May,13'00

Thanks to Tata Cellular, Hyderabadis have got a rare distinction of being the first city in India to get the facility of Internet on their mobile phones. This facility has been launched by Tata Cellular last month. 

This facility has been made possible through WAP(Wireless Application Protocol).It was in 1999 that more than 1200-plus companies signed on to this Wireless Application protocol,a standard for transmitting and reformatting web-data for the small screens of Cellular Phones.

Though cell phones are the most visible users of WAP, the protocol is such that it can be used by any wireless device.To access the web,these devices use embedded microbrowser-small footprint software that can operate in the limited memory that these decices offer. WAP supports HTML and XML too but WML(an extention of XML) is specifically devised for small screens.


Mobile phone vendors like Ericsson, Mototorola and Nokia all have started shipping their first WAP phones. Right now only Nokia phones are WAP enabled. Nokia claims it already has 10,000 WAP server installations world-wide,1000 of which are in the US to further bolster its market position. In Hyderabad Tata Cellular claims to have over 100  subscribers for this facility.

Just a few months back Tata Cellular Ltd have also added an exclusive service innovation-email@tatacell.net. Being the first to introduce the concept in AP this service opens up a world of convenience for its subscribers who will now be able to send and receive messages on their cell phones. Through the Short Messaging Services (SMS) facility one can type out short messages from a cell phone to another cellphone user who has the same facility. This facility is being brought out by Tata Cellular Ltd in association with city-based Taruni Technovision which has entered into a service agreement with Tata Cellular limited to provide value added services to the subscribers of Tata Cell in the state of Andhra Pradesh. FlashMail will enable the subscribers to send and receive E-Mails from anywhere in the world on their conventional mobile phone with out any physical attachment and airtime charges.

Now Hyderabadi mobile users are on par with any other hi-tech city of the world and NRI's can catch up with Hyderabad in all forms of mobile communication.

-Maju Kuriakose

This site is conceived, designed, and maintained by Reach-out Business Network.
All rights reserved world wide. Jan 2000
Mail your queries to  info@reachouthyderabad.com