A week after Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea announced their entry into the pay per second brigade, the state owned operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has also followed suit.
Under the offering, BSNL subscribers will be charged at one paisa per second for voice calls without having to pay any daily rental. The company also says on its website that there is no restriction on total usage and subscribers will have to pay less than Rs 4 per month for tariff voucher.
BSNL has also launched a promotional 3G tariffs plan for its prepaid customers, under which the consumers will be charged at a rate of 30 paisa per minute for voice calls, both local and STD, as well as video calls. The data charges are one paisa or less per 10 KB download.
Apart from this, the company is also offering 50 video calls and 25 MB data usage free of cost to its subscribers.
These announcements come in the wake of TRAI mulling making per second billing mandatory for all operators. The trend, however, caught steam as newcomer Tata Docomo executed a widespread marketing campaign introducing per second tariffs.
BSNL enters ‘pay per second’ war
Tata Indicom offers money transfer service for the unbanked
Tata Indicom has partnered with Corporation Bank and Paymate, a wireless transactions enabler, to launch Green Money Transfer, which will allow transfer of money one person to the other using mobile phones.
Green Money Transfer is mainly targeted at people who don’t have bank accounts. The transfer service is facilitated by PayMate’s technology, Corporation Bank’s banking system and Tata’s PCO and True Value Shop (TVS) network.
Lloyd Mathias, chief marketing officer, Tata Teleservices Limited, told Telecom Yatra in a telephonic interview, “We are going to launch this service in Kerala and Mumbai in the first stage and will later hit all circles across India. There is immense potential in this sector as the number of unbanked people in the country is very huge.”
To use this service, customers need to register themselves at any Green Tata PCO, TVS or Corporation Bank outlet, after which they receive an mPIN that will be required to authorise the transaction. The sender can then hand over the cash at the selected outlet, which triggers an IVR (interactive voice response) call to him.
The sender then authorises the transaction by entering his mPIN and gets a transaction code on his mobile. The sender conveys the transaction code to the recipient, who goes to the nearest Tata PCO or TVS outlet and shares the code. The outlet then triggers an IVR call to the receiver, who enters his mPIN to authorise the transfer. After the verification, the outlet hands over the cash to the recipient.
At a time, a person can remit up to Rs 5000 using Green Money Transfer, which works across all types of handsets. The registration is free of cost and the service will be available to both urban and rural users.
Ajay Adiseshann, managing director and founder, PayMate said in a company statement, “With over Rs 600 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) being remitted across the country, this presents a great opportunity for all of us to tap into and we are confident that the service will redefine the way financial services are approached.”
Nokia ties up with ITC e-Choupals for content
Nokia and ITC Ltd have entered into a partnership to provide personalised agricultural services to people in rural areas who use Nokia Life Tools. Life Tools is a range of content updates designed by Nokia especially for the rural segment, based on their location and preferences. Besides agriculture, it also includes education and entertainment.
As per a memorandum of understanding, Nokia and ITC will offer content available at ITC e-Choupals to Nokia Life Tools’ customers. They will provide commodity prices, relevant news, alerts on schemes, other information related to the agriculture sector.
The content would initially be provided in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, and more states will be added over time. The content will be based on information that farmers obtain from from 6500 ITC e-Choupal centres spread across 40,000 villages in 10 states.
Nokia Life Tools services use a graphic user interface with tables that can display information simultaneously in two languages. Nokia has collaborated with Idea Cellular for this service, which is compatible with handset models Nokia 2323 classic, Nokia 2330 classic and Nokia 2700 classic.
Bharti Airtel drops MMS rate
After having seen the intense price war amongst telcos over call and SMS rates, we can now see them triggering another war by cutting tariffs for other services such as multimedia Messaging (MMS). The first to kick off MMS rate cut is Bharti Airtel.
The service provider has announced a major reduction in MMS charges for its prepaid as well as postpaid customers in Delhi and NCR. It has cut tariffs from Rs 5 to Re 1 per MMS for limited period.
” With this initiative, our customers can now send photos, pictures, Images and visual greetings to others only at Re 1 per MMS, “says Shashi Arora, chief executive officer, mobile services for Delhi and NCR, Bharti Airtel, in a statement.
Currently, service providers such as Vodafone and Idea are charging subscribers Rs 3 per MMS along with additional data usage charges.
Reliance Webstore to distribute Coolpad handsets
Reliance Webstore Limited, the wholly owned subsidiary of Reliance Communications and the retail venture of Reliance ADA Group, has entered into handset distribution in addition to its current handset retailing business through Reliance World and Reliance Mobile stores.
Reliance World stores will act as distribution hubs, with each store registering its own channel partners and handset retailers and developing its own distribution network. The company has already signed up 1200 handset retailers and multi brand outlets (MBOs) in 100 towns.
The company has entered into an agreement with the Indian joint venture of Hong-Kong based China Wireless, Coolpad Communications. Reliance Webstore signed a strategic distribution agreement with Coolpad Communications gaining exclusive rights to market and distribute Coolpad’s dual mode smartphones in India.
Sarup Chowdhary, director and chief executive officer, Reliance Webstore Limited said in a company statement, “In addition to our exclusive distribution agreement with Coolpad Communications, we have also identified other new business opportunities to leverage this model for a larger participation in the Indian telecom retail sector.”
Coolpad also plans to establish a R&D unit in India. According to the official communiqué, Coolpad is planning to invest Rs 400 crore in India over the next three to four years. It will also establish a R&D unit in Shenzhen, China. The special R&D unit will work with Reliance Webstore teams across India to seek customer feedback and develop differentiated products for the Indian market. The Coolpad smartphones are expected to contribute over 30% of the overall handset sales at Reliance World and Reliance Mobile Stores, according to the statement.
Over the next three years, Reliance Webstore is looking at a distribution network of over 10,000 MBOs and retailers spread across 700 Indian towns.
The telecom retail business currently contributes over 50 per cent to Reliance Webstore’s annual revenues, claims the company.
Loop Mobile reintroduces pay per second plan
Loop Mobile (formerly BPL Mobile) has announced the relaunch of its pay per second plan that will charge consumers one paisa per second for all local and STD calls. Existing subscribers can recharge with Rs 48 to avail this plan. It is also available for all new prepaid subscribers.
Sandip Basu, chief executive officer, Loop Mobile, says in a statement, “Though Loop Mobile had pioneered the concept in 2004 and launched it across circles then, we find the market is more receptive to this offer due to increase in both access and acceptability. We are revisiting the service now and are confident that our customers will widely accept it.”
Loop Mobile, then BPL Mobile, had introduced the concept of per second billing across Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Goa and Pondicherry in September 2004.
The operator was charging prepaid subscribers a standard tariff of 3 paise per second for local calls and post-paid subscribers a flat rate of 2 paise per second for all local calls.
Telephone subscriber base in India crosses 500 million
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released figures on the telecom subscriber base as in September 2009. The government had set a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010. There are 509 million telephone subscribers, up three per cent from August. The teledensity in India has reached 43.5 per cent.
In the mobile segment, the subscriber base is almost 457 million. The teledensity in this segment stands at 40 per cent. Among the operators, Tata Teleservices showed the maximum growth in subscribers at 26 per cent. The operator has two brands – Tata Indicom in CDMA and Tata Docomo in GSM. This is followed by Bharti Airtel with 16 per cent additions.
MTS, a newcomer in the space, has shown an increase of 13 per cent in the subscriber base from the previous month, and has 1.9 million subscribers.
The wireline subscriber base stood at 37 million. BSNL and MTNL lost about 60,000 subscribers in their fixed line services.
The Broadband subscriber base has reached 7.22 million in September-09, showing a growth of 3.2 per cent.
RCom launches pay per second plan
Reliance Communications has succumbed to the pay per second trend. The operator has launched two new tariff variants effective November 5 under its Simply Reliance Initiative plan.
Reliance Communications sees three distinct segments emerging in terms of call patterns in the country – short duration calls, long duration calls and standard length calls. For short duration callers, Reliance is launching 1 paisa per second call rate. For long duration callers, there is a Re 1 for 3 minutes call rate and for standard call duration, it will continue charging 50 paisa per minute tariff rate. Reliance is launching these plans across both its CDMA and GSM networks.
The company claims that the new tariffs are valid on all local calls, STD calls, to any CDMA or GSM mobile and landline anywhere in India, all incoming and outgoing calls while roaming, anytime of the day or night, without any monthly charges and without any hidden charges or any conditions.
Mahesh Prasad, president, Reliance Communications, says in a company statement, “The launch of Simply Reliance Plan in October was very well received in the market, both by customers and trade. We now extend the Simply Reliance Initiative by offering two new products catering to varied customer needs with the same simplicity and unconditional transparency.”
Almost all operators today are offering per second billing in some form or the other, including Vodafone, Aircel and Idea Cellular.
Google launches voice search for Nokia smartphones
Google India has launched a free downloadable Google Mobile App for Nokia Series 60 phones. The application is equipped with speech recognition technology designed to understand Indian accents. Search by voice on mobile leads to Google Search and gives the user the required results.
The application also helps users to search for updates on cricket and local business listings. It automatically detects the user’s location and gives him the results closest to his current location. In addition to this, it also has a smart suggest feature which suggests search terms, minimising typing. In order to use this app, one needs to download it from m.google.co.in on the mobile phone.
Vinay Goel, head of products, Google India, says in a statement, “There’s no denying the importance of search by voice in India, and the extension of Google’s search by voice feature to more mobile handsets is a natural next step for our mobile strategy. With millions of new mobile users being added every month Google Mobile App’s will provide them with a quick and easy way to get the required information whenever and wherever they need it. With the launch of this service for Nokia S60 handsets we would be catering to a larger segment of mobile users, as a significant number of Nokia phone users are on the S60.”
Currently, Google India provides mobile services such as web search, SMS search, maps, photos and news. The voice search feature becomes the latest application to join Google’s mobile portfolio.
Tata Docomo brings comic books to mobile
Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), has launched of ‘CoMix on-the-go’, in collaboration with Zero-Sum Wireless Solutions. The service enables users to read full comic books on the mobile, along with special effects such as character vibration, sounds and zooming text bubbles that magnify the blurbs for better reading.
The full comic book content ranges to about 2000 titles from mythological tales to Supandi from Amar Chitra Katha, Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh and Princess Diaries from Disney, and Sadhu and Devi from Liquid Comics. Tata Docomo claims that it will provide an experience similar to Amazon’s book reader, Kindle, for graphically rich, comic content. The service comes at a price of Rs 20 per full comic book, valid for one year. To access the service the subscriber needs to download the application.
Comix-on-the-go supports two ways of viewing books – scroll view and picture story view, depending on the features of the content to be delivered. The scroll view displays a page of the comic directly and the user can view the entire page by scrolling up and down. To read, the user can magnify the balloon containing the text.
The picture story view displays the cartoon frame by frame, with each frame displayed at the optimum size. The option to scroll and add various effects in the comic strip is also available, but the feature is largely dependent on the data speeds and some of these would be 3G features.