Reliance Telecom, a subsidiary of Reliance Communiations, on Friday announced a unique recharge scheme for its prepaid GSM customers who could avail of free ''double on net minutes and built-in talktime'' on top-up vouchers of Rs 10.
Anil Ambani's Reliance Communication on Sunday launched GSM services in Mumbai and offered free talk-time worth Rs 900 spread over three months. "New subscribers would get Rs 10 talk-time every day for the first 90 days and we have offered tariffs of Re 1 a minute for local calls. STD would cost Rs 1.50 per minute on any network," Dinesh Gulati, the head of Western region, said. After consuming Rs 10 during the day, the subscribers can use top up cards.
Reliance Communications on Thursday applied to the department of telecommuications for radio frequencies in the 1800 MHz band for operating mobile networks in 14 circles all over the country.
Reliance Communications on Wednesday announced 1,000 free minutes of usage for GSM subscribers for calls to any other Reliance mobile in the Delhi-NCR region.
The company has enhanced validity and talk-time of its already launched GSM tariff plans. Under the new offer, subscribers would be able to make local calls at 50 paise per minute (Re 1 earlier) and STD calls at 75 paise per minute (Rs 1.50 earlier). It had also extended validity for lifetime (licence period of the company).
Announcing the rollout, Anil Ambani told reporters that the company has invested over Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) in the project, which was completed six months ahead of schedule. Reliance Communications mobile users will now have a choice of both CDMA and GSM services, Ambani said, adding, "the project was completed within 15 months", six months ahead of schedule.
The Anil Ambani group company has soft-launched the service in Mumbai, Delhi, Gujarat, Punjab Bangalore and Chennai. The company has provided GSM phones to its employees for testing the service, according to sources.
Anil Ambani severely criticised the attitude of GSM operators and raised the issue of returning the extra spectrum again.
Tata Teleservices on Wednesday became the second major CDMA operator, after Reliance Communications, to get GSM radio frequency under the dual technology along with other new telecom players.Tata Teleservices has been given start up 4.4 MHz GSM spectrum in Tamil Nadu along with five new telecom players, company officials said.
Reliance Communications (RCom) has paid Rs 1,651 crore as licence fee to start pan-India GSM operations.
RComm will get GSM spectrum along with other players like Vodafone, Airtel and Idea. This move will bring RComm actively in the GSM field.
Sunil Bharti Mittal's Bharti Airtel retained the top rank with a market share of 33.21 per cent and a total user base of 77.48 million. Vodafone-Essar added 1.87 million and maintained a market share of 23.41 per cent. COAI, which does not include Reliance Telecom, estimates RT added at least 370,000 subscribers in the month,
"We will start our GSM services soon. We have got spectrum in 13 circles in one or two months. We expect to get spectrum in all the circles barring one or two," TTSL managing director Anil Sardana said. RCom has launched GSM services in 11,000 towns, which would be extended to 22,000 towns in the next few months.
It means a CDMA players like Reliance can also operate GSM services and get the required spectrum from the government within the same licence. Earlier, they were allowed spectrum either for CDMA or for GSM within the licence. However, now they have to pay an amount equal to the entry fee of a UASL licence (over Rs 1,680 crore for a pan-India licence) to get the spectrum as recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
According to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authoroty of India, the total number of GSM subscribers of RCom at the end of September was 41.2 million, while the CDMA base was 55.28 million.
The company said it becomes the first operator in the country to partner with Twitter on the new 'Twitter Access' programme.
ADAG company offers one-time subscription charge of Rs 25. To capture its share in the fast-growing GSM subscriber base, RCom has focused on the segment that provides less than Rs 300 as average revenue per user and launched its services at competitive prices.
This will be the country's largest order for telecom equipment and one of the world's biggest. The installed production capacity of GSM electronics worldwide is 250 to 300 million lines annually, suggesting that the order could account for more than 10 per cent of global production over the next three years.
Rival operators' lobby to approach Delhi High Court.
Reliance Jio accuses COAI of malafide intention.
Ambani termed COAI's appeal to the telecom tribunal against the government granting RCom dual-use technology (CDMA and GSM) as "unnecessary and unwarranted". RCom, the country's largest provider of CDMA mobile services, recently received permission to start GSM services under its existing licence for which it paid a fee of Rs 1,651 crore (Rs 16.51 billion).
Two regional CDMA players - HFCL in Punjab and Shyam Telecom in Rajasthan - have deposited fee for their GSM spectrum as per the dual technology permitted by the government. HFCL deposited Rs 151.75 crore (Rs 1.51 billion) for Punjab circle, while Shyam gave about Rs 32 crore for the Rajasthan circle.
The COAI decision comes in the wake of Anil Ambani group company Reliance Communications and two other CDMA players receiving approvals to offer GSM services in their respective circles of operation from the Department of Telecom on Friday.
Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communication and other GSM telephone operators owe government over Rs 451 crore (Rs 4.51 billion) in license fee and spectrum charges, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.
The lobby group of CDMA mobile players like the Reliance Communications and the Tatas has accused that the government was favouring the GSM players while deciding the criteria for spectrum allocation and in its pricing.
MSN India, with over 360 million users worldwide, said its new partners were Reliance IndiaMobile (RIM), Reliance GSM, Tata Teleservices, Spice Punjab and Spice Karnataka.
The service is functional over 11 CDMA and 340 GSM networks across the world.
In his letter dated October 19, Anil Ambani points out that while the top three GSM players -- Bharti, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular -- have acquired an additional 52 million subscribers in the past few years without allocation of any additional spectrum, something they have constantly told the government that they do not have sufficiently.
The company said with the pack, customers can access data at Rs 10 per MB on international roaming while the base tariff is Rs 614.4 per MB. Outgoing voice calls to India can be made for Rs 40 per minute as compared to the base tariff of Rs 165 per minute.
Anil Ambani is eyeing the fast-growing GSM-based service with massive expansion plans in eight circles at an estimated investment of Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion).
New telecom operators such as Swan, Unitech, Datacom and Loop, and Reliance Communications have asked regulator Trai to reduce the termination charges, while existing GSM players, led by Bharti, want the 30 paise per minute charge to continue.
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