Iwaymedia, an applications company for windmill manufacturers, is planning its foray into mobile consumer services. It is planning to launch Iwaycash, a cash on mobile concept, in the country by January 2010 using prepaid debit cards. Through this service, customers will be able to top up through their existing bank accounts or by depositing cash. These cards can also be used in ATMs for withdrawals.
“This is the first time that we are getting into consumer services,” Parameshwaran Pillai, one of the partners at the company, told Telecom Yatra.
The company has developed a three tier security code of SMS Messaging concept for consumers so that they can send an SMS to conclude their transactions without any fear on online risks.
The service does not need software downloads and can work well with ordinary phones. It follows simple SMS based instructions to make payments for shopping, utility bills and money transfers.
Iwaymedia, with its channel partners, will expand their team with pan India operations, who will be working under their respective channel partners to provide ground zero support to mobilise dealers for the payment services and to provide logistic support for the communication of payment related information to the utility services including various government departments.
Iwaymedia is promoted by a team of engineers with over 20 years of experience in custom design embedded information systems. The research and development oriented project design department designed the windmill monitors to ease the maintenance process involving the repair works on the turbines. The company’s client base includes NEPC, PIONEER, INDOWIND, ASHOK LEYLAND, SG REVA and NIF.
Iwaymedia to launch SMS based payment solution
NewsX channel to be streamed on mobile
NewsX, the news channel of INX News Pvt Ltd, will now provide live feeds on mobile phones. The mobile URL for accessing live feeds is m.newsx.com/live.
The new service is compatible with all Windows Media mobile phones, iPhones, Blackberry and Symbian phones.
Ajatshatru Singh, head of online, NewsX, tells afaqs! Telecom Yatra, “The new service will be offered free of cost and users will have to pay only regular charges applicable for logging onto the web. We are targeting young, upwardly mobile Indians, who want their news irrespective of the medium.”
However, Singh adds, “The bottleneck for this service is from the operator side and not from the technology side.”
The channel has partnered with US-based company Yupp TV for the implementation of this service.
To promote this service, NewsX is organising trade events apart from launching some initiatives for consumers as well.
INX News is wholly owned by Indi Media Company Pvt Ltd, a venture co-founded by Vinay Chhajlani, chief executive officer of NaiDunia Media Pvt Ltd and founder of Webdunia.com, and Jehangir S Pocha, former editor of Businessworld magazine.
IGNOU to offer course content via mobile 3G
The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and Ericsson have announced that they are signing an MoU to make use of 3G services in education delivery. To enable this new initiative in education, Ericsson will build a 3G environment for students to download IGNOU course content along with facilitating SMS alerts on their mobile phones. The signing of this memorandum will take place on October 29.
The association will help remote area learners to access parts of the course web pages, assignments and video clips offered by the university. The service will initially be launched as a pilot project and will provide certificate course in information technology. The pilot is expected to be completed in the next six months.
Announcing the new development, Prof VN Rajasekharan Pillai, vice chancellor, IGNOU, said in a press briefing, “In a country like India, technology can be put to test aggressively. At our university, it is difficult to define the cross section of students as we have students from various portfolios. Thus, we are open to adopting technology to make it simpler. Intervention of technology of this kind can be a model.”
P. Balaji, vice-president, marketing and strategy, Ericsson India, said, “In the pilot project, only BSNL and MTNL will be providing this service but it will later on be extended to all service operators.”
“The 3G solution will work across all 3G networks irrespective of the operator,” added Gowton Achaibar, president, Ericsson India.
Currently, IGNOU is using an SMS model which is available in five regional sectors in India and has a network of 30,000 to 50,000 students. Overall, IGNOU has 2.5 million students enrolled for its various courses.
3G spectrum bid to start from January 14, 2010: DoT
After several delays, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) has finally announced that the auction for third generation (3G) spectrum will begin on January 14, 2010.
According to the information memorandum posted on DoT’s website, the auction will be carried out in four stages: invitation, pre-qualification, auction and grant of spectrum. A pre-bid conference will be organised on November 16 and a mock auction on January 11 and 12. The timelines have been furnished in the memorandum but it states that “there is no pre-set timetable and the government reserves the right to determine the overall timetable of the auctions or to amend it from time to time.”
The government has decided to auction up to 20 MHz of paired spectrum in the 2.1GHz Band in the telecom service areas where 25 MHz or more paired spectrum is available. The Government has allocated one block of 2x5MHz of spectrum in Mumbai and Delhi for MTNL and one block of 2x5MHz of spectrum in the remaining service areas for BSNL.
The memorandum lays down the eligibility criteria for participating in the auction. It says that any entity that holds a Universal Access Service (UAS) or Cellular Mobile Telephone Service (CMTS) licence; or that has previous experience of running 3G telecom services either directly or through a majority-owned subsidiary, and plans to obtain a UAS licence as per the DoT guidelines before starting telecom operations can bid for 3G spectrum.
The document also mentions, “Interested foreign entities are allowed to participate in the auctions directly and apply for licences subsequently.” Hence, foreign applicants will need to form an Indian subsidiary to obtain a UAS licence or an Internet Service Provider category ‘A’ licence to participate in the bid.
The indicative reserve price for Delhi, Mumbai and Circle A is Rs 320 crore, for Kolkata and Circle B is Rs 120 crore and for Circle C is Rs 30 crore.
Apart from the 3G spectrum auction, DoT has fixed timelines for the 800 MHz and Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) auctions as well.
MTNL extends free trial of 3G mobile services
Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) has extended the free trial of its 3G Jadoo services till October 31 to widen its customer base. Earlier, MTNL was offering the free trial of its 3G services till October 26.
During the free trial period, the activation charges of Rs 300 will be waived off and the customer can make unlimited free local video calls. The high speed usage charges will be at 50 paise per 100 KB and 3G voice calls will be charged at existing 2G (Trump, Dolphin) plan call rate.
Customers can activate the service by sending SMS ‘FREE 3G’to 555 from Dolphin (postpaid) and SMS ‘FREE 3G’ to 444 from Trump (prepaid). To continue 3G Jadoo services after the free trial period with waiver of activation charges, the customers can send SMS ‘ACT 3G’ to 444 for TRUMP or to 555 for Dolphin, on or before October 31.
Vodafone, Shoppers Stop announce launch of Zoozoo merchandise
Vodafone Essar and Shoppers Stop have announced the launch of merchandise featuring Vodafone’s popular character, Zoozoo, which was created earlier this year to promote the cellular service provider’s value-added services.
Shoppers Stop will have the exclusive rights to manufacture and retail Zoozoo merchandise, including T-shirts, kids wear, mugs and bed and bath accessories, across its stores in India. Further merchandise will be introduced shortly.
The T-shirts, available for both men and women, are priced at Rs 299 onwards. Vodafone is also offering a 10 per cent discount to its customers on purchases of Zoozoo merchandise.
“We thought it is a fantastic way to connect with our customers. Zoozoo has a huge community following on the viral medium,” Kumar Ramanathan, chief marketing officer, Vodafone Essar, tells afaqs!.
“What started as an innovative advertisement campaign has become so popular that we are compelled to bring Zoozoos out of the television screens and into the homes of our customers,” he adds.
After the initial enthusiasm during the second edition of the Indian Premier League, when the Zoozoos were introduced, there was a lull, as the characters were not seen much in advertisements.
“We were not advertising using Zoozoos and that is why the lull. Relevance is more important to us and we think it is the right opportunity and medium now,” explains Ramanathan.
On the choice of Shoppers Stop, he says, “We looked at key guys in the segment. We chose Shoppers Stop for their phenomenal experience in merchandising and them being one of the pioneers in the retail space”.
Vinay Bhatia, customer care associate and vice-president, marketing and loyalty, Shoppers Stop says in a press statement, “We identified a significant opportunity in character-based merchandising. This exclusive arrangement marks a strategic alliance aimed at augmenting the Zoozoo frenzy”.
“Character merchandising is a new emerging trend in India targeting the youth, and we are adding a whole new dimension to this. Given the increasing size of the youth audience at Shoppers Stop, this merchandising line fits well in our merchandise offering,” Bhatia adds.
The promotion of the merchandise will be done at three levels, Bhatia tells afaqs!.
At the first level, the 14.5 lakh members of the Shoppers Stop First Citizen Club will be targeted, which will be followed by communication with the Vodafone subscriber base.
For the final level, Shoppers Stop will conduct in-store promotional activities to reach out to its weekly traffic of seven lakh customers.
“The promotion will be a joint effort with Shoppers Stop and Vodafone reaching out to their relevant customers,” says Bhatia.
Growth will come from mobile broadband: 3G India
The inaugural session of the 3G India 2009 conference organised by Bharat Exhibitions in Mumbai on Friday was on ‘The Road Ahead for Telecom Landscape in India – 3G in India and Indian Service Provider’s Perspective’.
The panellists for this session comprised Aloke Kaul, chief general manager, Maharashtra, BSNL; J Gopal, executive director, Mumbai, MTNL; Anil Tandan, chief technology officer, Idea Cellular, Abhay Savargaonkar, senior vice-president, network quality and 3G, Bharti Airtel; Mallikarjuna Rao, chief, network and engineering operations, Aircel; and P Balaji, vice-president, marketing and strategy, Ericsson India.
Balaji referred to a survey on the expected use of 3G in tier one and two cities in India. Its results showed that two out of five internet users are interested in mobile broadband. The major uses of 3G are expected to be for mobile broadband, content download, gaming, mobile TV and location-based services (LBS).
Savargaonkar shared some figures, saying that whereas internet subscribers in India are 14 million and Broadband subscribers are 6.62 million, wireless data subscribers number 126 million. He cautioned that the gross revenue of the Indian telecom sector has fallen by three per cent over the last quarter. “The growth rate is tapering a little. And our ARPUs (average revenue per user) are falling. This a big challenge,” he said. The only way to give an impetus to the industry, he added, is to increase ARPU of mobile internet subscribers.
Savargaonkar added that 3G is “not a hunky-dory story”. “MTNL and BSNL have been struggling to build up customers,” he remarked.
Rao said that with increasing competition, operators will be forced to innovate. He agreed that mobile internet will be the killer application for 3G.
Tandan raised the question whether India can skip 3G and if it is worth investing in. “Technically, 2G can provide the all the 3G services except video calling,” he said, adding that an ecosystem of applications will have to be built for 3G.
Kaul announced that 3G will be launched by BSNL in Pune and Goa by December and in 50 cities of Maharashtra in the next six months. He added that it will take some time to become popular and will gradually catch on.
The first session on ‘Business Drivers for Growth of 3G in India’ was chaired by Savargaonkar of Bharti Airtel. The panellists comprised Sethumadhavan Srinivasan, deputy director, network strategy and marketing, Asia Pacific, Huawei; Randeep Raina, head of 3G business, India region, Nokia Siemens Networks; Aveek Roy, regional director, Audiocodes; Raghunath Vijayaraghavan, director, marketing, Bay Talkitec; and Sefi Alvo, product sales head, Asia Pacific, Comverse.
Srinivasan pointed out in his presentation that Asian operators are expected to double their income from 2006 and 2011. The factors which will make this possible are low cost voice, mobile broadband and 3G value added services (VAS).
Raina said that mobile penetration is expected to be 92 per cent in urban areas and 43 per cent in rural areas by 2013. 3G subscribers are expected to reach 150 million by 2014. He said that there is a great market opportunity in data cards, which are expected to be used by 27 per cent of 3G users by 2014.
Roy said that 3G was first launched in 2003 outside India and that we are seven years ahead of the cycle. He focused on HD (high definition) Voice and said that corporate customers would be willing to pay a premium for higher quality of voice as congestion lowers the quality of voice services.
Vijayaraghavan spoke about the services that would do well in 3G in urban and rural areas. In urban areas, web to mobile and mobile to web services will do well, he said. Apart from this, day to day information such as flight status, traffic updates and stock updates provided through video are expected to be popular.
He added that in semi-urban and rural areas, video education and video doctors could do well. Corporate customers would prefer video caller ID, video marketing video yellow pages.
Alvo said that a new segment of customers will come up which will log on to the internet directly through mobile. Citing a report, he said that mobile internet revenues will growth at a CAGR of 32 per cent from 2008 to 2013, and that five per cent of the subscribers will account for 90 per cent of the traffic.
Video telephony, live TV will thrive: 3G India 2009
The second session on ‘3G in Indian Telecom Industry: Content Services and Applications’ at the 3G India 2009 conference was chaired by Sumnesh Joshi, BSNL and the panellists comprised Pami Vadher, head of consumer lab and user experience, Ericsson India; Wing Fei Chia, security response senior manager, F Secure; Manish Malik, product head, mobile internet and 3G services, Spice Digital; Srinivas Gopal, general manager, marketing, VAS, Idea Cellular; Rajeev Saraf, chief executive officer, Lepton Software; and Mandeep Singh, chief executive officer, Livevana.
Vadher started on a positive note by sharing a survey done by Ericsson which shows that half of the urban active VAS users in India are aware of 3G and what it can do. However, 97 per cent of 3G handset owners are not aware that their handsets are 3G-enabled.
Elaborating on the services that would work on 3G, Vadher talked about music, live TV, games and video telephony. She added that customers in tier one and two cities actually had more interest in video services than in metros.
Chia spoke about the threats to mobile phones from hacking and viruses and noted that mobile malware is still in its infancy stage, which will grow as more people migrate to the mobile internet.
Malik noted that besides the popular 3G services, corporate customers would be interested in business productivity tools such as HR and CRM, utility services and customer connectivity.
Gopal said, “The internet never really happened in India”, and talked about how mobile internet will change things. Saraf and Singh talked about various location based services (LBS) and how 3G would make them popular.
The final session was on ‘Understanding the future 3G ecosystem and network operators and infrastructure providers perspective on it.” It was chaired by Sandeep Keshkar, ITS, DGM (NSS), MTNL and the panellists were Nikhil Shah, head, strategic market development, wireless segment, Juniper Networks; Sunil Kumar, general manager, solutions and marketing, Alcatel-Lucent India; and Tim Wells, vice-president, global business development, Dielectric Corporation.
Shah said, “Very few operators are looking at backhaul as a serious problem.” He talked about how 3G services such as those on iPhone stress the backend system. He pointed out to support 3G service, operators need to upgrade their infrastructure.
Kumar talked about the four strategies that may be adopted by 3G players for launch – brand leaders who use 3G as a marketing tool, operators who focus on multimedia content, operators who promote the use of mobile internet and no frills operators who take advantage of the economies in using 3G spectrum and offer cheaper voice services.
Reliance Mobile offers call manager service on GSM
Reliance Mobile has launched call manager service on its GSM network on supporting handsets. This service provides Reliance mobile subscribers a wide range of call completion services. The call manager service allows customers to respond to incoming calls with pre-recorded voice messages. The call manager also features SMS based chatting and voice mail on mobile.
It allows one to respond to phone calls by using an intuitive user interface without talking or typing. The voice message feature enables callers to leave a message once a call is left unanswered. The recorded messages are saved in the phone’s Inbox folder and can be played, forwarded, replied or removed. The voice message feature can be activated either manually or by selecting it from the ringing menu. Reliance allows users to customise their greeting message and the duration after which voicemail automatically answers a call.
In cases where the receiver might not notice the call or may not be able to answer at the moment, the application provides options like call another number. This will enable the caller to dial other available numbers of the same contact. It also enables the caller to start chatting.
Reliance Mobile is offering the call manager service through a subscription module and the user will not be charged for downloading the application. After the installation, customers can avail a free seven day offer and the subscription for the service will be activated post this free-trial period. Subscription fee for this service is Rs 15 per month.
Bharti Airtel launches comic strips on mobile
Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of a live mobile comic portal on its mobile entertainment portal, Airtel Live.
Airtel’s comics portal provides subscribers with access to more than 300 Indian and international comic characters via WAP. The comic strips will include Doga, Nagraj, Akbar-Birbal, Tenali Raman, Jataka tales, Love Is…, BC, Animal Crackers, Popeye and Dick Tracey as well as comics provided by Amar Chitra Katha.
Compatible with all GPRS-enabled handsets, customers would be charged Rs 10 per week for 10 comic strips (inclusive of data charges).
Saleem Mobhani, head m-entertainment, Bharti Airtel, says in a company statement, “More than a third of Airtel customers in India have GPRS enabled handsets and with the mobile becoming the one-stop device for all entertainment needs, comics would be a much sought after addition to our existing services on Airtel Live.”