Tata Docomo, which had launched 3G services in nine circles earlier this month, says that the consumer response has been positive. The circles where the operator offers 3G services include Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh-Chattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Lloyd Mathias, president of the corporate monitoring group of TTSL, said, “We have received good response on 3G from our subscribers. As of now, the video SMS service is doing good. Also, people are watching Live Aarti on mobiles, as this service is not very popular on TV.”
Since Tata Docomo is the only private operator offering 3G services in Haryana, and since mobile number portability or MNP has been implemented there, Mathias believes that the company will witness an influx of subscribers who will migrate from other operators’ networks in search of 3G services.
Tata Docomo’s HSPA+ 3G network, set up with the assistance of NTT Docomo, supports high-speed internet access with speeds of up to 21.1 Mbps. The network also supports high definition voice for superior quality voice calls.
The operator had invested around $500 million (Rs 2,277 crore) on 3G services, and is offering services such as video SMS, video streaming, mobile TV, ultra high speed data transfers, route finder, Live Aarti etc.
Tata Docomo expects MNP to boost its 3G subscriber base
Nokia’s treat for Indian Michael Jackson fans
Michael Jackson fans in India have something to cheer about. They can download his song Hold My Hand which also features Akon free of cost from the Nokia Ovi Music Store. The Store is accessible to internet enabled Nokia devices and the song will be available till November 30.
This is the first Michael Jackson song to be released in the past nine years. Hold My Hand, a duet with R&B singer Akon, was recorded in 2007.
A handwritten note by Michael Jackson indicates that he desired this song to be the first single in his subsequent project, but the song leaked out, still unfinished in 2008. Akon recently completed the production of Hold My Hand and that version of the song is now available on Ovi Music Store.
While it can be downloaded exclusively from Ovi Store, Hold My Hand will also be released by Sony Music as part of an album called Michael.
The managing director of Sony Music India, Shridhar Subramaniam, said, “Through this offer, fans of Michael can legitimately download his music from the Ovi store in India well in advance of the CD release.”
Sony Music, in conjunction with the Estate of Michael Jackson, will release the much anticipated new album On December 14.
MNP is finally here
Mobile number portability (MNP) has long been awaited in India. Its implementation was postponed several times due to technical and bureaucratic glitches.
The service was originally scheduled for launch in December 2009, but the launch date was postponed to March 31 this year. Then it was again postponed to June 30, and thereafter to October 30.
The government clarified that it had taken the decision to delay MNP to October after evaluating whether access providers and long distance service providers were ready to implement the service, and in consideration of the complexity and enormity of testing involved before MNP is implemented.
MNP makes it possible for people to switch operators while maintaining their mobile number. For fear of losing their number, people often continued subscribing to a certain operator’s services despite being dissatisfied with service.
MNP finally!
The delay was caused by a variety of factors including policies and stakeholder preparation. Finally, though, MNP will now be available in Haryana starting today.
The countrywide launch of MNP will start from Rohtak district in Haryana. The service will be implemented across the country in a phased manner.
A subscriber who wants his mobile number ported (change service provider) will have to send an SMS to 1900 to obtain a ‘unique Porting code’. After getting the porting code, he will have to submit a duly filled porting form along with a customer acquisition form and a proof of identity to the service provider he wishes to shift. There will be a porting charge of Rs 19.
Upon completing the formalities, the customer will get the new operator’s SIM card, and the new operator will inform him of when he can start using it, which should be within seven working days.
The subscriber can then start using his new SIM at the specified time.
A mobile number porting request can be withdrawn within 24 hours of having been made.
Conditions
For now, mobile number portability is limited to the Haryana circle.
Also, subscribers can switch their service provider only after 90 days either from the day when their existing number was activated, or from the time when they last ported their mobile number.
Before porting, all dues will have to be cleared if it is a post paid number. If it is a pre paid connection, any Talk time that remains in it will lapse.
Intex unveils India’s first projector phone
A mobile phone with built in projector, called V Show, has been launched by Intex Technologies, a domestic mobile handset company.
V Show costs Rs 12,000 and will be available starting December 1 in Intex and other multi brand retail outlets.
Ramesh A Vaswani, executive vice chairman of Intex Technologies, said, “I am confident that Intex V Show can change the way people watch movies, videos, picture galleries and even read e books on their mobile phones.”
He added, “We expect to sell about 75,000 units of this handset by March 2011 and aim to capture five to ten per cent of the Indian handset market by the end of the current financial year.”
Sharing the company’s strategy, Vinayak Kumar Lal, the general manager of marketing at Intex Technologies, said, “The launch of V Show is one more attempt to consciously demonstrate that our mobiles can do more than just voice and message.”
The handset enables the user to project movies and still images which are either stored in the phone’s memory, or are streamed from the internet.
However, the mobile phone can’t project images from a computer’s memory. This means that content that is in a computer’s memory will have to first be transferred to the phone’s memory before it can be projected. The phone’s screen remains active even while it is projecting images, and it has a clarity modifier to adjust the quality of projected images.
This handset is capable of projecting a 61 inch image from a maximum distance of 12 feet with 10 lumens of brightness and at QWVGA resolution. The contrast ratio that the projector offers is fine if the room in which projections are being made is dark; images projected in a well lit room aren’t very clear. The phone comes bundled with a tripod so that it doesn’t have to be held up while it is being used as a projector.
The phone has two cameras – a high Resolution camera at the back for taking good quality pictures and a low resolution camera on the front for video conferencing. V Show has a touchscreen and uses two SIM cards. It has two Memory card slots using which its Internal Memory of 64 MB can be expanded to 16 GB. The phone uses a battery that supports three hours of image projection.
V Show can access push mail. It has an LED flash light and can record video at 25 frames per second.
The company claims that the lamp of the projector lasts for more than 20,000 hours of projecting time. This is far longer than the life of a standard projecting bulb at a comparable price. Debu K Dasgupta, head of the centre for design and development at Intex Technologies, said, “The lamp is based on LED technology. This improves the lamp’s life.” He added that LED is a more energy efficient alternative to traditional technologies.
The phone uses Bolt web browser, which enables faster browsing speeds, tabbed browsing and has built in apps for Facebook and Twitter.
T-Series to roll out 12 handsets by March
Music industry giant T-Series is gearing up to join the Indian handset market. It plans to roll out 10-12 handsets by March next year.
Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Neeraj Kalyan, who is vice president of the international publishing and digital content business at T-Series, said, “We are going to launch 10-12 mobile phone models by March in the price range of Rs 1,200 to Rs 12,000.”
T-Series, a brand of Super Cassettes Industries already has a strong foothold in the content software market and is going to capitalise on its strengths to help its mobile phone business.
The company founded by Gulshan Kumar is targeting to control five per cent of the Indian mobile handset market within 18-24 months. Kalyan also said that the company will launch Android and 3G phones in the first phase.
T-Series has budgeted around Rs 100 crore for promoting its handsets next year, and has engaged Mumbai-based communication firm Everest Brand Solutions to spearhead the campaign, which kicks off next month.
The Indian handset market is currently worth more than Rs 30,000 crore, with the presence of over 50 brands.
Nokia X5 launched in India
Nokia India has announced the launch of its new entertainment device – Nokia X5.
X5 is a compact square with sliding QWERTY keypad.
The device has a 5 .0-megapixel camera and integrated speakers. It has dedicated music keys and comes with Messaging and social networking features.
X5 also comes with a fun application called Surprise me! which allows consumers to play random tracks just by spinning their phones. With the help of Playlist DJ, users can create playlists based on their mood or their favourite songs. Another feature Shazam can identify a song’s title by recognising its tune.
Nokia X5 is priced at Rs 10,500 and comes with a 2 GB microSD memory card.
Viral Oza, head of activation for media and online marketing, Nokia India, said, “We have used our expertise as music phone specialists to launch a complete entertainment and social networking experience.”
3G tariffs will be affordable: Sunil Mittal
Telecom major Bharti Airtel said that it will keep 3G services affordable. The operator is scheduled to roll out these services commercially in the 13 circles where it has won spectrum, before the end of this year.
Speaking at a press conference here, Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel, said, “We will price our 3G services in a way so as to balance it to the investments that we have made in acquiring the spectrum and building infrastructure. Tariffs will be affordable.”
He added, “The price of the auctions was high. But India is a massification story and we will be able to offer competitive tariffs. Our packaging will be more innovative.”
Earlier in August though, Sanjay Kapoor, who is chief executive officer for India and South Asia regions at Bharti Airtel, had said that he expects 3G services to be priced higher because of expensive bids. “The bid prices have taken away the possibility of providing these services at cheap prices. Data services on 3G will also not come at throwaway prices,” he had said.
In fact, established operators were counting on making some money from 3G services at a time when the entry of new service providers resulted in fierce tariff wars which ate into operators’ profitability.
3G roll out by private operators has begun in India with Tata DoCoMo taking the lead. Tata DoCoMo’s tariff of 0.66 paise per second has been labeled affordable, and hence other operators might be forced to look at launching similarly priced plans.
Airtel, which operates in 19 countries, already offers 3G services in eight countries of Africa. Mittal said, “Spectrum charges are much higher in Africa. We are already offering 3G in eight countries of Africa out of 16, and the other eight will also have Airtel 3G soon.”
He further added that the company wants to tap the African 3G market with a special focus on video services, as it sees a huge demand for video based services there.
In India, Airtel had bagged airwaves to offer 3G services in 13 of 22 telecom circles. It had paid about Rs 12,300 crore for securing spectrum in these circles.
LG to exit feature phone business
Buoyed by phenomenal growth in the smartphone segment and facing stiff competition from domestic players in the low cost feature phone segment, South Korean electronics giant LG has decided to exit the feature phone market.
At the launch of LG’s latest smartphone Optimus One, Moon B Shin, managing director, LG India, said, “Smartphones are poised to drive growth in the Indian mobile market in the coming years and LG will focus only on the smartphone segment in the short term. In future we will re-enter the feature phone business with better products at the right time.”
LG also announced that it intends to capture 15 to 20 per cent of market share in the smartphone category in India, and to achieve the target it will launch 12 new phones in the next six months. It will also spend Rs 350 crore on marketing.With respect to the operating system (OS), LG announced that it will focus mainly on Android; however, 2 of 12 products in the offing will run Windows phone 7 OS.
In line with its new strategy, LG today launched LG Optimus One, which is an Android 2.2 Froyo based phone with a 3.1 inch capacitive touch screen, 3 mega pixel camera, WiFi, A-GPS etc. Apart from regular Android phone features, LG has included 40 bundled apps and an application that recognises voice commands.
LG also said it will launch several devices in the coming months, including a tablet PC called LG Optimus 7 running Windows Phone 7 OS. The company will also launch other Optimus series devices.
Optimus One is priced at a market operating price of Rs 13,500. Optimus Seven is expected to be priced at a little more than Rs 25,000.
India adds 14.6 million GSM subscribers in October
India has added 14.6 million new GSM subscribers in the month of October, according to data released by COAI.
Airtel, India’s largest operator by subscribers, reclaimed the top spot by adding more than 3 million new subscribers, thus taking its total subscriber base in the country to 146.3 million users.
Vodafone, the third largest telecom operator in India, and government-owned BSNL were next in line, each garnering more than 2.4 million new subscribers.
The total subscriber base of Vodafone and BSNL now stands at 118.04 million and 75 million, respectively.
Aircel added a million subscribers, taking its tally to 47.5 million and Idea Cellular added 1.81 million to reach 76.02 million.
Uninor launches My Music service
Telecom operator Uninor has launched a new value added service called My Music, which allows subscribers access to over 50,000 songs across Bollywood, international, devotional and regional.
My Music is an IVR-based service and is compatible with all handsets and operating systems. Users can subscribe to this service at Rs 30 for 30 days with 100 minutes of free music. Subscribers will be updated regularly on new songs and content.
In an email response to Telecom Yatra, Frode Haugen, executive vice president of the Karnataka hub at Uninor, said, “Through this service, which is driven by voice access following simple IVR instructions, our subscriber can select a song of his choice and set it as a caller tune.”
Uninor has tied up with companies such as T-Series and Yash Raj Music for content, and Hungama Digital is its platform partner and major content aggregator.
Haugen added, “My Music is localised in terms of language and gives subscribers ease to understand and relate to the service.”