Uninor, one of the latest mobile service providers to start service in the country, has announced plans for further retail expansion in Andhra Pradesh.

Currently, the GSM service provider has presence in all 23 districts of the state with 500 towns and 2000 villages covered. Now the company plans to expand the presence by adding 25 more stores of varied sizes to take the number to 90 stores by June 2011.

Customers can walk into these stores to buy SIM cards/ handsets/accessories, recharge coupon, register complaints or can even enquire about VAS products.

Announcing the plan, Satish Kumar Kannan, business head, AP circle, Uninor, said, “Uninor has always been committed to extend its reach and services to our customers whether they are settled in the rural areas or the bigger cities of the state. At present, we have 65 Uninor branded stores across 3 different innovative retail formats and we look forward to a 90 store footprint by June end. We want to provide the same level of brand experience and customer service to our users, their location notwithstanding; and no matter whether they visit a Uninor franchisee or a company owned Outlet.”

Most of the new stores will be based on franchisee model, which are built on a low cost model. Called as the ‘Franchisee Express outlets’, they reach out to towns in AP with a population of less than 1 lakh.

Idea Cellular has launched a new ‘My Card’ voucher in Delhi, enabling its subscribers to avail multiple voice and VAS benefits, absolutely free. Idea subscribers can now avail benefits in the form of free talktime, free minutes, free SMS with this special voucher.

The new voucher provides free voice and value added services to the subscribers and can be availed from any My Idea showroom or select retailers across Delhi NCR.
Idea subscribers who avail ‘My Card’ till 15th May also stand a chance to win Tickets to Delhi Daredevils match and an opportunity to meet their favourite players of the IPL team.

Launching the voucher, Sanjeev Govil, chief operating officer, Delhi and Haryana, Idea Cellular, said, “We are pleased to bring the ‘My Card’ voucher in Delhi, which not only offers multiple VAS and voice benefits but also helps our subscribers to connect with their favourite Delhi Daredevils cricketers.”

‘My Card’ offers incentives once a month to prepaid subscribers. Users are not required to do any other recharge to avail the My Card benefit. Interested users can call on 9540404040 for further details.

Idea Cellular has launched its 3G services in Goa covering cities such as Panaji, Mapusa, Margao, Vasco and Ponda.

Apart from the locals, travellers coming into Goa can also opt for Idea’s prepaid 3G SIMs and/or dongles.

With Idea 3G, users can enjoy a host of activities including downloading songs, streaming videos on YouTube, streaming audio, photo updates on Facebook, mail and other online media, movie downloads, watching mobile TV, e-mailing with attachments, blog postings, viewing photos, and Flash and HD Gaming.

Idea 3G users will experience speed upto 21 Mbps on 3G handsets, and higher speed on other devices depending on the device capability.

Idea has also an Application Store, known as IdeaMall, that offers an entire catalogue of games and applications on web and mobile platforms.

Speaking about the 3G launch in Goa, Rajendra Chourasia, chief operating officer, Maharashtra and Goa, Idea Cellular, said: “With the launch of next generation 3G services, locals as well as the visiting tourists can now experience video conferencing, IdeaMall Application Store, mobile TV, video on demand, and high-speed Internet Browsing with ease and convenience of use.”

Idea has set up ‘Experience Kiosks’ to provide a flavour of the services that customers can opt for. These will be available to all users at select ‘My Idea’ stores in these towns.

With this, Idea’s 3G services are now available in nine circles including Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, UP West, UP East, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Haryana, besides Maharashtra. The teleco has now over one million 3G users in the first of month of launch.

“Idea’s national 3G footprint has already covered 400 towns and is progressively growing at the rate of 10 towns per day to cover 750 towns by mid 2011, and 4,000 towns by the end of FY12,” the teleco said in a press release.

“Currently, 10 per cent of Idea’s subscribers are said to be using 3G enabled handsets. It is expected that these users will be the early adopters of 3G services,” the release further added.

Idea has introduced Time based Billing plan for 3G services enabling users to avail high-end data services without worrying about the volume of usage. To promote usage, Idea has introduced ‘sachet’ pricing offering attractive trial packages with per day billing.

Bharti airtel had five lakh 3G mobile subscribers within seven days of launching third generation telephony services(3G), and that too in just five cities. Now it has over two million 3G subscribers (as of April 6) in 34 cities and towns across India including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal, Udupi, Jaipur, Delhi NCR, Hubli, Patna, Hyderabad, Agra, Dehradun, Meerut and West Bengal.

What makes it click with users? Here is an analysis of the operator’s 3G tariff plans:

Airtel has a range of tariff plans for 3G customers, starting with a Rs 11 plan which gives 10 MB of usage for a day. The plans go up to Rs 750 for 2 GB data over 30 days.

But the sad part is that there are no real unlimited plans to choose from. As an alternative, the teleco is offering a Rs 675 plan, in which you get 1.25 GB data at full 3G speed, consumable over 30 days. Once you have consumed that, your access speed will drop to 20 Kbps and you will be charged 1 paisa for every 100KB till you reach a bill of Rs 2,000.

There are no charges beyond that. But then, why would you choose to pay Rs 2,000 when you can get 2GB of data at 2G speeds for just Rs 99, which makes it really unlimited as, at that speed, you technically cannot download any more.

So it is better to take the Rs 750 plan for 3G and Rs 99 plan for 2G. This way you get unlimited data at Rs 849, albeit at a slower speed. But this way you can switch to 2G for tasks that do not require 3G speeds, such as A-GPS and mobile banking, and switch to 3G when trying to listen to music, watching video etc.

For occasional users, plans start at Rs 11 for 10MB for a day, Rs 65 for 65MB for three days, and Rs 49 for 30 minutes of usage for a day.

There are also standard plans that are valid for 30 days: Rs 99 for 100MB, Rs 200 for 250MB, Rs 450 for 600MB and Rs 750 for 2GB.

If you do not want to pay the one time charge, there is a ‘Pay as You Go’ plan, which costs 30 paise for 20KB download. You can reduce this rate by paying Rs 20 for a 30 day package, which amounts to 15 paise for 20KB download.

Video calling is also available at 5 paise per second for both local and STD.

If we analyse the competition, Airtel doesn’t have the cheapest plans, but as the company puts it, the focus is on network quality and not price.

For instance, Tata Docomo offers 10 paise per 10KB without any pack. Even in monthly packs, it offers double the data for every Rupee, like for Rs 200 you get 500MB (with additional usage charged at 1 paisa per MB). It also offers unlimited plans starting at Rs 1,000.

Similarly, Vodafone also charges 10 paise for 10KB but its plans are similar to Airtel’s. Vodafone charges Rs 3 for a minute of video calling.

BSNL is surely the cheapest as far as 3G tariffs are concerned. It offers 10 KB for just 0.02 paise, and for Rs 100 you get 250MB. Higher priced plans are also available and are very cheap. There are several promotional plans which make BSNL 3G extremely cheap. MTNL has similar plans too.

All the other operators have plans that are more or less similar to Airtel’s. Unfortunately, with 3G you do not have multiple operators to choose from just yet.

All the tariff plans mentioned are of Delhi, except where the operator doesn’t operate in Delhi. However, plans across the country are similar.