Arun

Sunday, 09 May , 2004, 08:51 The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked the Government to remove mobile phones from the `1/6 scheme,' which makes it mandatory for all mobile subscribers to file income-tax returns. TRAI feels that if mobile phone subscribers are exempted from filing their returns, it will give a further impetus to the sector, which has already logged a 160 per cent growth in the last one year. The TRAI Chairman, Pradip Baijal, has written a letter to Nripendra Misra, Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, pointing out that the mobile subscriber base increased from 13 million in March 2003 to 33.58 million subscribers in March 2004, thanks to greater affordability. According to the latest TRAI figures, by the end of April 2004, the total number of mobile users in the country had reached about 35 million. It is further expected to rise to 100 million by December 2005. "Owing to technological developments and a reduction in costs, the mobile phone has changed from being a product for the elite to that for a common man. TRAI has received representations from the service providers saying that the affordability of the service has attracted more and more low-end users. We are of the view that 1/6 Income-Tax criteria should exclude phones as that would facilitate growth in the sector," the letter says.

The license for 'cellular phone' and 'land phone' is different. The tariff is different for both licenses and does not depend on the technology.

You can easily change it from: My Controls > Skins and Languages > And then select 'Invision Power Board' from the drop list and then click 'Change my Account Options' button. The default skin will be reverted back in a few days.

Click here for tutorial on HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOM RINGTONE Click here for tutorial on HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOM WALL PAPER For a readymade ringtone, download here ! For a readymade wallpaper, see attached file with this post ! rimweb.dat

Don't you think its too bulky to carry it around, attached to your wrist ? I've seen Mukesh Ambani's son wearing it in a photo during Filmfare awards 2004.

Thanks for the refreshing reviews anujit and rahul. I was having the impression that LG handsets were better than Samsung in terms of price and quality. But your posts have given me a second thought !

The whole site including the forum (with database) is backed up weekly. So in case of a data loss, we can loose only one week's of data.

Hello all, its time for a few changes to the forum. I've added few more cool skins for you. It can be changed from 'My Controls > Skin and Languages' and select it from the drop down list. The default skin of the forum has been changed to 'MacAqua' (thanks to NBSdesignz for the skin and Binary Bits for the logo). You can use the Invision Power Board default skin (select it from the list) in case you find any problems with the new skins. I've splitted the 'RIM Services' forum into 3, 'RIM Prepaid', 'RIM Postpaid' & 'Miscallaneous' in order to organise the forum. BTW, please welcome the new moderators of the forum, city02 , Greens & Tushar !

Well, this DoS attack was not targetted only on our server, but on a range of IP's at The Planet Data Center. Anyway, will keep your warning in mind

Good point shaboo, will keep that in mind

Yahoo Groups were blocked in september last year following Governments order (to block access to an anti-national group running under Yahoo Groups). But it was reopened later and all ISPs including Reliance unblocked it. It looks as though Reliance has blocked it again without any announcements. I am able to access the groups site with another ISP. Shooting off an email to customercare@relianceinfo...

Well, no one has actually ventured into Samsung handests yet. You'll have to wait until somebody does it or try to find it yourself. For the time being, only LG handsets can be uploaded with ringtones/wallpapers.

TechTree.com May 6, 2004 Reliance has tried to equip the 'aam janta' with mobile connections but at a cost. Techtree probed into the matter further and found out some interesting facts. Currently Reliance billing offers a host of features, such as… billing rates for STD Rs.40 paise (from reliance to reliance handsets only.) - Sms messaging service free for 3 yrs from date of inception of scheme. - Reliance Internet and Web world services offer free Internet surfing for the first month on every new phone connection. - Reliance also gives free discount coupon booklet, which has discount coupons valid at various places around India offering discounts ranging from 10 to 25 percent or more. - Outgoing airtime rates are considerably cheaper if compared to GSM based networks. These features would attract any average person looking for a mobile connection as compared to other network services. However the real dilemma starts once the user realizes that he cannot change his phone handset or scheme, which he is free to do on a GSM based network. With every handset that a user buys, a 3 year scheme is slapped on, chaining the user to the handset for the entire duration. These exchange, transfer cum upgradation schemes, which are available, are primarily targeted at those existing users who were under the Dhirubhai Pioneer offer ie: Rs 3,350 scheme or even the post paid schemes. The schemes are as follows: 1.Upgrade to colour display model such as the LG-7130 or the Samsung SCH A563. For this, one has to pay Rs.14, 000 and 17,000 respectively after deducting the exchange rate. One can even opt to pay Rs.5001 for both the handsets, the only difference being, that the user would be paying a higher rental rate than what he was paying earlier. For example, if the user previously maintained a commitment of Rs.600, he now would have to pay Rs 800, in the case of LG, or Rs.900 for Samsung. The increase in rental rate according to Reliance, is levied as "Clubman" charges, which is a fee the user has to pay for opting to use a higher featured handset. 2.Upgrade to colour display cum camera model such as LG-7230 or Samsung RCP which costs a whopping Rs.20,900 and Rs.21,900 respectively. If the user wishes to surrender his old phone then under the 'upgradation cum exchange transfer scheme', the rates are reduced to Rs.17,900 and Rs.18,900 respectively. This means that in both schemes the customer has no option but to opt for a new feature rich handset, which costs a lot more. If the user wishes to save Rs.3350 approximately, then he would have to undergo the trouble of finding another user himself. And to top it all, to avail of the colour handset scheme of Rs.5001, the user has to pay Rs.2001 to Reliance and the person whom the user transfers his phone to, has to pay Rs.500 as transfer charge. Even if the user decides to surrender the phone he/she still has to complete paying the balance rentals for the remaining months. Interestingly, the colour handsets haven’t been available with any of the dealerships for nearly 4 and half months, which gives the users no other option but to go in for the more expensive colour display camera models. In short, Reliance schemes and billings may be cheap and affordable, but their strategy is as good as a "venus fly trap plant". Therefore 'Kar lo duniya mutthi mein', works more for Reliance than for the janta.

Those who don't subscribe to Indian Express, check out the news online here !

Paradox will launch more multiplayer games

Yeah right, it looks as though both of us took the connection in March 2003 and we both are from Kerala circle.

They will also be launching more games and other applications from tinfo mobile (who developed 'Roboscape').

well, both handsets are listed in their website now

The certification warning does come and just click 'Continue anyway' to continue the setup. Usually if the installation reaches that stage, it should complete successfully. Can you post a screenshot of the "Failed to install modem driver" error message ? Also, are you using the software mentioned for RD 2130 (and not 2030) ?

Bangalore, May 6 - UNI Building a vast bouquet of data services on its current IX CDMA technology, Reliance Infocomm is already testing the new generation EV-DO and EV-DA technologies for 3G applications. Company President (applications) Mahesh Prasad told UNI here that the company would however not immediately migrate to the new technology even if it was proved that the current IX CDMA technology was much superior and faster compared to the GSM technology used by the cellular industry in the country. EV-DO and EV-DA are next level of evolution on the CDMA 2000 IX Platform. Both Tata Indicom and Reliance Infocomm have been providing handsets that could give high speed data transfer which was not now possible with the cellular mobilephones using the GSM technology. With over one billion hits a month, Reliance Infocomm is increasing its data offer to its mobile customers and diversifying the applications. The latest offering was in providing results of over 70 examinations held across the country. Mr Prasad said talks were also on with a few banking institutions to provide transactions over the CDMA phones. A bank customer, by simple operations, could ascertain his balance or even issue instructions for completing certain transactions. Another major application that would be rolled out by Reliance Infocomm through its R-world initiative was providing Railway reservations through its handsets. Trials were on for the service and railway reservations could be available from over 60 centres across the country where the railways had courier facilities to reach the passenger his booked ticket. Mr Prasad said the telecom sector in the country was in for rapid progress and there was enough room to achieve substantial growth for every sector. With Reliance Infocomm having more than 90,000 km of optic fibre spread across the country, the company was also aiming to increase its broadband services, he added.

8th MAY 2004 New Delhi: India's private telecoms firms offering CDMA-based mobile services said on Saturday 259,233 customers signed up in April, boosting the mobile base to 34.56 million in the world's fastest growing major wireless market. Data from the Association of Basic Telecom Operators (ABTO), which represents six companies, said its user base at the end of April stood at 7.41 million customers, up 3.6 percent from March when more than 400,000 users had opted for CDMA services. S.C. Khanna, secretary general at ABTO, said the drop in growth rates in April was mainly because operators had launched attractive schemes in March to lure users and those tariff plans were not extended in the past month. On Friday, rival firms offering GSM-based mobile services reported their user base had grown by just under a million customers in April to 27.15 million subscribers. As a consequence only 1.25 million users entered the flourishing mobile sector in April compared with 1.9 million in the previous month and 1.63 million in February, pointing to slowing growth in the sector. Some analysts have blamed the slowdown in subscribers to a combination of slow network expansion by a few carriers in remote and untapped areas, cost constraints and high duties levied by the government on telecoms equipment and handsets. But Khanna said he was confident subscriber numbers would pick up in the coming months as leading CDMA operators such as Reliance Infocomm Ltd, 45 percent owned by Reliance Industries Ltd, and the Tata group were extending their reach. Reliance Infocomm, India's largest CDMA-based mobile services provider with 6.74 million users, is planning to expand its services to 4,000 towns and cities this year from 1,100 now. Bombay-based Reliance Infocomm competes with GSM-firm Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, 28 percent owned by Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, and about a dozen other firms for a larger share of the country's booming mobile pie. The industry is expected to have more than 100 million users by 2005 as one of the lowest call rates in the world attracts customers to the underpenetrated market. Roughly three percent of Indians own a mobile phone compared with more than 20 percent in China.

"The installation stops in middle" Did you mean installation of the hardware or R Connect ? Does it show any error when the installation stops ?

Thanks a lot Static for the great work you've done

Jayant, it worked for me. I'm running Windows XP with LG RD 2030, on COM1, serial cable, with the default settings. Since the screenshot is too big, I'm giving a link to it. Also, note the small popup near the system tray. Why does it show like that ? Screen Shot

What exactly does *488 do Ashok ?