Reliance Communications to offer Windows Mobile services

For the launch, the company is offering data download of 200MB for just Rs 95 per month exclusively to Reliance Mobile customers

Reliance Communications and Microsoft have entered into a strategic partnership to offer Windows Mobile solution on Reliance's wireless network. According to the agreement, Microsoft will offer its productivity solutions to Reliance customers including push email support, chat, photo-sharing, content back-up and other applications.

The company will offer Microsoft's Windows Mobile solution as part of its post-paid and pre-paid offerings on its networks.

11.1 mn new GSM subscribers added in April

Idea cellular was the biggest gainer adding 2.45 mn users into its kitty followed by Airtel with 2.41 mn additions.

Indian GSM telecom operators added 11.1 million subscribers to their kitty in April, according to the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI). 

However, the figure is lower than the March figure, when 14.49 million subscribers were added by the operators. With this, the total GSM subscriber base in the country has now climbed to 580.66 million. 

Zapak launches first Adver-game on Reliance Digital TV

Reaching out to over 14 million Households in India; this is for the first time that any Gaming company has made adver-game for multiple DTH players.

Zapak, India’s largest gaming portal has launched its first Adver-game on Reliance Digital TV and Dish TV with an aim to provide fun and engaging games on DTH platform.  Reaching out to over 14 million Households in India; this is for the first time that any Gaming company has made adver-game for multiple DTH players.

Close Up, one of the leading toothpaste brands in the country, partners with Zapak to enter the digital space this year to promote their new variant Close Up - Fire Freeze. Zapak with their tradition for making the most outstanding online games for their consumers brings to you another one which will excite you even more this time around- Kiss but don’t get caught. 

Top Ten Telecom Companies in India

India is the fastest emerging mobile phone market in the world. To cater to this rising sector, many foreign telephone companies are coming here to make their presence felt in the cutthroat handset market. Additionally, telecom companies are also gearing up as the industry is generating large amount of investments for the country. In fact, the number of telephone subscriber base in India touched 671.69 million as on June 30, 2010 from 653.92 million in May 2010, says the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Our list of top 10 telecom companies in India

Bharti Airtel: A recent survey by Voice and Data (CyberMedia group journal) indicated that Bharti Airtel is India’s top mobile phone operator for the 2009-10 period with fiscal revenues of Rs. 38, 800 crore (Rs. 388 billion). Led by Sunil Bharti Mittal, the company is divided into 4 strategic business arms – mobile, telemedia, enterprise and digital TV.

BSNL: State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited reported a drop of 14% this year in revenue & posted a total of Rs. 30, 240 crore (Rs. 302.4 billion) as earnings. It secures top spot as the largest wireline service provider in the country with over 71.68 million subscribers. Since Feb 2010, BSNL earned Rs. 6 crore on its 2G connections and 9, 73, 378 for 3G connections.

Vodafone Essar: Vodafone Group, the Indian subsidiary of Vodafone Essar, recorded a profit boost of 13.7% and emerged as the third largest telecom player with revenue collections of Rs. 23, 200 crore (Rs. 232 billion). Since its unremarkable beginnings in 1994, the company has come a long way in spreading its services to over 106.34 million Indian users.

Reliance: Anil Ambani’s now rebranded ‘Reliance’ (better known as RCOM too) is India’s largest private sector information and communications company with a sizeable 100 million subscribers. The giant recently reported a negative growth of 3.5% with revenue of Rs. 22, 130 crore (Rs. 221.3 billion).

Idea Cellular: With revenue of Rs. 11, 390 crore (Rs. 113.9 billion), Idea Cellular, Aditya Birla Group’s flagship company maintains its spot as one of the leading service provider in the country. Headed by Kumar Mangalam Birla, Idea has around 67 million subscribers with a pan-India presence. It was also the first cellular service provider to offer General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) & Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE) in India.

Tata Communications: Even though it’s placed on number 6 slot, the company holds leadership position in emerging markets. It reported total revenue of Rs. 11, 000 crore (Rs. 110 billion) last fiscal but analysts say that Tata’s potential for this year is huge. The Tata Global Network comprises of one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks, a Tier-1 IP network.

Tata Teleservices: The company operates under 5 brands – Tata Indicom (CDMA services), Tata DOCOMO (GSM services), Virgin Mobile, Tata Walky (for fixed wireless phones) and Tata Photon (for wireless mobile broadband access) & is one of the 96 companies of the Tata Group to have its network in 20 circles. With revenue of Rs. 6, 900 crore (Rs. 69 million), Tata Teleservices leads the Tata Group’s presence in the telecom sector.

Aircel: With the highest growth record of 37.2% in 2009-10, Aircel is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and Sindya Securities Investments Private Limited. Commencing operations in 1999, it became the leading mobile operator in Tamil Nadu, Assam and North Eastern provinces speedily.

MTNL: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) has a customer base of 8.06 million in Delhi and Mumbai and the government holds a 56.25% stake in the company. Managed by Mr. Kuldip Singh (Chairman and MD), the company offers state-of-the art telephone services and has more than 9, 00, 000 GSM mobile connections.

TTML: Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Limited (TTML) earned revenues worth Rs. 2, 300 crore (Rs. 23 billion) helping it to preserve its place in this list. TTML leads its parent company Tata Group in the telecom circles of Maharashtra (Mumbai) & Goa. With 6 lakh subscribers today, it started operations in 1998 and now prides itself as the largest wireline base in Maharashtra among all private operators.

Reliance Communications launches mobile banking with SBI

NEW DELHI: Reliance Communications on Wednesday said it has launched mobile banking services for its GSM subscribers in collaboration with the State Bank of India(SBI).

"Reliance consumers can use facilities like balance enquiry, mini statement, fund transfer, cheque book issuance, mobile recharge and bill payment at any time and place through the use of their cell phones," the company said in a statement.

The customers will not require any special mobile application or GPRS to use the service but they should have an account with SBI, it added.

The customers will also have to register for the services with the bank and will thereafter get messages for successful transaction.

The users will have to dial *595# to view simple menu choices and key in their choice.

"Consumers use their cell phones to play games, read news headlines, surf the internet, do online trading etc. And still consumers continuously keep demanding more and more from their phones," said Mahesh Prasad, president-wireless business, Reliance Communications.

"This mobile banking service is yet another useful service for our customers, they can now avoid those long queues at the SBI branches," he added.

RCom Introduces India's first user generated caller tune service

RCom users can activate the service by calling 56694400 or can avail it by logging into the operator's website.

Reliance Communications has introduced India's first user generated caller tune service that allows customers to record content via the 'Tune Maker' platform and then set it as their own caller tune. Subscribers can also post their creations on RCom's website for other subscribers' use.

RCom has partnered with Hyderabad based Altruist Technologies to create pan-India infrastructure for the new services.

According to Anil Pande, head, VAS, Reliance Communications, "UGC (user generated content) has seen exponential growth over the last few years. India being a multilingual country, voice is an important part of UGC."

Adding further, he said, "The service allows voice based content of users' choice to be shared and set as their caller tune. The technology support offered by Altruist enables to edit, link, and create content posted by customer, besides activating it as caller tune."

India has only 500 mn mobile users, not 800 mn

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The number of real, active mobile users in India has just crossed 500 million, according to a analysis of statistics released by telecom regulator TRAI along with industry data and inputs. This is much lower than the 811.59 million that is projected as the official number of mobile subscribers in March 2011, says a study.

According to Voice&Data, the Indian telecom Industry journal from South Asia’s largest specialty publisher, CyberMedia, the actual numbers are much below this projection. The study is based on the April 6 release of TRAI, which gave details about the cellphone connections in the country in February 2011.

A footnote tells the actual story

Voice&Data said a footnote in the April 6 release provides the first caveat: “Active wireless subscribers in VLR in February 2011 are 563 million”, pointing to the fact that the actual number of mobile users in India is below the 810 million or even the 791 million mark.

The VLR, or Visitor Location Register, is a database of the subscribers who have roamed into the jurisdiction of the mobile switching center (MSC) which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by only one VLR, hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

Mobile calls might get cheaper if TRAI has its way

The Indian telecom regulator has started consultation process to revise interconnection charges, which currently accounts for up to 75 per cent cost of calls.

In a move that could see your mobile bills drop further, TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) has started a consultation process to review the interconnection charges.

Interconnection Usage Charges are the wholesale charges payable by one telecom service provider to another for use of the latter's network for originating, terminating or transiting or carrying a call.

Currently this charge accounts for almost 75 per cent cost of the calls, any reduction in this charge will reduce call rates substantially.

Though Interconnection Usage Charges are not directly related to retail tariff, but they play a major role in determining the tariffs offered by the service providers.

While the new operators will welcome any reduction in these charges, older operators who have a wider network and larger customer base will not like to see such a move as it will dent their revenue as they are net gainers in the current regime.

TRAI has already acknowledged the complaints of smaller and new operators that incumbents gained most from termination charges and has sought the industry's response through this consultation process.

Some of the operators have demanded termination charges to be scrapped, however that seems to be unlikely as already the industry is struggling due to rock bottom call rates.

The industry is already divided on lot many issues and this new initiative might open a new war front amongst the warring factions of the industry.

The country's No 1 mobile operator, Bharti Airtel recently told TRAI that the costs of building and operating networks should be taken into account when determining termination charges and cautioned against extending "undue privileges or subsidisation" to new operators.

The Association of Unified Service Providers of India, an industry body representing firms such as Tata Teleservices and Reliance Communications, has urged TRAI to cut all components of interconnect charges right away.

Mobile phone subscribers in India rises to 811.59 million

India’s mobile phone subscribers base has touched 811.59 million in March with the addition of 20.21 million connections, official data shows.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the wireless user base grew 2.55 percent, from 791.38 million in February.

While the share of urban subscribers declined to 66.30 percent from 66.36 percent, the share of rural subscribers increased from 33.64 percent to 33.70 percent, the report said Friday.

With this, the total number of telephone subscriber base touched 846.32 million, registering a growth of 2.43 percent.

Overall teledensity in India reached 70.89.

However, according to the report, of the total 811.59 million wireless subscribers in March, only 573.97 million subscribers were active subscribers on the date of peak visitor location register (VLR).

VLR is a temporary database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area, which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR, hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.

The growth in this category was led by Vodafone, which added 3.65 million users to take its subscriber base to 134.57 million users.

Reliance Communications followed next with an addition of 3.54 million new subscribers, taking its subscriber base to 135.72 million.

Telecom giant Bharti airtel added 3.2 million subscribers to take its total number of customers to 162.2 million.

Idea Cellular added 2.7 million subscribers, increasing its subscribers count to 89.5 million while Uninor added 1.21 million subscribers to have 22.79 million subscribers.

According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 3.51 percent from 11.47 million in February to 11.87 million in March 2011. However, the wireline segment declined marginally from 34.87 million in February to 34.73 million at the end of March.