Diet-SMS: Tata Docomo launches pay-per-character billing (India)
This is a novel concept, instead of billing for a text message of 160 characters like most mobile operators, Indian mobile operator Tata Docomo has just launched a short messaging service, called Diet-SMS, which enables customers to pay on a per-character basis.
“The cost of any Diet-SMS will be only one paise per character used (100 paise= 1 rupee), thereby providing complete value to customers. ”
Deepak Gulati, President Tata Docomo said in a statement – “We broke the per-minute pricing paradigm for voice calls when we launched our services. With Diet-SMS, we are doing it again, this time on the SMS front.â€
Tata Docomo is a frontrunner in the pay-per-use business model in the Indian mobile telephony segment. It will not charge for space between words!!
Tata Docomo has launched services in eight telecom circles and a countrywide rollout is expected to be completed this year.
In all of the eight circles where we have launched our GSM services, we made the promise of introducing path-breaking innovative products and services, and never-before tariff options. Diet-SMS is another way of fulfilling that promise,†said Tata Docomo president Deepak Gulati.
BH gives Ericsson’s Croatian unit new 5.9Mn GSM contract (Bosnia & Herzegovina)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: BH Telecom given Croatia-based technology provider Ericsson Nikola Tesla a new contract for GSM mobile network expansion worth HRK30 million (USD5.9 million). With immediate effect, the contract covers expansion of BH Telecom’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE infrastructure to allow for continued user base growth, as well as faster and more reliable mobile voice and data access across the network. Gordana
Kovacevic, President of Ericsson Nikola Tesla, said, ‘I am very pleased with the continued cooperation [with] BH Telecom in mobile telephony. It should provide a foundation for even larger projects with our strategic customer in further mobile network modernisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.’
CDMA to GSM Migration: Pelephone
The management of cellular telephone provider Pelephone has recommended that the company migrate from CDMA to GSM wireless technology. Installing a new network will cost around $200 million.
The board of directors has already discussed the issue and is apparently about to green-light using the same technology already adopted by rivals Cellcom and Partner (Orange) – the third generation of UMTS.
The Pelephone board sees the move as a revolution, and an opportunity to dramatically improve the company’s bottom line. As the only one of Israel’s main three cellular providers to still be using CDMA, Pelephone is lagging sorely behind Partner and Cellcom.
Some members of the Pelephone board are expecting profits to increase by up to NIS 230 million a year once the migration is completed. Their calculation is based on the fact that the company is currently missing out on the roaming fees that its technologically more advanced competitors receive when their customers use their phones abroad, to the tune of over NIS 250 million a year in revenues.
Once Pelephone switches over to GSM, it too will be able to benefit directly from calls made abroad by its subscribers.
Assuming 50-percent marginal contribution to profits, roaming agreements with foreign wireless providers could add more than NIS 130 million to Pelephone’s profits annually. Pelephone is also hit hard by the need to pay up to $50 more per phone than its rivals, and its maintenance costs are higher as well. Eliminating these two profit drains could pad Pelephone’s profits by an additional NIS 90 million to NIS 100 million per year.
The change is likely to accelerate Pelephone’s marketing and sales of 3G devices, since it will give the company a motive to shift as many subscribers as possible over to the new network. That may also be the reason behind Pelephone CEO Gil Sharon’s plans to retool the company’s service division over the next year.
Since Pelephone has nearly 2.4 million subscribers, the migration will not be easy. It will have to be done gradually. In the initial stages it will require maintaining two networks simultaneously, putting added pressure on the company’s maintenance and operations budgets. One of the main challenges faced by Pelephone will be the creation of a new antenna network to support it.
If the board of directors approves the technology switchover, it will be the most important decision taken by Sharon since taking the helm. The decision will also have far-reaching consequences for Bezeq’s owners Haim Saban, Apax and Mori Arkin.
Approximately five years ago, when a major tender process was held for radio frequencies, Pelephone made the decision to back up its technology with UMTS at a cost of about NIS 220 million. The company paid the entire amount for the frequencies, but it has not paid frequency fees for them. If it makes use of the frequencies, it will face fee bills amounting to tens of millions of shekels.
