Disrupting India's wild mobile market

"It's not so much about per second pricing," Subbarao said. "There was an opportunity and need to recognize fairness and transparency, which is something customers also want. It's recognizing people's time and money are precious."

The NTT DoCoMo brand name also brought "a lot of credibility, scale, expectations and excitement."

But it is one of the world's toughest and most dynamic markets. "It changes every six months or so." Customers can trade off different operators at the drop of a hat. It's also a multi-SIM environment where consumers use dual-SIM handsets in order to "max on the best deals."

Around the corner is the long-awaited introduction of 3G, bringing yet another change in the dynamics.

"The Indian consumer has been extremely smart and pretty responsive to new technology," Subbarao points out. A significant segment of customers "is global as anything in the world," while the fact that 70% of the population can't get traditional internet promises an even bigger opportunity.

"In a large number of small towns the mobile internet penetration is more than the ISP. That number will increase. The trick is how to find the right price paradigm and obviously to build a business."

Thanks to the wide penetration of TV - more than 90% have cable TV in some areas, and 65% in rural India - everyone is aware of what is available.

"Historically Indian consumers are early adopters - that gives us a lot of confidence."