Land lines on hold as mobiles ring in the moolah

it’s an electronic age. it’s also a time when people are on the move like never before. with mobile communication becoming white hot, is it more feasible to simple do away with land lines, utilising the mobile phone for all communication instead? yes, say an increasing number of yuppies in mumbai. “what do i do with a land line when my husband and i are both out of the house? it doesn’t make sense. besides, having two cell phones is affordable now,� says sunita, a software engineer. even mahanagar telephone nigam ltd (mtnl) agrees. mtnl deputy general manager kishore kumar says, “there’s no doubt about it, it’s much more convenient to have a cell phone instead of a land line. mtnl had a customer base of 23.5 lakh land lines this march, and a cellular base of 1.12 lakh (dolphin and trump). overall, mumbai has 9.7 lakh mtnl cell phone users. in the last six months, there’s been a growth of 430 per cent in the cell phone sector alone.� mtnl had 24.3 lakh land line customers last september. also, last september it had only 0.2 lakh customers for its cellular services. the decrease in land lines and the simultaneous increase in cellular customers shows that people are increasingly shunning land lines for cell phones. attractive tariff packages have helped fasten he exodus. says kapil sharma, an accountant who’s done away with his land line, “mtnl land line bills are so erratic. there’s no accountability. whereas, you get an itemised bill if you use a cell phone. if there’s a problem, then it’s cleared the same day. these goof-ups are comparatively low with cell phones. also, if one applies for an mtnl line, it takes weeks before they hook you up.� these problems, of course just don’t exist with cell phones. industry sources said there has been an overall growth of over 30 per cent in mobile users in mumbai. last september, bpl had 3.4 lakh cell phone users; this march, it had 4.4 lakh. orange comes next with 4.3 lakh users; last september, it had 3.5 lakh customers. another player in the market is hughes telecom. hughes sources said they catered to 1 lakh customers last september; they have 1.6 lakh this march. dilnazboga@indiatimes.com