Reliance Communications launches 3G services in Jharkhand (India)
Reliance Communications has launched the first 3G network in Jharkhand. In the first phase, the services will be available in 6 towns of Jharkhand including Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Hazaribagh and Jharia. Recently, Reliance Communications had launched 3G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chandigarh.
The network is capable of offering peak speeds up to 28 Mbps.
Reliance Communications will be launching Reliance 3G services across all 13 telecom circles, where it holds 3G licenses, by end of Fiscal 2010-11. The company is aiming to offer national 3G coverage through associations with other 3G licensees in the balance 9 telecom circles during the course of next year.
Reliance Communications holds 3G licenses in the telecom circles of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, North East, Jammu & Kashmir, Orissa and Assam.
DoT issues notice to Idea, Etisalat DB for cancelling licenses (India)
The Indian government has issued notices to Aditya Birla group company Idea cellular for Punjab circle and new operator Etisalat DB for Delhi and Mumbai for cancelling their 2G licences for missing roll-out obligations respectively.
According to DoT Secretary R Chandrashekhar, a notice has been issued to Idea Cellular for Punjab circle.
Earlier, a similar notice had been issued to Etisalat DB for cancellation of its licence in Delhi and Mumbai circles.
In Idea’s case, the notice has been issued for not meeting launched obligations and for other violations of licence conditions.
DoT issued Letters of Intent (LoIs) to Idea Cellular for providing Unified Access Services in nine service areas– Kolkata, West Bengal, Assam, Karnataka, Orissa, North East, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) on January 10,2008.
Tata DoCoMo launches T24 mobile service in Gujarat (India)
Tata DoCoMo has launches its new ‘T24′ mobile service in Gujarat, a brand launched in alliance with the retail chain giant Future group.
According to Tata DoCoMo COO Gujarat Nipun Sharma, it is a unique marketing alliance between a retailer group and telecom operator that offers customers free talk time on purchases or recharges made at any of the Future group outlets.
Future group that operates store chains like Big Bazaar, Food Bazaar and Pantaloons will be offering this new service from 23 of its big stores spread across seven towns in Gujarat including Anand, Vapi, Surat and Bharuch.
According to Future Group CEO Telecom Mayur Toshniwal, this new service, which is on a franchise model, will be offered from all of their 23 large outlets spread across seven towns in Gujarat. They shall open two more retail stores in Bhavnagar and Mehsana in Gujarat over next 6-8 months period.
According to Toshniwal, the new service has received encouraging response from its launch in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has forged alliances with Virgin mobile, Quippo for passive infrastructure(towers), Japan’s NTT DOCOMO for GSM services and Future group for T24.
Private Telecos reject BSNL 3G alliance offer (India)
Private mobile phone operators in India have rejected state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s offer to share its 3G network with them terming it too expensive.
BSNL had invited bids from mobile operators for roaming alliances to offer the high-end services, which include video calling and high-speed internet on phones. The telco has 3G airwaves in all circles except Delhi and Mumbai.
The company was following the example of state-owned sister firm Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) that has succeeded in attracting private operators for 3G roaming pacts. MTNL, which has licences to run 3G services in Delhi and Mumbai, is expected to receive bid amounts much higher than its base price. BSNL had fixed 2.92% of the money it had paid to acquire 3G airwaves in a circle as the base price for the bids. Under the scheme proposed by BSNL, a mobile operator will have to pay the base price every year for the next 17 years, the period till which BSNL 3G spectrum will remain valid.
According to reports three of the service providers said that BSNL offer was not only too expensive, but was also unattractive as it covered only inter-circle roaming. This means if, for instance, Bharti Airtel enters into a roaming pact with BSNL for Karnataka and Orissa, then the pact will allow Airtel customers to enjoy 3G services when visiting any of these two states. But it will not allow Airtel to offer 3G services to customers in these states using BSNL’s frequencies. Also for using BSNL services in Karnataka, Airtel would have to shell out 2.92% of US$351.64 million that BSNL paid for the 3G services in the state. This comes out to US$10.05 million for one year and US$165.69 million for 17 years.
As per reports, the state-run telco had paid a total of US$2.25 billion for 3G airwaves after the auctions concluded last year. This sort of deal would have allowed BSNL to recover more than 50% of its 3G spectrum costs over 17 years.
MTNL has been more successful with this business model as two telcos— Tata Teleservices and Aircel— have bid to share its 3G airwaves in Delhi. Under the MTNL model, the two private operators would be allowed to launch high-end services in Delhi on MTNL’s 3G network.
Ericsson win contract for 3G launch in six circles (India)
Ericsson, a telecom equipment maker has won a contract for launching 3G network infrastructure across six circles.
According to Ericsson, Aircel has selected Ericsson for the launch of 3G/HSPA network across six out of its 13 circles, which currently provide over 100 million subscribers. Ericsson will be Aircel’s largest partner for 3G implementation.
According to Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh, the company is confident that with this partnership, Aircel will be benefited from Ericsson’s global expertise of 3G deployments, and will be able to offer customers a world-class 3G experience.
With the roll out of 3G services, Aircel customers would have the access to the services like video telephony, mobile broadband, mobile TV and faster downloads on their handsets.
As per the agreement, Ericsson will provide core, radio and transmission network equipment along with network rollout, network technology and consulting and other support services.
The six Aircel circles cover — Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Orissa, Jammu and Kashmir, North East and Assam. The framework contract will be implemented from 2010 to 2012.
The company did not disclose financial details of the contract.
Batelco’s 3Q net profit drops 24%; mobile users more than doubled
Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco) has recorded a 24% year-on-year plunge in Q3 net profit to lower revenues in its domestic market, while the results also revealed its share of losses from STel, its start-up mobile joint venture in India.
According to Batelco’s chairman Shaikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, net income for the three months ended 30 September 2010 dropped to US$51.1 million, down from US$67.10 million in the corresponding period of 2009.
As per reports, over the first nine months of 2010 Batelco’s total revenues were as US$678.29, with net profit falling 17% year-on-year to US$175.06million. Nine-month operating profit of US$214.31 million represented a 3% decline compared to the same period in 2009.The group’s total number of customers stood at 7.9 million at end-September 2010, including a mobile subscriber base of around 7.5 million, up 53% from 4.9 million a year earlier.
Umniah, Batelco’s 96%-owned subsidiary in Jordan, reached a mobile customer base of 1.8 million, while Sabafon in Yemen, in which the group holds 26.9% equity, reached 3.2 million subscribers.
Saudi venture Etihad Atheeb (15% owned by Batelco, offering services under the GO brand) recorded a total of 92,000 customers, up 5% quarter-on-quarter. Subscriber numbers at STel rose to 1.64 million across its operations in Bihar, Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and the recently launched Assam and North East telecoms circles of India.
Batelco’s mobile customer base in Bahrain down by 4% quarter-on-quarter to 836,000 at the end of September 2010, while broadband users also declined in the quarter to 86,000 customers, representing a 2% drop.
According to the company, loss of profitable market share at home, particularly in the key areas of mobile, broadband and International Direct Dial (IDD), has presented Batelco with tough challenges in the home market … Batelco’s transformation into a lower cost organization is underway.
Bharti Airtel in discussion with other operators for pan-India 3G alliance
Bharti Airtel is in discussion with other mobile operators, including Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, to structure a planned alliance to propose 3G services on a pan-India level.
The alliance is made necessary because not even a single operator won the 3G spectrum in all the circles, but Bharti Airtel won the spectrum in 13 circles, Vodafone has 3G airwaves in nine and Idea in 11 circles.
According to Mr Sanjay Kapoor, CEO, Bharti Airtel- India and South Asia, the talks were on with other players. The very fact that the 3G auctions have been a fractured verdict leaves a lot of opportunity for collaboration. All preparations are on to make sure the company offer pan-Indian 3G experience to the customers. By and large, usage alliances will happen within the Government rules and regulation.
Whilst Kapoor did not reveal the names of the operators in the alliance or the nature of the proposed partnership, but he further revealed that the deal will be firmed up before the company starts rolling out its 3G services by December. According to Industry sources, Vodafone and Idea could be the likely partners.
The three operators are planning to have 3G spectrum athwart all the circles in the country excluding Orissa. Bharti, Vodafone and Idea also mutually own Indus Tower, which will allow them to share basic infrastructure for 3G rollout.
According to Mr Kapoor, Airtel will begin 3G roll outs starting with the metros for which deals with equipment suppliers are close to being finalized. On the price of 3G services to consumers, he added that the high cost of spectrum combined with the fact that each operator has only 5 Mhz of bandwidth will ensure that there will not be any unlimited plans.
While asking on the availability of 3G devices, Mr Kapoor alleged that high-end smartphone devices such as iPhone will not get much traction because the Indian mobile market is largely pre-paid, and therefore, there is no scope for offering subsidy on devices like in the US. The massification of data will happen on lower end Smartphones. India and China will dictate the device market therefore, the moment these two markets get uptake on data by next year Smartphones will be available at US$50.
Virgin Mobile India unveils special pack for GSM users
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A pocket friendly local calling pack has been launched by Virgin Mobile India for all its GSM subscribers. The pack is worth Rs. 45 with a validity of 30 days allowing the customers to call any local number at just 1paise/2seconds.
The offer is available across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Mumbai and Maharashtra circles.
The company has made it clear that the pack is profitable on both minute and second billing profiles. Consumers are also provided an option to choose per minute tariff or a per second one. A differentiated tariff proposition of 20p/min for STD and local calls to any Virgin Mobile number will be offered on per minute tariff.
40p/min for local and 50p/min for STD calls will have to be paid for calling any other network.
ByCell license cancelled by India’s DoT
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The mobile network operator licenses awarded to Russian-owned, Swiss-registered ByCell has been revoked by India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the grounds of security concerns. The operator was allowed to launch services in five circles; Assam, Orissa, Bihar, North East and West Bengal.
According to the letter from the regulator to ByCell’s CEO, the five letters of intent (LoI) are hereby withdrawn as the security clearance and all the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals granted to the company have been withdrawn.
The entry fee and performance guarantee, paid by the telco as part of its concession award, totalling INR860 million (USD19.33 million) will be refunded by DoT.
In May 2009, a report came as per which the approval granted to ByCell by FIPB to roll out a GSM network was withdrawn on the back of renewed security concerns after calls by the revenue department and the Ministry of Home Affairs to review the operator’s application. Company’s source of funding and shareholding structure was the reason of concern for both the government bodies.
Over 20 lakh mobile subscribers achieved by BSNL in Orissa
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A subscriber base of over 20 lakh has been achieved by state owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for its mobile services in the Orissa circle. Five lakh mobile subscribers had been added by the state in 2009-10 by BSNL and aims to add an additional four lakh subscribers by the end of the current fiscal.
According to U S Panda, general manager (operations), BSNL, on an average, the company is adding around 90,000 mobile subscribers in the state every month.
Meanwhile, a pre-paid broadband service in Orissa has been launched by the telecom major with easy recharge options. The new service will help boost landline connections.
