular.

Kunal who is a student of Class Xi owns a Nokia 6085. This flip phone has a FM Radio that Kunal really likes. He also likes the look of the handset. To him, it is just a way of keeping in touch with his friends.

Amit has a Nokia 6030 is a handset that supports 10 Indian languages and is an unpretentious handset that has easy-to-use functions. He has opted for BSNL as his service provider because he claims, “Government service is the best.” His mobile is useful to keep in touch with his friends.

Hulsi on the other hand has a functional Reliance handset that she prefers because, “it has excellent coverage.” To her, the mobile gives a feeling of security when she is out with friends or is stranded after a class.

Hanging out in a Mall in the middle of the afternoon, these bunch of students who were clearly bunking classes agreed in unison that the looks of the mobile is important but as long as they sustain on a shoe string pocket money paid by their parents, they would rather opt for simple handsets.

In a study recently conducted it was found that males, more than females, rate style and status as important mobile phone benefits while females regard safety and security as more valuable. Prateek exemplifies these findings. He would like to own a Nokia N 73, which at a price tag of Rs 12,000 approximately is something his dad could buy, but he can’t.

Ajay who is a BA student at a leading city college would like to a Nokia N series, “because it looks so cool. But I have to wait till I start earning,” he rues.

While convenience stands on top of the benefits of the mobile for these youngsters, they are also style and status conscious, pocket permitting!!

Source : fonearena.com

Sony Ericsson W302... the extremely compact bar

The lil star of the day is the clean-cut Sony Ericsson W302. The extremely compact bar is distinguished by its minimalist design with solid build and brushed metal panels.

Sony Ericsson W302 official images

Coming with a good deal of Walkman skill and a nice camera interface, the W302 might turn a great success if tagged with the right price. It feels great to handle and, despite a few beta stage issues, did manage a good impression.

Sony Ericsson W302 live

Read detailed preview at GSMArena.com.

Sony Ericsson W902 (The first 5 megapixel Walkman)

Sony Ericsson W902 is quite understandably the handset to create the biggest hype. The first 5 megapixel Walkman takes a bold Cybershot-meets-Wseries stand, much to the delight of Sony Ericsson devotees. Walkmans have so far been below-par in terms of imaging (save for the W800 back in the day), forcing upon users the dreadful choice between a good camera and good music package.

Sony Ericsson W902 official images

Sony Ericsson W902 is a tough challenge for the current Walkman flagship W980. The newbie has a better camera, card slot, screen auto rotation and ships with 8GB M2 cards against the FM transmitter, touch-sensitive music controls and 8GB of built-in storage of W980. All in all, the choice between the two boils down to your personal priorities and taste.

Read detailed preview at GSMArena.com.

Nokia 3120 classic review: Mid-range fighter

Even if every little Nokia wants to be an N95 when it grows up, most of them end up a decent looking gadget with a neat little perk here and there to top the good old calling and texting. Nokia 3120 classic is just another one of them mixed by the time-tested recipe - do the bare minimum but do it right. Now, the notion of bare necessities in mobile phones is stretching as we speak, so no wonder yet another 3G-enabled junior gets thrown in the midrange skirmish.

Key features:

• 2" 16M-color QVGA display
• 2 megapixel camera with LED flash
• S40 user interface
• Compact and lightweight
• Quad-band GSM support
• 3G network support, video-call
• Bluetooth and USB connectivity
• Stereo FM radio
• microSD card slot, microSDHC support
• Very good battery
• 2.5mm standard audio jack
• Rich preinstalled content

Main disadvantages:

• Slow camera and unimpressive image quality
• Uncomfortable battery cover latch
• Weak backlighting
• Memory card slot under the battery cover

Nokia 3120 classic is going for a piece of the midrange action and it's getting a run for its money both inside the Nokia family and from competing manufacturers. Let's have a quick look at some of the potentially bitter rivalries shaping up. It's a mixed bag and we're looking at the plenty of choice you get for Rs.7,500/- or less.

Main Competitors:

• A golden oldie, Nokia 6233 support microSD cards up to 2GB, while the 3120 classic can easily handle 8GB cards.

• Nokia 5300 is another money-saving alternative. but it's larger and has neither 3G nor quad-band GSM, but packs in the same fine 2" QVGA screen and costs a good Rs. 2,500/- less.

• Nokia 6300, which is slimmer but again lacks 3G and support for high capacity memory cards.

• The ultra slim slider Samsung U700 retails for about the same price. However, it packs a 3 megapixel camera, larger screen, HSDPA and slimmer.

• Samsung D900i goes even easier on the wallet but drops 3G. It saves you about Rs. 1,500/- and gives you one of the good 3 megapixel cameras on the market. So if you are not all about 3G or the S40 UI, you might just have yourself a deal.

• Samsung E590. The minimalist design signed by Jasper Morrison and the sweet size might just be enough to steal some market share. 3 megapixel autofocus camera and a saving worth 3000/- are its key advantages over the 3120 classic. On the other hand, the fast data transfers and the QVGA screen swapped for EDGE and a square 220 x 220 pixel display don't sound as tempting.

• Sony Ericsson K770. With 3G, a nice 3 megapixel autofocus camera and a cool display, it seems to have all the odds in its favor. The only disadvantage is that its screen is slightly reduced to 1.9 inches. Having the same price as the 3120 classic it looks better.

• The fashion-savvy sleek looks of Sony Ericsson S500. The slider is virtually identical to Nokia 3120 classic (save for 3G). The problem with S500 is the numerous complaints about its keypad durability.

• bar Sony Ericsson W880. It only has a 1.8" display but that is the sole difference to the 3120 classic. However, it ships with a 1GB memory card and costs less than the Nokia. Furthermore, it's much slimmer and it does look nicer than the 3120 classic.

Read full detailed review at GSMArena.com.

8 megapixel Samsung i8510 Primera turns out as Samsung INNOV8

Samsung officially announced the Samsung i8510 INNOV8 today - a multimedia monster, which packs top-of-the-range cameraphone capabilities along with Symbian S60 smartphone functionality. And probably the best thing about it is that it will be available in Europe in a few weeks (read August 2008).

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 (previously rumored as Samsung Primera) has a name that seems really hard to pronounce, but in fact it's the word INNOVATE with some untraditional spelling. We've already reported of a live preview of the device, you can check it out here, but here's the official scoop.

Probably the biggest asset of the i8510 INNOV8 is its 8 megapixel auto focus camera, which has some advanced features such as face recognition, smile and blink recognition, auto panorama mode and geotagging. Unfortunately, there is no xenon flash, but only a dual power LED setup. The camera will be able to record video in VGA resolution at 30fps along with slow-mo QVGA video, which will be captured at 120fps.

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 is a smartphone based on Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 2 and features quad-band GSM and dual-band HSDPA 7.2Mbps (900/2100 MHz) support. It also has a large 2.8-inch 16M color QVGA display - it serves the Nokia N95 8GB excellently, so we don't think it would have benefitted by a higher resolution. Screen auto rotation is also available thanks to the built-in accelerometer.

The amount of RAM is 128 MB and there will be a dedicated 3D graphics accelerator. Unfortunately there is no information regarding the CPU used in this multimedia monster.

The Samsung i8510 also packs with some massive storage memory - a 8GB and a 16GB version will be available - much like the Samsung Omnia (you didn't hear us say Apple iPhone, did you?). That storage is further expandable via a microSD card slot.

GPS receiver with A-GPS support and Wi-Fi with DLNA certification are also on board. DLNA is basically a wireless media sharing protocol that runs on top of Wi-Fi. Sony Ericsson C905 and Nokia N96 have it too by the way.

For music playback, the i8510 packs stereo speakers, 3D surround sound effect and DNSe 2.0, which is Samsung's DSP technology. There's no word however of the rumored 5.1 surround support. A standard 3.5mm audio jack will be present on board.

Users will also enjoy playback of DivX videos, which is a nice add-on. USB 2.0, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio with RDS complete the feature list.

Samsung i8510 is powered by a 1200 mAh battery and measures 106.5 x 53.9 x 16.9mm, which is close to Samsung's previous Symbian-powered flagship - the G810, meaning it's a bulky fella.

The Samsung i8510 INNOV8 will be first available in Europe next month and its rumored price is 780 euro (Rs. 50,000/-).

for original post & more images click here.

New Samsung i8510 with 8Mpix Camera

Just when you thought they can hardly squeeze much more features in a single mobile phone here come Samsung to disprove that. The Samsung i8510 Primera is the next multimedia powerhouse that is to be announced in the nearest future. It will be a Symbian-powered smartphone, sporting more features than any other handset we have ever seen (yeah – more than Nokia N96, too).

Coming with a design inspired by the Samsung U900 Soul and the Samsung G810 the Samsung i8510 Primera will come with an 8 megapixel auto focus camera. We wonder whether the rumor Samsung are manufacturing the camera sensor of the Sony Ericsson C905 is correct - may be the Primera will feature the same camera unit then. There is a LED flash on the Samsung i8510 - pity since a xenon one is highly appreciated in any cameraphone.

Other exciting features of the Samsung i8510 include Wi-Fi and GPS, which also comes with assisted-GPS functionality for better cold start performance of the navigation services.

The display of the Primera will be a 16M color 2.8-inch QVGA one and the handset utilizes the Symbian 9.3 OS with S60 UI. The amount of RAM is 128 MB and there will be a dedicated 3D graphics accelerator. Unfortunately there is no information regarding the CPU used in this multimedia monster.

Much like the Samsung i900 Omnia and the Apple iPhone there will be an 8GB and a 16GB version of the i8510 Primera. There will also be a microSD card slot for expanding it and improving the connectivity. Other connectivity options include USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.0. The network data transfers are good to go via 3G with HSDPA support.

For the music lovers Samsung i8510 will offer a 3.5mm standard audio jack which should also be capable of transferring 5.1 surround audio (unprecedented yet on a mobile phone). We wonder how it's going to do that with a single analogue jack - maybe it's SPDIF.

The Primera will also be capable of recording slow-motion videos in QVGA resolution at 120 fps which matches the capabilities of the LG KU990 Viewty and KF750 Secret. Another common thing with these two LG devices is the DivX playback support on the i8510.

Samsung i8510 will be powered by a 1200 mAh battery and will measure 106.5 x 53.9 x 16.9mm, which is close to Samsung’s previous Symbian-powered flagship – the G810, meaning it's a bulky fella. The official announcement of this multimedia monster is expected to come somewhere around mid-August and the price tag is rumored to be about 780 euro.

You don't really think this leak is accidental, do you? With all the iPhone fuss and excitement in the air, Samsung are obviously trying to cool things a bit by throwing those scrapes of information out in the open.

Source

India to Be the Largest Market for Mobile WiMAX by 2013

Mobile WiMAX may not succeed in mature mobile broadband markets, but it will have a future in BRIC countries, especially in India according to an analysis made by Cantab Wireless. The analysis made by Cantab Wireless revealed that Mobile WiMAX cannot fulfil all the expectations placed upon it. It is a powerful technology with many excellent qualities; yet Mobile WiMAX also has some serious limitations.

The biggest challenge for Mobile WiMAX is that it is competing against 3G cellular networks in mature telecommunications markets.

Their analysis shows that Mobile WiMAX – performance-wise – cannot provide a shortcut to the 4th generation of mobile telecomms as some of its promoters have claimed. Given all the facts, Mobile WiMAX performance is comparable to 3.5G cellular systems at best, and in some areas it lags behind its cellular competitors. More importantly, 3.5G has already been rolled out, operating in numerous cellular networks, whereas Mobile WiMAX is yet to become operational in a grand scale in developed markets.

Therefore, their forecast is that Mobile WiMAX will not be able to gain a significant foothold in developed markets.

However, in developing markets the situation is not quite so depressing for Mobile WiMAX. Typically, the lack of cellular broadband services (i.e., 3G) in a country implies that there is no market for those services to date. Thus, Mobile WiMAX has to make its break in countries which do not have mobile broadband yet but which are developing fast. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries fit this description well. India is a particularly promising market for Mobile WiMAX for reasons outlined in the report.

Moreover, fixed WiMAX is already widely used as a cable replacement technology in many developing countries such as Pakistan and India, which provide good starting points in terms of Mobile WiMAX deployments.

India to Have 500 Million Mobiles by 2010

Nokia India expects that the country will have 500 million mobile phone users by 2010 - with 60 million of them having mobile video capability and 100 million using mobile music services. Speaking at the Goafest conclave, vice-president and managing director Nokia India, D Shivakumar, salso said that half the subscribers would be accessing the internet via their mobile phone.

He said, “Mobile phones are not just about voice anymore. Services delivered through mobiles would open up a big opportunity for the advertisers in India with a huge untapped potential.”

He broke the market down into three core sections. The top end of the market will be limited to some 50 million customers with mid-range but value oriented customers making up some 150 million subscribers. The third tier, he said is unique to India and would be dominated by low cost basic handsets with minimal functionality.

India the Preferred Mobile Destination

Be it tourism, finance, economy, or newest technology, India is now the most preferred destination for all activities. India is now abuzz with activity and yes the world has finally understood its true potential. Well this is certainly why nokia has launched the Nokia E71 and the Nokia 6220 classic here, first amongst several markets. Nokia said India is an emerging market has the largest base for its handset markets. Moreover it’s a strategic move to take on a nearly close yet far rival Samsung.

Nokia E71 retails for 19500 INR and Nokia 6220 Classic retails for 17500 INR.

Chennai tops SMS usage in India (survey says so)

A new study in America reveals that Americans hardly use SMS technology and finish their social talks through calls and emails. This raises a question upon the trillions upon trillions SMS that were reportedly sent were nothing but marketing gimmicks and spam messages.
In the US, 82% of respondents indicated that they had never used the text messaging feature on their mobile phone. A full 3% indicated that they had used text messaging on, at most, a monthly basis, while 15% used text messaging “every week or more.”

But Chennai people are reigning superkings when it comes to texting. Chennai tops the list in SMS Penetration in India. The percentage of mobile users using SMS in Mumbai is 59%, Kolkata 63%, Bangalore 71%, Delhi 73% and Chennai 78%.

“In Chennai, around 80% of the mobile user SMS on their device, while in Mumbai it is the least at 60%.However, number of messages sent per day is relatively higher in Bangalore than any other city. Interestingly number of SMS sent per day in Chennai is the lowest with an average of 1.6 messages though there is more number of SMS users. There is also difference based on gender. It was found that female sends more number of messages than their male counterpart. The average number of messages sent by a female mobile user is around 4.2 per day.

The survey reveals that SMS is used as a cheap mode of communication.” Says the IDC India Website.

India adds 6.32 mln GSM mobile users in June

NEW DELHI, July 10 (Reuters) - India added 6.32 million mobile users in June to its GSM-based telecom networks, an industry body said on Thursday, maintaining the robust pace in the world's fastest-growing mobile market.

India had 212.14 million GSM users at the end of June, data from the Cellular Operators' Association of India showed. In May, 6.28 million users had signed up.

The data does not include users on Reliance Communications' GSM network. The No. 2 telecoms firm, whose subscribers are mostly on its CDMA network, had added a total of 1.63 million mobile users in May.

Handsets costing as low as $15 and call rates as cheap as 1 U.S. cent have helped India to become the world's largest market for wireless services after China.

Top operator Bharti Airtel added 2.56 million users in June, taking its total to 69.38 million, the data showed.

Vodafone controlled Vodafone Essar, the third largest operator, had 49.2 million users at the end of June, having added 1.73 million users in the month.

State-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, the fourth-largest, added 365,479 users in the month to end with 37.36 million users.

No. 5 Idea Cellular 1.05 million new users in June, taking its total subscribers to 27.2 million.

Indian mobile phone industry to triple by '11

ell phone subscribers in the country are expected to triple during the next few years, making it one of the world's fastest growing markets.

Last year, the number of subscribers nearly doubled to 14.95 crore, up from 8.5 crore in 2005, according to iSuppli Corp. About 5.5 million Indians are signing up each month, which should drive subscriber numbers to 48.4 crore by 2011.

"A rise in per-capita income, the arrival of less-expensive phones, declines in tariffs, pro-industry and pro-consumer regulations enacted by the government and a host of other factors have been instrumental in driving this growth," said Jagdish Rebello, director and principal analyst for iSuppli.

iSuppli noted that the way subscribers are counted has changed, which may be artificially boosting the numbers a bit. Since March 2006, the Indian government has included fixed Wireless Local Loop subscribers in the overall mobile subscribers statistics. It was not immediately known how much this pads the numbers.

Still, iSuppli noted that urban tele-density exceeded 40 per cent, while rural penetration stagnated at a little more than 2 per cent. Approximately two-thirds of the Indian population lives in the countryside.

iSuppli estimates that 6.93 crore new legal handsets were sold in India in 2006, making India the second largest market behind China. Like China, India is dominated by GSM handsets: 5.17 crore.

This trend is likely to continue. The major CDMA carrier in India, Reliance Communications, has made a "strategic decision" to put a cap on its CDMA subscriber base and shift to a GSM network, iSuppli said.

Entry-level handsets will continue to drive volumes in the market; however, medium-level and smartphones will outpace industry growth, the researcher said. Because most phones in India are simple, voice-centric devices, it also expects longer replacement cycles. Yet as feature phones gain in popularity, the replacement rate should grow to 25 per cent by 2011.

ARPU in India was about Rs.308.84 ($7) in 2006. That will drop to less than Rs.220.60 ($5) by 2010, as rural penetration increases. Data services via GPRS and EDGE will slowly increase, but are not expected to be a major contributor to ARPU in the short term.

Indian Mobile Scene

From last year to the present, the Indian mobile scene (for mobile scene, I want to say all the things related to mobile communications) is always present in the news websites around the world.

Many countries see the mobile India with eager eyes - just ask investors. This is not news. Brazil, China and India are three of the most promising countries in the mobile world.