Reliance

Reliance Comm reaches 100m customer landmark (India)

On 03.15.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A landmark of 100 million wireless customers has been crossed by India’s Reliance Communications (RCom). This has made it the 2nd largest wireless operator in the country, and the 4th in the world to achieve this milestone.

According to Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Chairman, Reliance ADA Group, the landmark 100 million mobile customer base makes Reliance the youngest telecom operator to achieve this milestone in such a short span of time. Reliance Communications pioneered the mobile revolution in India and since then it has been the frontrunner of telecom innovations in the country. As the company takes the leap to achieve the 200 million mark, it will lead it from the front with more customer-centric innovations and service approach.

The aim of the company is to achieve 100 million customers within the next 1,000 days. The company is also contemplating to rollout CDMA mobile broadband network which will offer Internet speed of up to 3.1Mbps beyond 60 cities within the next 100 days. The planned roll out will take the total number of cities covered to 125 offering mobile broadband service.

Vodafone launches app store in India

On 03.10.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An application store for the Indian market has been launched by Vodafone’s Indian operation, Vodafone Essar. The operator waited for 10,000 downloads before officially announcing it even though the app store has been running since the middle of last month. This is the third major app store launch in India recently and there’s a fourth one on the way.

These apps provide smartphone features for feature phones and the lineup is also not that fancy when compared to the one on the iPhone or Android app stores. Currently, almost 800 apps available are focused on being useable and cheap.

Between 15% and 25% of the apps on the store are currently free of charge while the rest cost between Rs 5 and Rs 30 to download or roughly $10 to $65 or 8 to 50 euro.

Airtel, which is the biggest rival of Vodafone Essar in India, also launched its apps store a few weeks back. Next month, Reliance will be launching a store as well and prices are again expected to be very low.

Tagged with: Airtel • Android • App Store • Application Store • ASIA • India • iPhone • Launch • operator • Reliance • Vodafone • Vodafone Essar

Tata DoCoMo enters Gujarat (India)

On 03.08.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Indian state Gujarat would now receive Tata DoCoMo. GSM mobile service after the company launched the services across the state barring Ahmedabad, Baroda (Vadodara) and Jamnagar. Though the official announcement is yet to be made, all the information regarding list of circles, tariff and other details for future consumers of Tata Docomo across the state have been posted on the website.

The plans include the Tata DoCoMo life time prepaid card priced at Rs. 49 and the “pay as you go” scheme, with a pulse of one second, and a charge of 1 paisa per second. There is no difference in the tariff plan when compared to other circles in which the company operates

DoCoMo joins other big players already operating in the state including BSNL, Reliance (GSM and CDMA), Airtel, Tata Indicom (CDMA), Idea Cellular, and Vodafone.

Tagged with: Airtel • ASIA • BSNL • CDMA • GSM • Idea Cellular • India • Launch • Reliance • Vodafone

iPhone OS might be put on other devices: Apple

On 02.26.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Lookout for an engineer has been started by Apple to get its mobile-phone software onto additional devices. An ad was posted on the website of Apple on February 15, for an engineering manager to lead a team focused on bring-up of iPhone operating system on new platforms.

Apple’s growing reliance on devices that provide Web access and computing features for users on the go are being clearly reflected by its postings and remarks. The iPhone and related products accounted for $5.58 billion, up from 25% of revenue and 36% of total sales in the three months that ended December 26. Other mobile devices including iPod touch is also sold by Apple.

According to analysts, Apple may put the OS onto Web-connected TV machines and devices that help viewers watch 3D programming. More than 75 million devices based on the iPhone OS has already been shipped by Apple which lets users download and run applications such as games and calendars sold at the Apple App Store.

Tagged with: App Store • Apple • iPhone • iPOD • Reliance

Russian telco MTS eyes Indian telecom market

On 02.16.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: India’s hunger for real-time information and infotainment has attracted the attention of Russian telco MTS which is shifting from mobile voice to mobile data services. It has been expected by the company that the markets will expand beyond just corporate users for data to include small to medium enterprises (SMEs), students and small households.

MTS biggest rivals in India are the companies like Reliance, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Tata Docomo providing postpaid services to its customers. According to Vsevolod Rozanov, president and CEO of Sistema Shyam Teleservices, it difficult to win existing customers of other operators but the company would fight the battle for new customers.

Tagged with: Airtel • ASIA • India • infotainment • Mobile Data Service • MTS • operator • Reliance • Russia • Sistema Shyam Teleservices • Tata DoCoMo • Vodafone

Bharti going after Zain with a $10.7 bln offer

On 02.14.10, In Mobile, By Editor

Bharti is eyeing the african market all over again, with an offer of $10.7 billion for Zain’s african operations.

With acquisition talks abuzz, Zain’s share price on the Kuwait Stock Exchange has risen by more than a fifth in about a week, raising it’s value to $16.2 billion.

Zain – Recent Developments

- Earlier in Feb, Zain CEO Al-Barrak handed his resignation to the Chairman of the board. The New Zain CEO is ex-minister Nabil Bin Salama.

- In August 2009, Reliance Communications started talks to buy Zain’s African operations.

- Etisalat was also a suitor for a 51% stake in Zain at the “right price”.

- Zain operates in 23 countries. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund is Zain’s biggest shareholder with a 24.6% stake and the Kharafi Group is the second largest shareholder with 13.7%.

-In 2008, Zain reported revenues of 2 billion dinars (USD 6.96 billion) and net profit of 322 million dinars. Current liabilities stood at 1.5 billion dinars at the end of March 2009.

- In May 2009, Zain announced a rare cut of 2,000 jobs of its 15,500 workforce, signalling that the expansion was probably being re-visited. Zain has spent in excess of USD 12 billion in Africa since 2005.

For more news on Zain please visit this link: http://wirelessfederation.com/news/?s=zain
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Tagged with: Africa • ASIA • Bharti Airtel • Etisalat • India • Kuwait • Reliance • Reliance Communications • Zain

Indian telco Airtel paid highest revenue in Q3

On 02.11.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Highest revenue, both in terms of spectrum charges and license fees has been paid by the country’s largest private telecom operator, Bharti Airtel to the government for the quarter ending December 2009.

Bharti paid Rs 570.17 crore as license fees and Rs 301.49 crore as the spectrum charge for the third quarter ended December 2009. The data has been compiled by telecom regulator TRAI. 2.85 million new user has been added by Bharti in December.

It has been always debated that GSM operators (like Bharti and Vodafone) have been paying hefty spectrum charges compared with CDMA players (like Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices). It has been claimed by the GSM operators that they are being charged much higher for every unit of spectrum usage.

According to the TRAI figures, Bharti paid Rs 871.66 crore as license fees and spectrum charges together for the Q3 while RCom and TTSL together paid only Rs 401.81 crore for the October -December period.

Tagged with: Airtel • ASIA • Bharti Airtel • CDMA • GSM • India • operator • Reliance • TTSL • USA • Vodafone

Indian telco Reliance plan mobile app stores

On 02.10.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Online mobile applications stores has been planned by one of the India’s top mobile firm, Reliance Communications, thus opening up a new revenue stream from add-on services such as music and social networking.

The first version of Reliance Communications application store would go live for GSM customers by the end of February and expended version would be available to its CDMA customers by the end of March.

Seventh-ranked Aircel was the first Indian operator to announce a mobile applications store in January when it signed a deal with number two software services firm Infosys Technologies.

Tagged with: Aircel • App Store • ASIA • CDMA • GSM • India • Infosys • Mobile Application • operator • Reliance • Reliance Communications

$400m Asian cable to be built by SingTel, Google & partners

On 01.20.10, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: An agreement has been signed between Singtel, Google and six other companies, to build the $400 million Southeast Asia Japan Cable system (SJC). The 8,300-km cable runs between Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan. Potentially the worlds largest cable, it might be operational by the second quarter of 2012.

With a design capacity of 17 Tbps, the six-fiber pair cable can be upgraded to 23 Tbps. Apart from Singtel and Google, other members of the SJC consortium include Globe Telecom, Japan’s KDDI, the SingTel-Bharti JV Network i2i, Indian carrier Reliance Globalcom, Singapore-owned Telemedia Pacific and Indonesia’s Telkom.

According to Mark Chong, SingTel executive vice president for networks, as the SJC connects Singapore to other cable systems in Asia; it will provide access to other parts of the region and serve as an important cable diversity route. SJC is designed to avoid outage prone areas.

Tagged with: ASIA • Globalcom • Globe Telecom • Google • Hong Kong • India • Indonesia • Japan • Philippines • Reliance • Singapore • SingTel

India’s GSM subscribers’ base increased by 11.08m

On 12.17.09, In Mobile, By Editor

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The number of people availing the facility of mobile communication is increasing by leaps and bounds in India with an increase of 11.08 million subscribers within a month. According to figures from the industry
association COAI, 366.77 million GSM mobile subscribers by the end of November went up by 355.69 million in October.

With a market share of 31.63 percent and 116 million subscribers, up from 113.2 million GSM subscribers a month earlier, Bharti Airtel remained the market leader. The subscriber base of Vodafone Essar rose to 88.6 million, from 85.82 million in October and its market share was 24.16 percent.

The third place was occupied by BSNL which ended the month with 55.18 million customers, up from 53.96 million, the market share being 15.05 percent. Idea Cellular ended the month with the fourth place with 55.9 million customers and a market share of 15.24 percent. Aircel’s market share was 8 percent and subscriber base of 29.35 million.

Reliance Telecom and MTNL had 14.6 million and 4.5 million customers respectively. Their market share stood at 3.98 percent and 1.23 percent.

Loop Mobile operating only in Mumbai, saw its subscriber base reach 2.59 million and its market share is 0.71 percent.

Tagged with: Aircel • ASIA • Bharti Airtel • BSNL • COAI • GSM • Idea Cellular • India • MTN • MTNL • Mumbai • Reliance • Vodafone Essar