Mobile PCO in a BEST bus in Mumbai

[ajinkya]

Earlier today when I was on my way home from class, I happened to see this:
A PCO in a BEST bus!!!
It was sponsored by Hutch.
I was really happy to see it. Feels good to know, or rather see that we're finally 'developing' from what we, as a nation, were to what we aspire to be.

thought you might like to see it:



Cheers,
AJ

[normally_crazy]

yup Hutch has set up these PCO's on the buses. call charges -

1) Local calls - 1 Re / min

2) STD calls - 1 Re / 20 secs

3) ISD calls - 1 Re / 6 secs

IMO - its a waste , with mobile talktime charges being so low who will use these phones and that too in so much rush ? And besides the phones are right behind the engine which makes NOISE , so would people be able to hear anything ? add to that the cacaphony with so many people talking in the background....

[Ram]

At present they are in 75 BEST single-decker buses.

The plan is for Hutch PCOs to be in over 1,774 single-decker buses.
And Tata Indicom will install another 1,626 CDMA phones,
both by 28th Feb. 2007.

The Hutch PCO is a GSM mobile phone.
You can make local, STD and ISD calls using one-rupee coins.
Local calls will be charged at Rs. 1 per 60 seconds,
STD calls at Rs. 1 per 20 seconds
and ISD calls at Re 1 per 6 seconds.

Economics
The cellular operator is expected to pay 42.5% of their income to BEST.
Assuming Rs. 100 worth of calls are made per bus per day, or Rs. 3,100 per month,
BEST will earn 42.5%, i.e. Rs. 1,318 per bus per month, plus a fixed rental of Rs. 150 per month.
That comes to an income of Rs. 1,468 per bus per month. Multiplied by 3,400 single-decker buses, BEST stands to net Rs. 50 lakh per month from the project.

Good pickings, what?

[iraghava]

Nice but in today's world where so many people can afford & do use them, will a PCO in a bus be really useful?

[Ram]

I've seen a GSM PCO in the railway station in the basement of Schiphol airport, Amsterdam. You could use your ATM debit or credit card to call or send SMSes.

Shudder to imagine the loose anonymity of it if all the BEST PCO takes are coins to operate.

After all, a shady rascal can send an anonymous SMS or make a crank call and it will be untraceable, with nary an IMEI number to show for it.

With our societal culture, and our goofy law enforcement, in a public place like a BEST bus, nobody knows nor cares to identify anybody!

And your one rupee coins are indistinguishable from anybody else's one rupee coins.

Now that's a security hazard if I've seen one. Think Bunty aur Babli !

[theMAG]

Hope someone can hear that phone ring behind that engine! But - a good combination of public+private enterprise with the common man in mind

[kpzen]

I've heard a lot about BEST being the best n safest service in India....Now this looks like a good move but with most of the ppl having mobiles dont know how successful it would be......Still i think there are lot of students who make use of this as most of them dont have balance to make an outgoing call.....

[Steeroid]

Originally Posted by ram

After all, a shady rascal can send an anonymous SMS or make a crank call and it will be untraceable, with nary an IMEI number to show for it.

Equipment ID or IMEI is available on all GSM equipment and ESNs on CDMA equipment, irrespective of whether they are handsets or PCOs.

What stops shady rascals from sending SMSs or making crank calls from other PCOs (non-mobile) ? For every convenience that is provided there will be the odd rascal who misuses it - should we hold back convenience for a few thousand just because of the odd rascal?

[Red Bull]

A little off topic,

but, when We were in college and are following a girl the best way to get her home number was to follow her to a PCO where whe makes a call. (remember there were no mobiles with college students then- about 8 years ago)

Once the girl is done calling her home and speaking to mom, we go back and put another coin and press the redial button and the number is flashed on the screen.

From then on starts the nightmare for the girl with calls by her potential romeo. Till the end they never figured how we got their numbers. Was fun then , looking back maybe this was a pain for some of the girls. But well a few of the guys did get lucky this way.


On this topic as some one pointed out, I think the location is going to be too crowded / noisy to allow phone calls, except ofcourse for emergency situations. But anyway good to see these developments happening.

[hrag]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

IMO - its a waste , with mobile talktime charges being so low who will use these phones and that too in so much rush ?

What if one cannot afford a handset to begin with?

[normally_crazy]

Originally Posted by hrag

What if one cannot afford a handset to begin with?

These days handsets start at 1000 Rs and thats available with finance too ...add talktime rate of 50 ps / min...who will want to use the PCO ?


Imagine this - you want to make a call so you get up , loose your seat , wade through a sea of jam packed people , fight with the conductor for coins (if not carrying on person) , keep yourself standing straight and dial the number and you dont hear a thing ......

[khanak]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

These days handsets start at 1000 Rs and thats available with finance too ...add talktime rate of 50 ps / min...who will want to use the PCO ?


Imagine this - you want to make a call so you get up , loose your seat , wade through a sea of jam packed people , fight with the conductor for coins (if not carrying on person) , keep yourself standing straight and dial the number and you dont hear a thing ......

As a student iv found myself out of talktime many times and sometimes really need to make a call. Also what if you use up all your battery listening to songs on your cellphone. I guess this would have been a lot more useful a few years ago but it would have also been a lot more expensive.

[condor]

A news item recently in TOI's Bangalore edition showed an auto-rickshaw with one such phone ..