MTNL launches push email services in Delhi, Mumbai

It can run on any Java enabled, GPRS-enabled handsets including platforms like Blackberry, Symbian, Android, and Windows Mobile.

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL), which provides GSM telecom services in Delhi and Mumbai, has announced Push- email services for all its mobile subscribers in the two metro cities. The service was launched first in Mumbai on May 27.

With the service, users can automatically get new emails on their mobile phone. Much more preferred than the "pull email" option, "push email" are generally device dependent and are provided by the device manufacturer. MTNL has tied- up with Bharat Berry Technologies to provide the services.

Check CBSE class X results on mobile

Students who have appeared for their class X examination can get information about their result through IVR (interactive voice response) and SMS.

Every year during the month of May and June when the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) declares the results of class 10 and 12 examinations, parents and students spend anxious moments checking different websites for results.

These results are declared in phases according to the various regions of CBSE, i.e. Delhi, Guwahati, Allahabad, Chennai, Ajmer and Panchkula. Class XII results were released recently and those of class X are expected any time now.

We will improve customer experience: MTNL

MTNL is planning to outsource its customer care and marketing operations to improve customer experience. The company is also in the process of signing a roaming agreement with Tata Docomo and Aircel for this.

MTNL,GSM service provider in Delhi and Mumbai, is planning to take the outsourcing route to improve customer care and marketing. 

Admitting that MTNL lacks quality customer care, Kuldeep Singh, the chief managing director of the company, said, "We are focused to improve customers' experience with us. We are planning to create a separate arm to look after our marketing and customer care, which will in turn look towards outsourcing of these services." 

Mobile TV services in India

MTNL has recently launched a new mobile TV service that will be available along with its already existing service. We compare this new offer with others in the industry.

State-run MTNL, which provides mobile services in Delhi and Mumbai, has launched a MobileTV service in partnership with DigiVive. The service, called NexGTv, offers over 50 live channels ranging from entertainment, reality, news, religious to popular regional channels.

"The new service will also offer video-on-demand content, including clips from mythological TV shows like Mahabharat; and Hindi movies in 15 minute capsule form, or mobisodes. This service is available for both 2G as well as 3G users with compatible handsets," DigiVive said in a press statement. 

BSNL, MTNL looking for 3000-crore subsidy

The state-run telecom majors BSNLand MTNL are desperately looking for 3000-crore aid from the government. DoT is likely to finalise the plan soon, 

The subsidy amount for BSNL will be given to support its operations, mainly wireline, in rural and far-flung areas from the universal service obligation fund (USOF), while MTNL will be given the support for its higher pension and other retirement payouts from the licence and spectrum fees which both the public sector undertakings (PSUs) give to the government, a senior DoT official told Business Standard.

DoT plans to finalise the subsidy plan for both the PSUs, who have been losing revenues as well as market share, by June or July this year. Moreover, the existing support to BSNL from USOF would end this year, which will have to be extended, the official added.

MTNL launches push-mail services in pact with Bharat Berry

NEW DELHI: Public sector telecom service provider MTNL today launched its push mail services in the national capital in partnering with a mobile communication service Bharat Berry. 

 "MTNL has entered into an alliance with Bharat Berry Technologies to provide push email services for all its mobile subscribers in Delhi," state-owned service provider said in a statement. 

 It will provide existing users to stay connected to their e-mails, calendar and contacts through the servers hosted in India. In addition company is providing over-the-air (OTA) synchronisation of calendar and contacts for multiple mail accounts. 

 Bharat Berry is a mobile communication service that works with most of the mobile phones and provides more advanced push mail with over the air backup of your contact, task, calendar and notes along with sync to your outlook. 

 For enabling access to all services including e-mails and Personal Information Manager (PIM) sync users will be charged Rs 80 per month for the combo pack, while the individual services will be available for Rs 50 each per month. 

BSNL in talks with private operators for sharing tower infra

NEW DELHI: Telecom giant BSNL is negotiating with leading private operators to enter into tower sharing agreement, a move that would help the ailing PSU to turnaround.  "We are in talks with various service providers in order to make arrangement so that we can share our idle tower infrastructure with them and generate revenues in order to make our bottomline healthy," BSNL CMD R K Upadhyay said without naming any of the telecom service provider.  The telecom behemoth is suffering from financial losses due to huge labour wage cost and declining subscribers.  Upadhyay further said, "This (tower sharing pact) will take time as many decisions needs to be taken like rent issue and duration of rented towers. I expect this will be done within this fiscal year."  Sources in the know said that BSNL is in talks with Bharti airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications for this purpose.

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.

Airtel 3G plans

Airtel had five lakh 3G mobile subscribers within seven days of launching 3G services, that too from just five cities. What makes it click with users? Here is an analysis of Airtel's 3G tariff plans.

Bharti airtel had five lakh 3G mobile subscribers within seven days of launching third generation telephony services(3G), and that too in just five cities. Now it has over two million 3G subscribers (as of April 6) in 34 cities and towns across India including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Coimbatore, Mysore, Manipal, Udupi, Jaipur, Delhi NCR, Hubli, Patna, Hyderabad, Agra, Dehradun, Meerut and West Bengal.

What makes it click with users? Here is an analysis of the operator's 3G tariff plans:

Airtel has a range of tariff plans for 3G customers, starting with a Rs 11 plan which gives 10 MB of usage for a day. The plans go up to Rs 750 for 2 GB data over 30 days.

But the sad part is that there are no real unlimited plans to choose from. As an alternative, the teleco is offering a Rs 675 plan, in which you get 1.25 GB data at full 3G speed, consumable over 30 days. Once you have consumed that, your access speed will drop to 20 Kbps and you will be charged 1 paisa for every 100KB till you reach a bill of Rs 2,000.

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 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. 

MTNL Mumbai launches 10 Gbps Broadband on FTTH

Mumbai’s Largest Broadband Service provider Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) today announced the launch of path breaking technology Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) triple play High Speed Broadband service with speed up to 10 Gbps in Mumbai Telecom circle. MTNL FTTH Broadband service will also be launched in Delhi circle from 1st May, 2011.The commercial service will be launched in next couple of weeks in both circle. With the launch of FTTH technology MTNL can now offer High speed Broadband access up to 10Gbps and plethora of services based on Triple play(voice-video-data) services like IPTV, HDTV, 3DTV, video on demand , Bandwidth on Demand, Video conferencing , interactive gaming , and several other VAS which can be only possible through FTTH.

This technology uses optic fiber technology which can deliver world class Triple Play experience to the consumers the FTTH service relies on a Self-Healing Network,which is able to provide seamless triple play service, even in case of damaged of the optical fibre, the information will be re-routed through another line. The system deploys services involving voice, data and video communications irrespective of distance and location it provides all communication facilities by using broadband and land line network, including Internet access, IPTV, video-on-demand, content-based services, interactive gaming and VoIP services. The services will also support enterprise applications and features such as LAN, VoIP and video conferencing. MTNL’s FTTH Broadband Plans will start from Rs. 649 for Limited usage and Rs. 999 Mbps Unlimited Usage at 1 Mbps Speed. While 4 Mbps and 10 Mbps Speed Plans cost Rs. 3499 and Rs. 5999 respectively.

On this occasion Shri Kuldip Singh, CMD, MTNL, said “This latest set-up would provide impetus to the MTNL Data focused strategy and will be a new business stream for MTNL”.