'Chatty' Indians and the mobile phone

The Economist magazine has an interesting article on mobile phones in India and how 'chatty' Indians have embraced the use of the mobile phone:

The average owner of a mobile handset spends 471 minutes (almost eight hours) on the phone each month, and sends 39 text messages. Those numbers do not capture other, more ingenious, uses for the device. For example, autorickshaw drivers will tell passengers to “hit me with a missed” (ie, call my mobile and hang up before I answer) when they want to be picked up for the journey home. Such tactics dent the phone companies' revenues. They now earn under 300 rupees ($7.50) a month on average per subscriber.

Not so long ago most Indians had to confine their arguments to those within earshot. By the early 1990s the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) and the state's two operators had installed only 8m lines. Some 2.5m people were on the waiting list, where some had languished for seven years.

Read in full - 'Chatty Indians have embraced the mobile phone, but many still shrug at the PC'

Thanks to Mobile-Society (and RL)