Archive for the ‘Mobile Operators’ Category
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 |
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India’s largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, has joined the race with handset makers such as Nokia, RIM (maker of BlackBerry) and Samsung among others to get a share of the mobile applications market in India. Bharti’s app store is set to go live on Wednesday (February 10) with over 1,200 applications making it the first Indian telco to attempt replicating the highly successful business model of Apple, the pioneer in this space.
Last month mobile operator Aircel had announced a tie-up with Infosys for its mobile applications platform and the telco is set to unveil its app stores by the March-end, an indicator that more operators here set to tap the business potential this space offers.Mobile apps have been a rave globally ever since Apple launched its App Store in 2008. Earlier this month Apple said that its apps which are divided into 100,000 categories such as games, business, news, sports and health have seen over three billion downloads.
Other handset makers such as Nokia who have joined the fray over the last 12 months are also seeing big business opportunities in this space. For instance, BlackBerry’s app store which is only a few months old already boasts of over 4,000 apps. Ditto with Google’s Android which as already crossed the 20,000 apps figure.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 |
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S Tel which recently launched services in Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar and Jharkhand, is betting big on the launch of mobile number portability (MNP) to further its fortunes in India’s crowded telecom arena. New entrants will be the biggest beneficiaries of MNP as it allows them to target the best post-paid customers of existing incumbents. A review of the circles in which S Tel operates shows upto seven to eight operators competing for customers.
Speaking to TOI, S Tel’s CEO Shamik Das said, “We are ready to take the MNP route to win in the marketplace . Another key priority for us is to participate in 3G auctions when they happen but for selective circles alone”. S Tel’s subscriber base was over 5 lakh at the end of December 2009. It was awarded six C-category licences in early 2008 of which it is yet to launch Assam and Jammu and Kashmir.
S Tel is battling the DoT in the High Court for licenses for a remaining 16 circles which it was denied after telecom minister A Raja arbitrarily cut off the date of award of licences to September 25, 2007 from the earlier October 1, 2007 deadline.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Sunday, January 24th, 2010 |
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Tata Indicom, the CDMA brand of Tata Teleservices Limited, today announced the launch of ‘Pay Per Call Flexi Plan’, an offer that takes the revolutionary ‘Pay Per Call’ concept to a whole new level, offering path-breaking benefits for its pre-paid subscribers. The ‘Pay Per Call Flexi Plan’ provides the customer the power of flexible billing, optimizing customer spends for both short- and long-duration calls.
Under the ‘Pay Per Call Flexi Plan’, customers can make local or STD calls at Re 1 and Rs 2, respectively, for a standard call of 5 minutes. If, however, the customer makes a call for less thanone minute, he or she is charged just 25 paise per minute for both local and STD calls. The product also offers all roaming calls at 50 paise per minute. New customers can avail this plan by buying a starter pack of Rs 99, while existing subscribers can opt for the offer with a one-time recharge of Rs 51.
“Customers today want the power of choice, value and savings and our Pay Per Call Flexi Plan offers exactly that,” Mr. Vineet Bhatia, COO Delhi and NCR & Head North Region, Tata Indicom said. This concept is indeed revolutionary as it optimizes the customer’s spends wisely and provides a competitive price point for both short- and long-duration calls. This is keeping withTata Teleservices Limited’s stated objective of constantly innovating to provide customers with differentiated services and products on a reliable and robust platform.”
The ‘Pay Per Call Flexi Plan’ offers SMS at 50 paise for both national and local messages. The offer is valid on all calls made by Tata Indicom subscribers to any mobile phone or land line connection, across all networks. The offer has a validity of one year.
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Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
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Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications (RCOM) found itself defending charges of financial wrongdoing on Monday, after the government said it had caused losses of around Rs 250 crore to the exchequer by under-reporting revenues. Telecom minister A Raja told Parliament that RCOM, India’s second-largest mobile operator, had under-reported revenues by up to Rs 1,500 crore to sector regulator Trai for the years 2006-07 and 2007-08, and the department of telecom (DoT) was examining the issue.
“There was an under-reporting of Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore by RCOM to avoid payment of licence fees and the government may have lost about Rs 250 crore due to this,” Mr Raja told the Lok Sabha during question hour. The minister’s statement was based on a recent report by a special auditor appointed by the communications ministry. RCOM, whose scrip fell 1.7% to Rs 175.90 on Monday, vehemently denied the allegations.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Monday, December 7th, 2009 |
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Goa is set to experience the next revolution in cell phone technology in January, 2010. Soon, you will be able to transfer both voice data - a telephone call - and nonvoice data, such as downloading information, exchanging e-mails, and instant messaging all simultaneously. Not to forget video calls, where you will be able to view the person you talk to on your cell phone. BSNL has scheduled a roll-out of its 3G services in Goa within a month’s time. “Almost 80% of the equipment has arrived in Goa. The installation and testing is in progress. All the equipment is being imported from France and the USA,” says Mohan Lal, general manager, BSNL Mobile Division, Pune.
“All urban and semi-urban areas in Goa will be covered initially, new sites will be added later. Our basic survey of the state is complete and we will use the existing tower network. We’re looking at a launch in January,” Lal said. 3G is the next generation of wireless network technology that provides high speed bandwidth (high data transfer rates) to handheld devices. The high data transfer rates will allow 3G networks to offer multimedia services combining voice and data. The minimum internet speed offered through 3G will be 2 mbps, while the maximum speed will touch 14 mbps, says Hari Narayan Jangir, deputy general manager, BSNL Mobile Division, Pune.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
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Spice Digital Limited, India’s leading Telecom VAS player and Finland based Foreca, pioneer in digital weather services, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for offering Weather services in India through different Mobile connectivity medium. MOU was signed by Mr. Vinish Kathuria, Chief Operating Officer, Spice Digital Ltd. and Mr. Marko Moilanen, Vice President, Foreca Ltd. Gracing the occasion were Mr. Mauri Pekkarinen, Finland’s Minister of Economy & Employment and Ms. Terhi Hakal, Ambassador of Finland to India.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Vinish Kathuria, Chief Operating Officer, Spice Digital Limited, mentioned, “As a leader in Indian Telecom VAS arena, we are always looking for innovative and technologically advanced offerings that can add value to our customers. We look forward to leverage our expertise in different Mobile connectivity medium of Mobile Internet, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and SMS, to develop different standalone and integrated product offerings around Weather that can be leveraged by millions from the comfort of their handsets. We envision the information to be not only useful for city residents for their day to day activities but also for farmers in planning their agriculture activities, for tourists in planning their business & vacation travel, for governments & NGOs in planning disaster recovery efforts etc. It gives us great pleasure to announce the signing of MOU with Foreca, a pioneer in digital weather services for internet, mobile and navigation devices”
Mr. Marko Moilanen, Vice President, Foreca Ltd said, “We are very excited to sign the partnership agreement with Spice Digital. Foreca’s vast knowledge and in-depth experience of weather data and markets around the world, allows us to bring a very unique and innovative weather offering to the Indian market. Spice Digital’s reach in Indian Mobile arena would allow us to offer different products & services to the Indian consumers”.
[Via: Unwire India]
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 |
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Spice Digital Limited, India’s leading Telecom VAS player and Finland based Foreca, pioneer in digital weather services, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding for offering Weather services in India through different Mobile connectivity medium. MOU was signed by Mr. Vinish Kathuria, Chief Operating Officer, Spice Digital Ltd. and Mr. Marko Moilanen, Vice President, Foreca Ltd. Gracing the occasion were Mr. Mauri Pekkarinen, Finland’s Minister of Economy & Employment and Ms. Terhi Hakal, Ambassador of Finland to India.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Vinish Kathuria, Chief Operating Officer, Spice Digital Limited, mentioned, “As a leader in Indian Telecom VAS arena, we are always looking for innovative and technologically advanced offerings that can add value to our customers. We look forward to leverage our expertise in different Mobile connectivity medium of Mobile Internet, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and SMS, to develop different standalone and integrated product offerings around Weather that can be leveraged by millions from the comfort of their handsets. We envision the information to be not only useful for city residents for their day to day activities but also for farmers in planning their agriculture activities, for tourists in planning their business & vacation travel, for governments & NGOs in planning disaster recovery efforts etc. It gives us great pleasure to announce the signing of MOU with Foreca, a pioneer in digital weather services for internet, mobile and navigation devices”
Mr. Marko Moilanen, Vice President, Foreca Ltd said, “We are very excited to sign the partnership agreement with Spice Digital. Foreca’s vast knowledge and in-depth experience of weather data and markets around the world, allows us to bring a very unique and innovative weather offering to the Indian market. Spice Digital’s reach in Indian Mobile arena would allow us to offer different products & services to the Indian consumers”.
[Via: Unwire India]
Posted in Mobile Operators | No Comments »
Friday, November 27th, 2009 |
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Reliance Communications , India’s largest and only nationwide operator offering both GSM and CDMA mobile services, today initiated a radical move in the Indian telecom industry by making SMS’s more affordable to all mobile customers in India. Reliance Mobile customers can avail of two revolutionary SMS tariff plans:
- ONE PAISE PER SMS
- UNLIMITED SMS’s @ Re. 1 PER DAY
The new SMS tariff plans are add-on plans and are applicable for all Reliance Mobile customers irrespective of CDMA or GSM network as well as prepaid and postpaid customers.
“SMS continues to grow every year with more and more innovative ways of utilizing its potential coming in the forefront. Indians are using SMS as a mode of communication to keep in touch with friends and family. With select subscriber groups, SMS is a preferred communication mode over voice calls. On account of significant tariff disparity in the recent months, it has lost its due share of attention. Considering this, Reliance Communications with its 1st in the industry initiative, aims to revitalize SMS usage in the country”, said Mr. Mahesh Prasad, President - Reliance Communications.
“Like our earlier Simply Reliance offerings of Local, STD and Roaming calls at 50p/min and 1p/sec from any Reliance mobile to any phone on any network, yet to be matched by any competitive offering. With this best in the industry initiative, we offer significant value not only to our existing 9 Crore CDMA and GSM customers, but are also aimed at gaining new acquisitions from high SMS usage groups of the GSM community such as young professionals and the youth across India”, he added.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Monday, November 23rd, 2009 |
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Even as private telecom operators are slugging it out in the ongoing ‘pricing strategy’ , state-run telecom operator BSNL seems to have pushed the limits of the ‘first mover’ advantage of rolling out 3G services. The company launched an extremely aggressive pricing of 30 paise per minute for local and 50 paise for STD video calls, making it as cheap as the current pricing existing in the market.
BSNL’s 3G service, launched in Chennai on Friday evening, will be available on both pre-paid and post-paid connections. 3G will make available other facilities like mobile live TV and high-speed internet with download speeds up to 3.6 mbps. Customers will be able to watch 24 television channels at present . BSNL plans to add other facilities like video streaming and video-on-demand soon.
With BSNL offering these services at such low rates through a ‘promotional plan’ for a period of one year, the 3G pricing strategy too looks to have been set. The 3G spectrum auctions is set to take place this fiscal. “We expect one lakh customers to subscribe to our 3G service in a month-and-half ,” A Subramanian, chief general manager, BSNL, Chennai , said during the launch of the service. BSNL has already rolled out 3G in about 240 cities and towns in India.
[Via: unwireindia]
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Monday, November 23rd, 2009 |
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Tata DoCoMo , the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Ltd, today extended its per-second-billing scheme to roaming calls, intensifying the tariff war in India’s fast growing wireless telecom market. On Friday, Bharti Airtel, the country’s largest telecom operator by subscriber base, launched a new billing scheme that slashed roaming rates by nearly 60 per cent.
“We are delighted to announce yet another industry- defying offer to our subscribers-a transparent and pack-free roaming tariff plan of one paisa per second for all incoming and outgoing calls, both local and long distance, to all networks and types of phones (mobile or landline),” Tata DoCoMo, President, Deepak Gulati, President said in a press release.
“Tata DoCoMo subscribers will need no special packs or pay any hidden charges to avail this offer,” he added. From Monday, subscribers across all 15 circles where the company has GSM services, will have to pay just 1 paisa per second while on a roam call, regardless of the network or type of phone the call is made to.
[Via: unwireindia]
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