DoCoMo unveils 3G tariff plans (India)

Tata DoCoMo had launched 3G Live in India last week. The company has revealed the tariff details for Basic 3G Plans, Data Plans and even Voice Data plans for consumers in nine Indian circles.

As per the company, the customers, both pre-paid  and post-paid, will have to pay Rs 350-2,000 per month based on their usage to avail of high-end services on their mobile phones.

The company 26% owned by Japan’s DoCoMo and the first private operator to unveil third generation mobile services such as ultra-fast internet, video conferencing and mobile TV on cellphones, unveiled a slew of packages to address the data requirements of its wide spectrum of customers.

Video calls will cost about US$0.07 per minute, while mobile TV costs US$2.23 per month for 50 channels. Each of the tariff plans also comes with a data cap, also called a fair-use policy, where connectivity speeds will be reduced after exceeding this limit. Voice calls range from 40 paise to 66 paise per minute depending on the data plan the customer opts for. Tata DoCoMo’s tariffs are priced significantly higher than that of state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL who currently offer 3G services here. For instance, BSNL charges Rs1/minute for video calls on many post-paid plans, while voice calls are priced at a flat 49 paise per minute.

Average revenue per user for the company will only go up with the advent of 3G services, but cost to consumer may not increase by way of the bundled packages. Valid for a month, each of the 3G plans would have local, STD and roaming minutes bundled with data usage varying from 150MB to 2GB depending on the plan chosen. For purely data usage on tablets and laptops, the company announced plans starting from US$22.52 to US$45.05 a month on pre-paid and post-paid basis giving space of 5GB to 15 GB. All purchases and recharges of 3G services done before December 31, 2010, will get an additional 100 MB of free data per month for the first two months.

An exclusive seven-day trial pack at US$2.03 for storing 100MB of 3G data has been put on the shelves for pre-paid customers that make up 95% of the national mobile subscriber-base of 494 million.

The company that has spent $500 million for rolling 3G services, apart from buying spectrum, will set up 4,000 3G zones across the country starting with metros within four to six months to showcase 3G services being offered by the company.

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Reliance Communications has announced the launch of its SMS based mobile conferencing service, an addition on to its Group Talk facility. The service will enable the users to establish a conference call amongst a group of nine contacts by sending an SMS.

To make it available for all Reliance Mobile GSM and CDMA subscribers, the service is provided by US based Kodiak Networks, a global leader of group communications’ solutions.

According to Anil Pande, head of the value added services division of the company, Reliance’s mobile conferencing service is a cost-effective, efficient and a convenient solution that enhances productivity of small, medium enterprise customers.

To create a group, user needs to type “C …….” with phone numbers (both mobile and landline) starting with prefix 91 (for mobile) and STD code (for landline) and send this as an SMS to 51234323. And to initiate a conference call, the user just needs to send an SMS in the format – CHAT – to 51234323 and all the group members will be notified via an SMS giving the conference dial-in number.

Post-paid subscribers can dial the unique number given at the time of group creation, which in turn will dial all the group members to establish an instant call conference.

The Group Talk service subscription is offered at a price of US$0.8 per month. Subscribers can also download the Group Talk application and install it on their handset if it supports the application.

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www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With the launch of its services in Orissa, Uninor, the GSM mobile service brand of Unitech Wireless and the joint venture company of India’s second largest real estate major

Unitech Limited completes the Blue Arc taking its toll to eight circles pan India. Now Uninor’s service is available in nine states including Orissa, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
According to the Unitech Wireless managing director Stein-Erik Vellan,   the company is planning to focus on gaining shares where they have launched their services.

The company emphasized on the fact that they want to stay the closest to their customers. From product, pricing to customer services, the firms aims at creating value for individual customers.

According to the executive vice-president of Uninor, Akash Das, the company’s national distribution presence went up over 50 distributors following the launch in Orissa apart from four exclusive stores ready for service across the state. Managing director of Unitech, Sanjay Chandra regarded the project as a mega-success. Uninor’s services have two basic price plans including a base plan known as talklonger@29p and a subscription plan known as callmore@29p.

The former plan is for customers who make longer calls. The plan offers its customers STD call at 49 paise per minute and local calls at 29 paise per minute after charging a call set up fee which costs 39 paise and charged at the time of activation of the cell.

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S Tel mobile service launched in Orissa

www.WirelessFederation.com/news: S Tel launched its service in Orissa, India, with a tariff plan of INR 0.01 per second and INR 0.5 per minute for STD and local outgoing calls respectively. The company expects to cover 90 percent of Orissa towns by 2010.

The operator also has ISP license for other states like Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. It is also planning to expand its operations in six category C circles of the country.

Bihar and Jharkhand will also receive S Tel’s mobile services by the year end. Assam and North East can access the service by first quarter of 2010

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