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"We wanted to help people actually surf the Internet wherever they are."

Tata Teleservices: Interview with Rohit Gupta, Additional Vice President, Consumer VAS

In India, Tata Teleservices aims to bring diverse but simple offers that work for the masses, often first-time Internet users. Opera Software's One Web philosophy encompasses the vision Tata Teleservices is bringing to fruition. The Tata proposition allows more people to access the Web on even the lowest-end devices while using Opera technology to enable the best Internet experience.

Rohit Gupta, Tata's Additional Vice President, Consumer VAS, spoke with Opera Insights about Tata Teleservices' drive to spread the Web throughout India.

Opera Insights (OI): Tata Teleservices has brought a unique offering to the marketplace. How did it come about?

Rohit Gupta (RG): Being the leader in the country for selling data cards that are used with PCs for Internet surfing, we are one of the largest Internet service providers in the country. To leapfrog from where we are, we wanted to create an Internet offer to help people actually surf the Internet wherever they are - a truly mobile Internet. We faced the challenge that most GSM phones, unlike CDMA, have a default browser. Most apps happen on the Java side, and only later come to BREW. We appeared to be reactive rather than proactive. Our partnership with Opera aimed to recreate the image by bringing India's first Internet browser to the mobile phone. We felt that Opera had a superior product and could build a long-term relationship with us.

“The most important thing with the current structure is that people know exactly what they are paying before they use the product and there are no surprises.”

OI: Can you tell us a bit about how you came to focus on mobile-Internet growth on low-end devices?

RG: There are around 25 million unique users of the Internet in India. But if you see the number of PCs in the market, it is nowhere near that. While most of the companies have created products focusing on the high end of pyramid, we at Tata Teleservices wanted to address the masses. Today, a lot of Indians go to cybercafes to access the Internet. We wanted to try to find out how these people would feel about the Internet on their mobiles. Our feedback was that most people like the whole concept. Accessing the Internet on a mobile phone, they have privacy to access what they want, anytime. Also, cybercafes have long queues, while the mobile Internet has no wait. There was some concern that mobile screens are small, but the Opera Zoom technology proved that the user experience will not be compromised. People had concerns about speed also, but when we showcased the product, they were thrilled with speed... even noting that speed in cybercafes was not all that great; a whole cafe had a small bandwidth that was shared among many users.

OI: How did you decide on your pricing structure (per day, per week, per month model)?

RG: Market research indicated that people perceive Internet pricing as very high. Cybercafes charge by the hour, not by volume. Since we were expecting many new users, we saw merit in setting up a flat pricing structure. We also provided a one-week free trial to encourage use. We believed that once people get used to Internet surfing, they may be willing to migrate to different pricing models later. The most important thing with the current structure is that people know exactly what they are paying before they use the product and there are no surprises.

OI: Can you discuss some of the customization you have done to encourage use among the diverse Indian population?

RG: With Opera, we have done two customizations. One is Opera support for regional languages. We initially had some challenges in implementing this as there are no standardized fonts in the regional languages. I am happy to share that when we tested for the final release, eleven languages were tested and were found to be working fine.

We also realized that a lot of Indians might be first-time users of the Internet who perceived that the Internet is a place for information but did not know how to go about accessing it. We created one landing page where we decided what kind of links to display to point customers toward useful sites.

We also promote the service using below-the-line activities, like sending SMS, billing inserts, etc. in order to promote applications. Today, Opera browser is one of the top-ten most downloaded items from Tata's in-house portal, Tata Zone.

“Since Tata Teleservices is one of the largest Internet service providers in the country, we are working with Opera to take the Internet to more people through more devices and put together things that will benefit the mobile community.”

OI: How do you plan to expand your strategy, both in the mobile arena and outside of it?

RG: In mobile, 90% of new customers are prepaid. They are actually buying low-end phones (25-35 USD). The next challenge we are working on along with Opera will be reducing the application footprint size to the absolute minimum in order to reach even more, lower-end devices while still providing a great Internet experience on small screens and with non-English, regional portals for this customer segment. Also, wireless networks have constraints. We are exploring how we can improve the user experience based on Opera's expertise with maximizing bandwidth limitations.

OI: Where does the Tata-Opera partnership go from here? What does the future hold?

RG: Now that Tata Teleservices and Opera share the same philosophy, we intend to drive the concept on more phone and more devices. We intend to implement Opera Mini on more phones, perhaps having Opera available on all the phones in the Tata network. Since Tata Teleservices is one of the largest Internet service providers in the country, we are working with Opera to take the Internet to more people through more devices and put together things that will benefit the mobile community.

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