With almost 77 million users Tata Teleservices has become the fourth largest operator in terms of wireless subscribers and has overtaken state owned BSNL.
TTSL is now behind only Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and Vodafone, the company said in a statement.
Tatas was the first company of introducing the concept of per second tariffs in mobile telephony that had forced all others to follow.
Both TTSL and TTSL (Maharashtra) offer dual technology (GSM and CDMA) mobile services across the nation.
After its collaboration with Japan’s NTT DOCOMO in November 2008, TTSL has so far launched GSM services under the “TATA DOCOMO” brand in all the 18 telecom Circles where it received spectrum from the Government.
“We thank and appreciate every subscriber’s ceaseless faith in us as a transparent, caring and competent telecom services company. Everyone in TTSL has complete satisfaction as we look back on the year gone by,” Anil Sardana, Managing Director of Tata Teleservices Limited, said.
The introduction of many path-breaking, innovative and pioneering initiatives has been the reason behind this success, he added.
According to the latest figures released by telecom regulator TRAI, Bharti is the number one operator with over 139 million subscribers at the end of July this year, followed by RCom with over 113 million and Vodafone with over 111 million users.
BSNL has become fifth largest operator with 73.7 million wireless subscribers at the end of July this year.
TTSL had started offering CDMA mobile services in 2005 and got permission for dual technology (GSM also) only in late 2007 and got started getting GSM spectrum in January 2008.
The company has started GSM services in most of the circles it got spectrum but has failed to get GSM Frequency in the most lucrative circle of Delhi despite several attempts.
TTSL claimed to have clocked a growth of 100 per cent in the year gone by as it had wireless subscriber base of 38 million in July 2009, the statement said.

State-owned telecom major Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), today launched a new payment service, which will enable credit card-owning customers to pay all their BSNL bills through their mobile phones.
Under the “Billpay” service, customers in the West Zone–Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat–will have to make an one-time registration of their credit card, a release issued said.
The registration will help the customer to pay all the BSNL bills through his/her mobile in the future, it said, adding the technology is safe and secure.
To start with, the service has been launched in the West Zone and will soon be be made pan-India through which all of BSNL’s over 100-million customers can avail it, BSNL’s Principal General Manager (value-added services) N K Yadav said.
Apart from credit card-linked mobile payment service, BSNL is also keen to introduce other modes of mobile payment in the near future, including bank accounts and stored value accounts, the release said.

Airtel has announced its tie up with the India Post in Karnataka for collection of documents.
This will help all subscribers to avail of services like, Airtel prepaid and postpaid subscription form, assistance in filling the form, collection of documents, authenticating, validating and dispatch of the documents to Bharti Airtel.
The services will be available across 2000 post offices in the state including 59 head post offices.
Department of Telecommunications (DOT) has set a deadline (October 31) for all telecom service providers across the country to complete the validation and authentication of subscriber documents.
Adhering to DOT deadline for re verification, all telecom providers are set take stringent initiatives to streamline the documentation verification process.
Airtel’s initiative will help it ensure that it adheres to the time line. As it will become easier for it’s subscribers to submit documents.
Bharti Airtel has started organising one-day document collection campaigns across the state for the convenient of the customer. The first camp is being conducted in Mysore on Monday (Sept 13) at Nanjarja Bahadur Mantap, Vinoba Road, Shivaramapet. Customers who are requested by Airtel for re-submission of their documents (via SMS) are only expected to visit these camps.
To create awareness among the existing and prospective customers, following the unauthorised SIM issue, Cellular Operators’ Association of India (COAI) has released advertisements in leading newspapers to educate all eco-system players, customers, distributors and dealers, about the processes and documents required for new subscriptions.
Bhart Airtel organises regular meetings with retailers and distributors in association with the Police to reiterate the need of all channel partners to comply with the rules and regulations that have been set by the governing bodies.
Airtel said in a statement that “we, Bharti Airtel, are fully committed to our customers, stakeholders and the best interests of the country. Hence, we have joined hands with the India Post and the Police to clean up the documentation process. We are also closely interacting with our distributors and channel partners to take corrective action where necessary with immediate effect. All our operations across circles comply with the directives of DoT, TRAI and other local and national authorities”.

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) said in a statement that emails and text messages are less intrusive and more acceptable than tele marketing voice calls, and that these calls should be strongly condemned by telecom operators.
On the issue of unsolicited calls, it says that they should be weighed between intrusiveness and disturbance, vis-a-vis information sharing.
The company says that it is important for the system to provide ten times more severe penalty for intrusive voice calls than SMS spam messages and all operators should support this.
TTSL calls subscribers who have not registered their numbers in the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry ‘glitterati’, and says that just because of these people who do not find time to put their numbers into the DND registry, communication and selling media should not be blocked.
However, it is well known that DND does not work properly in the country and a lot of complaints are pending with DoT, on which decisions have not yet been taken.
Apart from that, there have been a lot of discussions on how to make the DND more effective, including the suggestion of a Do Call registry.
In fact, during an open house discussion conducted by TRAI recently, there were talks on how rural subscribers have not registered on DND as they are not aware of it. About 40 per cent of users registered on DND are from Delhi and Mumbai.
Therefore, it looks like TTSL has not taken into consideration the ill informed subscribers who don’t know how to go about registering on DND. When asked, some TTSL subscribers admitted that they are not aware of any such list and that no communication has come from the service provider on this.
Moreover, mobile subscriptions have increased in rural areas mainly because most of these subscribers cannot read and write and depend on voice only. Still, most of these subscribers receive marketing SMSs, which they cannot even understand.
AG Rao, chief technology officer and enterprise business head, TTSL, said, “Telemarketing has been there since the very inception of the industry—it is unsolicited spam which is the scourge, and we are totally committed to help restrict spam, and even propose that commercial penalties be levied on operators for unsolicited spam.”
However, there are other operators who have taken steps to deal with the issue of unsolicited SMSs. Airtel recently exited its bulk Messaging business, keeping the interest of its subscribers at the forefront.
Meanwhile, a Vodafone spokesperson told Telecom Yatra that the company is mainly offering bulk SMSs for banks and other alerts necessary for general communications and opted for by customers.
Rao added, “Indian telecom operators have received acclaim for reworking the costs of telecom to reach out to the masses and be a driver for economic growth. A farmer in a village or a fisherman is today happy to receive an SMS on crop prices, weather information, etc; and any other form of public disbursement of information would have cost 100 times more.”
However, the rural services that TTSL has talked about above are subscription-based and do not come under spam.

As part of corporate social responsibility, BSNL, in its maiden launch in Rajasthan, today distributed free mobile handsets and SYM cards for six months to 1000 members of BPL families in Phagi tehisl, 30km from here.
BSNL will continue this social commitment in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu providing free mobile connectivity with an initial target of 1000 members of BPL each, its CMD Gopal Das told a gathering of villagers at Phagi.
This corporate social obligation put a burden of Rs.12.85 lakh on 1000 BPL members of 18 gram panchayats on the BSNL, Das said, adding it was just an aim to connect BPL families with the national stream.
Under a future plan, the BSNL would provide Broadband connections in each government school and college and primary health centres, the CMD said.

Social networking is gradually becoming the buzz word for internet users not just in India but worldwide. It is becoming more and more important for people to be social networking friendly, over and above being internet friendly.
A research by comScore, a digital market research company, suggests that the use of social media in India grew 43 per cent in one year to 33 million users in July, making the country the seventh largest market for social media, after the USA, China, Germany, Russian Federation, Brazil and the UK.
“The social networking phenomenon continues to gain steam worldwide and India represents one of the fastest growing markets at the moment,” said Will Hodgman, executive vice president for Asia Pacific region, comScore.
Another report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals that 23 per cent of Indians who are online access social networking platforms.

The telecom connectionWith people’s need to stay connected increasing, the use of social networking on mobiles has been gaining prominence, which was good news for both network services providers and handsets manufacturers.
For operators eyeing a piece of the data market to generate higher revenues, social networking came as a boon. Handset manufacturers, too, boast about the number of social networking sites their devices come pre loaded with.
In fact, internet usage on mobile is mostly limited to accessing social networking sites. Tata Docomo admits that the company noticed selective usage on internet on mobile where the focus of users has been to use social networking sites. Hence, they launched the pay per website tariff plan.

Twist in the taleSocial networking was always attractive to telcos, and now with Facebook and Twitter becoming a rage of sorts, especially among the youth, this space is becoming a new advertising frontier for the telecom industry.
Vodafone, Airtel, Tata Docomo, Virgin, BlackBerry, Nokia, Sony Ericsson…name the brand and it has a presence on almost all the popular social networking platforms.
D Shivkumar, managing director, Nokia India, says, “No company can ignore the digital medium in today’s world. We are very active on this front. It is very important to engage the customer.”
Lenny Musatov, chief marketing officer, MTS, says, “Digital marketing cannot be ignored. It is the best way to introduce products to the audience. Internet usage in China is very high and I expect India to follow the same route. Hence, the digital medium holds immense importance for us.”
Companies relying solely on traditional means to reach consumers are under estimating the impact that the shift to digital media is going to have. The commercial opportunities that social digital media presents are huge compared to the traditional ways, especially with most companies targeting the youth.
Rithesh Ghoshal, head, marketing communications, Tata Docomo, says, “We are by design a youth oriented brand and being on the internet and interacting with them sends a strong vibe – that we understand you and we are one of you. This is not the case with TV commercials.”
Obviously then, networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn etc. help companies to build a brand, but operators and handset manufacturers are aggressively tapping into social media to build loyalty for their brands, gather feedback, monitor consumer trends and engage and interact with the user.
Anurag Kontu, head of channel marketing, Asia Pacific, and head of marketing, India, Sony Ericsson, believes, “It is about doing things that we normally don’t do from a marketing perspective. It is about engaging users, talking to them, conversing with them, celebrating with them. Digital space is all about keeping a dialogue open with the target audience.”
Ghoshal agrees that the digital space also helps in two way engagement with consumers, which is important for any brand.
Shalini Sethi, head, corporate communications, Aircel says, “We are actively present on all SNS like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. The main aim is to engage, to educate and inform consumers about our products. From time to time, we hold contests on products to educate the customer and let them experience it.”
She adds, “Telecommunication is all about communication and it is the best way to communicate and educate the consumer. It keeps you very well informed about customer feedback. This is a two way communication, both for the consumer and the brand.”
Sony Ericsson believes that it is about getting real feedback from real users regarding what they like and what they dislike about the product. The feedback in turn leads to product improvement.
Another key goal of having a presence in the social media space is to create a brand presence and build a base of followers who will keep coming back. Kontu adds, “We are not looking to convert everybody into a Sony Ericsson user; it is more about having talkability for the brand.”
MTS and Reliance Communications currently don’t have a presence in the social networking space but are working towards it.
An Idea Cellular spokesperson says, “Idea Cellular has focused on building brand awareness amongst the growing digital community, with a special focus on social networking sites. The initial response to our social media communication has been very encouraging. We have done many consumer engagement activities on Facebook and have received good response from the users. Within a short span of time, we have over 94,000 fans on the Idea network.”
The spokesperson adds, “Social media has been beneficial for Idea in understanding and listening to our consumers, and the overall digital community, which largely comprises of the youth. And in building effective brand activations and creating a consumer connect.”
There is no denying the fact that the social medium is of immense importance for everybody who wants to maintain contact with the consumer. It offers marketers endless possibilities to promote the product and also interact with the consumer. And, telcos seem to making the most of it.