Uninor, the GSM venture between Norway’s Telenor and India’s Unitech group announced that after a month of launching operations, it has acquired 1.2 million subscribers from the eight circles where its services were available. The company had launched in the circles of Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttar Pradesh (East), Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh on December 3, 2009 while in Orissa it was launched later on December 22, 2009.
“We are building on our launch, and scaling up our network and our distribution. We will also compete for every new subscriber. In a market this competitive, it will never be easy, but we have a long term ambition and we have made a positive start,” said Stein-Erik Vellan, managing director, Uninor in a statement.
As per guidelines, the company has already submitted its monthly numbers to TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India). It being early days and less than a month since fully operational circles, the company does not expect any significant impact of these numbers on the 2009 calendar year revenues.
To tighten the ongoing tariff war, the company had launched its service with two pan-India price plans – talklonger at 29 paise for customers who make longer calls and callmore at 29 paise for those who call more often.
Uninor claims 1.2 million subscribers in a month
Virgin Mobile launches data card
Virgin Mobile has announced the launch of vFlash, a USB Modem device that offers internet services with a surfing speed of up to 3.1 Mbps and storage slot of up to 8 GB.
vFlash will come bundled with a live TV service, vFlash TV, and on-demand download services. Through on-demand service, users can download movies, songs, music videos, mobile ringtones and wallpapers, and they can access up to 40 popular television channels through vFlash TV.
The modem is priced at Rs 3,499 and will come with tariff options ranging from Rs 250 to Rs 1,100 per month, along with special night plans and annual rental plans. In the introductory offer, Virgin has come out with a zero data plan rental and a zero rental on vFlash TV for the first 30 days for all subscribers who have been acquired before January 31, 2010. It will also offer zero rental on on- demand services for all customers acquired before March 31, 2010.
MA Madhusudan, chief executive officer, Virgin Mobile India, said in a statement, “Today, the youth wants to stay connected 24 by 7 and with the launch of vFlash, we aim to put the surfing experience at their fingertips. With the rise of internet penetration in India, the data segment furnishes a stupendous opportunity allowing the customers to always stay connected.”
Virgin Mobile services are being offered in the country by Tata Teleservices through a brand franchise with USA-based Virgin group.
Clay Telecom launches Worldberry services
Wireless telecom solution provider Clay Telecom has launched Worldberry, global Blackberry services, for its customers.
The Worldberry service can accessed by subscribers while Roaming across the globe. BlackBerry is a platform of wireless mobile devices from Canada-based Research In Motion (RIM). The service is mostly known for its capability to send and receive e-mail wherever it can access a wireless network of certain cellular phone carriers. Almost all the service operators in India offer their services on BlackBerry.
Through this service the company claims that the subscribers can check emails, browse websites and chat at lesser costs of up to 70-80 per cent while roaming abroad.
Speaking on the service Gaurav Dhawan, executive director of Clay Telecom, said in a statement, “Clay Telecom is offering this service for the first time in India where a customer can have unlimited emailing on Clay’s Blackberry SIM cards for a fixed amount of Rs 2400.”
The company initially started providing international postpaid SIM cards with coverage in 40 countries. Further, it launched the global prepaid SIM for leisure and business travellers and works in 200 countries across the globe. Besides the voice solutions, Clay Telecom also provides data services in the form of GPRS and data cards for various countries.
New Delhi-based Clay Telecom was established in the year 2001 by Falcon Business Resources, a 30-year old company engaged in different business ventures. The company is the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) for over seven networks and has corporates as its clients.
Tata Docomo expands comic portfolio
Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) formed out of an alliance with Japan’s NTT Docomo, has launch Docomics, an addition to the operator’s recently announced m-comics service. Japan-based NTT Docomo is a provider of voice, data and multimedia services for mobile phones and Docomics is a trademark of NTT Docomo in India.
Subscribers can use Docomics to read full comics books, along with special effects like character vibration, sounds and zooming text bubbles. On this, Tata Docomo will offer popular Marvel titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, Civil War; and Japanese Manga titles such as Goebreeders, Tamahagane, Aqua Planet Chronicle, Silent Mobius Complete Edition, Shinesman and Old Friend.
Customers can view the content frame by frame and can also download the same from the WAP site or through the viewer application. In the introductory offer, they will be charged Rs 15 per comic chapter and there will be no additional data charges in the home network.
Tata Docomo had launched a similar m-comics service, Comix on the go, in November 2009. It offers about 2,000 titles from mythological tales, Supandi from Amar Chitra Katha, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Princess Diaries from Disney, and Sadhu and Devi from Liquid Comics. The service is available at various price points – Rs 3 for small scripts, Rs 10 for short stories, Rs 20 for full comics.
Speaking about Comix on the go, Zubin Jimmy Dubash, assistant vice-president, new products development, TTSL, told Telecom Yatra, “Though it is too early to comment on this, with its growing popularity we are expanding our comics portfolio and going forward, customers will get many more titles. We expect a good response and our comics product is very competitively priced compared to our competitors.”
On the demographic profile of comics subscribers, he added, “Comics reading is enjoyed by all genres from teen to youngsters to adolescents. But largely our target group remains in the age group of 18 to 35 years.”
What will drive mobile internet usage?
According to a report released by the IAMAI (Internet and Mobile Association of India) and IMRB, derived from TRAI findings, there are only about 2 million users accessing the internet through their mobile phones and other mobile devices on an active basis, that is, at least once a month.
The report further states that there are close to 127 million mobile subscribers, effectively 27 per cent of the total subscriber base of 471 million, who have internet ready mobile phones. Of these 127 million subscribers, only 9.4 per cent (12 million) users have used the internet over their mobile phones ever in this year. This number further reduces to 2 million or 1.7 per cent when it comes to active users. These figures are based on TRAI’s findings as on September 2009.
Telecom Yatra spoke to a few industry professionals on what could be the drivers of mobile internet. Rajiv Hiranandani, co-founder and executive director of mobile marketing agency Mobile2win, feels that mobile operators should educate their customers about using mobile internet. Moreover, he feels better and affordable data plans will also increase its usage. Mobile internet penetration in tier II cities will also steer the growth as these areas ape urban India, adds Hiranandani.
Sujata Dev, managing director, Times Broadband, feels that good Bandwidth and connectivity will push mobile internet. She says that rich data is what users will be looking for on the internet. “The data download on mobile will buck up ARPUs (average revenue per user).” According to Dev, the major chunk of people using mobile internet are the ones on Blackberry and other high-end handsets. Considering the price consciousness in India, she thinks right pricing by the operators could boost mobile internet.
However, Krishna Durbha, head of VAS, Mobile Data and content at Reliance Communications, feels that the roadblock to mobile internet is not pricing but the difficult accessibility in phones. He explains that even if the operators introduce affordable data plans, the handset should be compatible enough for easy internet access. Durbha thinks that handset manufacturers should make the access of internet at one click on mobile. The GPRS settings are sometimes too complicated, which turns down the usage, he adds.
Telecom operators have already started introducing affordable data plans. For instance, Aircel introduced pocket internet cards for Rs 98. Tata DoCoMo has Gtalk and Facebook included on its internet enabled phones. MTS offered 15 GB free download on purchase of its MBlaze data connection as a part of inaugural offer in Mumbai.
Aircel, Infosys launch mobile app store
Aircel, a part of Malaysia’s Maxis Communication, and technology giant Infosys Technologies have announced the launch of a mobile application store to provide services across different segments to Aircel subscribers. The Aircel Application Store will offer mobile applications related to health, lifestyle, entertainment, productivity (traffic, weather, etc) and education, among others. Subscribers can access these apps through voice, SMS, GPRS and internet (on a desktop). The store is will offer apps that are compatible with most handsets, irrespective of the model and manufacturer. Aircel is currently offering many free apps along with marginally priced and premium ones, and it also has several India-focused apps in its store.
Infosys will be providing the ecosystem and the platform for the Aircel Application Store. The store will be powered by Flypp, a ready-to-launch application platform by Infosys that enables operators to offer a range of apps, across devices. The platform can be integrated into an operator’s current technology environment or they can plug-and-play with their existing applications.
Throwing light on the App market in India, Sandeep Sawhney, head, new product development, Aircel, said at a press conference, “Over 200,000 apps are available through various providers globally and there were 2.5 billion downloads, of which most happened during the last nine months. In India, the app market is very small and less than one per cent of devices are smartphones. Voice and SMS dominate here and Indian needs are not taken care of by global app providers.”
Aircel is presently operating in 18 circles and has a subscriber base of 30 million as on December 31, 2009.
App will help commuters find the right bus
Mobile 4 Mumbai, a group of mobile application developers, is helping Mumbaikers to get into the right bus with an application which provides BEST bus (Mumbai’s local bus transport) timings and routes on mobile, without the need for a mobile internet connection. The group has announced the availability of a beta version of this application.The BEST application can be downloaded for free and installed from the company’s website, www.m4mum.com. Once users have downloaded it on their computer, they can transfer it on their mobile phone through Bluetooth or a USB connection.
According to Mobile 4 Mumbai, more than 42 lakh people travel using the BEST buses everyday. This application is designed in a manner which can work on any Java-enabled phone which are available for as little as Rs 2500. Speaking to Telecom Yatra, Raxit Sheth, co-founder, Mobile 4 Mumbai says, “The key part is that the application is viral and can be transferred using Bluetooth, e-mail or infrared.”
The application would have been a lot easier if BEST could have provided the route numbers. However, Sheth claims that BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking) has not been very supportive for providing any information for this project.
Almost 70 per cent of routes have been covered up to now, says Sheth. Mobile 4 Mumbai has organised a ‘Get Famous’ contest. Through this it aims to get information of bus routes from local people and the top three contributors will get their name as credit on the application.
Commenting on the promotion, Sheth says, “We are already in an advanced stage of tie-ups with leading newspapers, TV channels, radio, web, blogger network and telcos.” He further states that the branding activity should begin after a month.
Sheth adds that the developer group also has plans of location-based advertising in next six months. Location-based advertising is a form of marketing and communication that uses the location-tracking technology in mobile networks to target consumers with specific advertising on their mobile devices.
MTS now offers one paisa per two seconds
MTS, the mobile services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL), has launched its services in Haryana, making it the tenth circle where MTS services will be available. In Haryana, MTS will offer both its mobile internet service, MBlaze, and voice services, with an introductory offer of one paisa per two seconds for local calls.
The operator’s MBlaze service will come with a 15 GB free data download, worth Rs 1500, for the first month as part of the inaugural offer and there will be no Roaming surcharges while using the MTS network.
As per a company statement, MTS will allow free internet browsing to certain websites such as Wikipedia and Yahoo India.
Vsevolod Rozanov, president and chief executive officer, SSTL, said in the statement, “We will provide the highest quality high speed data and voice services based on advanced technology. Our subscribers will be able to utilise our expanding network anywhere in India, since we will be a pan India service provider.”
MTS claims to have secured over three million subscribers in nine telecom circles and has more than 100 million subscribers worldwide. It is operating under SSTL, which is a joint venture between Sistema of Russia and the Shyam Group of India. The company is currently present in the circles of Kolkata, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Chennai and Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Bihar and Jharkhand, Delhi, Karnataka and Mumbai.
MNP postponed by three months
The Government of India has decided to postpone the implementation of Mobile Number Portability (MNP), which was scheduled to be implemented by December 31, 2009, by three months. According to a statement issued by The Ministry of Communications and IT, MNP will now be implemented by March 31.
MNP will allow subscribers to retain their existing mobile phone when they move from one mobile service provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology, or from one mobile technology to another, in a licensed service area.
Also, this time, MNP will be implemented in all telecom circles in one go instead of only in metros and large towns as planned earlier.
The statement further stated that according to an assessment done by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), “while some of the access (basic/ mobile) and ILD (international long distance) service providers have technically upgraded and augmented their networks and some have established physical links with MNP operators, others are still in the process.”
For the implementation of MNP, the country has been divided into two zones and licenses have been issued to one MNP operator in each zone, who will provide centralised database, query response and clearing house to enable correct routing and termination of calls by operators.
The network will be tested before the MNP service is implemented. After the operators are ready with their own inter-operator test results, a complete acceptance test is to be carried out by DoT across the networks of all the concerned service providers in all the service areas before MNP service is implemented.
Vodafone offers unlimited SMS in Mumbai
Vodafone Essar has announced an unlimited SMS offer for its prepaid and postpaid customers in Mumbai.
Vodafone’s prepaid customers in Mumbai can avail 500 free local or national SMSes daily with a bonus card of Rs 89. The first SMS of the day will be charged at one rupee and thereafter the customer can send up to 499 SMSes free.
Postpaid customers in Mumbai can send 15,000 SMSes anywhere in India per month for Rs 149.
Vodafone Essar is the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Group and and has over 88.60 million customers.
Not so long ago, ADAG’s Reliance Communications had introduced 1 paise per SMS offer for its subscribers.