Arun

Business Standard Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, has admitted that Reliance Infocomm faced logistics, billing and collection problems. However, it has “met this challenge with fortitude and confidence”. In his statement to shareholders at the RIL’s 30th annual general meeting here today, Ambani pointed out that problems were owing to unprecedented response for its Monsoon Hungama scheme. Within 10 days of the launch of this scheme, the company received applications from over a million subscribers. Ambani pointed out that Reliance Infocomm has created a world record by posting an operating cash profit in its first year of operation. However, it had to respond to the situation and resort to a conservative measure of providing for bad debts amounting to Rs 436 crore. The cash profit, after provision of bad debt was Rs 160 crore, depreciation and amortisation was Rs 550 crore which resulted in a net loss o Rs 390 crore. Ambani said “as in the past, very soon the Reliance Infocomm team would have put these problems behind an the customer will see a discernible difference’. Answering a shareholder’s query, Ambani categorically pointed out, “let us give Reliance Infocomm three-year timeframe. We will be proud of it”. Commenting on the services of the company, Ambani said the company was expanding its services from about 1,100 towns to about 5,000 towns in a phases, “in order to reach unserved markets”. After the second phase of expansion, Reliance Infocomm services will be available to over 100,000 villages and will have a capacity to cater to 40 million mobile subscribers.

Reuters - Thursday, June 24, 2004 India's private mobile phone carriers are seeking a license fee reduction and the removal of custom duties on telecom gear and handsets to cut expansion costs and boost usage, their industry body said. The Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) has submitted proposals to the finance ministry and says some policy changes may be announced on July 8, when the new government presents the annual budget. India's 36-million-strong wireless market is the world's fastest-growing, attracting about 1.5 million new users each month owing to rock-bottom tariffs. But the hotly competitive sector is heavily taxed by the government, which collects close to a third of the industry's revenue as various taxes, including permit and spectrum costs. "Reduction in duties, levies and taxes would lead to a reduction in costs of roll-outs to remote areas," AUSPI said. "Net additions can be doubled to approximately 2.5-3.0 million each month." Carriers are seeking a zero import duty on the mobile equipment used to build out networks, whereas current duties vary between 20 to 30 percent. Firms are also petitioning for a reduction in custom duties on mobile phones and fixed wireless terminals to loosen the grip of the smuggled goods sector on the industry. Import duties on handsets and basic phones range between 5 and 27 percent, AUSPI said in a statement. India's under-penetrated mobile sector, where about 4 in a 100 people own a handset compared with more than 20 in China, has been a magnet for global telecom gear and phone makers, who are suffering from tepid demand in near saturated markets elsewhere. Major mobile service providers include Reliance Infocomm Ltd, a unit of petrochemicals giant Reliance Industries Ltd, the Tata group, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd and state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

Please note that the 'Technical/Programming' forum will be available for members only from today. So you will have to register in the forum after accepting the Terms of Conditions, in order to access the 'Technical/Programming' forum.

Press Trust of India / Mumbai June 20,2004 Reliance Infocomm has embarked upon second phase of expansion to add another 60,000 km of optical fibre network to the existing one lakh km covering entire country and has planned to invest Rs 5,000 crore in the current fiscal taking total investment to Rs 20,000 crore. The company has already invested between Rs 12,000 crore and 15,000 crore in the infocomm business which mainly covered its wireless telecom operations, sources said, adding that now the company's focus has shifted to broadband as the mobile telephony has been streamlined. Asked about the total investment in the telecom project, sources said the company is planning to invest up to Rs 30,000 crore. With a view to offer broadband services on the optical fibre network and on its own last mile link on copper network between the exchange to the last mile (household or customer premises), Reliance Infocom has targeted to cover 1000 towns over the three years. Though at most of the locations the company would be laying copper network for last mile link, at some locations Reliance would be offering broadband services through wireless technology where copper laying would not be a viable option. The company has planned to cover the four metros and 'A' class cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad in the first year ending March 2005, covering 'B' and 'C' class cities by 2007.

I thought Saurav mentioned about the Web Mail app in 'R-World'. Yeah, for R-Surf access, Gmail should allow WAP access.

Check out this post, MasterMind

It isn't possible saurav, Gmail doesn't provide POP access.

Maybe an access charge of Rs.30 per month ?

I don't think you can start a fresh insurance now, unless they start such an offer.

Any idea where you can get local ones ?

Vishal, you expect someone to reply to your post and send you in an invitation in a gap of less than 4 hours ? Don't you have any kind of patience ?

Here's my first ringtone Didi - by Khaled Enjoy ! didi.dat

Invited you now, aman

USB cable did not work for me. So I brought a serial cable (for Rs.275) and it worked perfectly !

Some member has pointed out that the subscription rate is on 'prorata basis' as it was charged like that in his bill (activated after August 2003). This needs to be confirmed as RIM officials say it is a monthly flat fee rental. See this post.

And such a chip is present now only on the LG RD 7230 handset.

Now where the hell does this date pop up from? Its mentioned at RelianceInfo.com too...

Other than LG RD 7230, which all handsets support CDMA 2000 1X EvDO technology ?

Invitation sent to Sanay

The 'All about 93' option was available only for a few hours (also many other new options like: 'Instant Chat', ''Video Messages', 'Auctions', 'RIM Employee DIR', were there for some time. But it was removed later. I went through all options in 'All about 93', and and as far as I remember, it had information about an application for automatically converting RIM numbers stored in your handset to the new numbering format. Then, you will be notified by SMS if you call the old format number. For a period of 3 weeks, the calls you make to the old numbering format will be diverted to the new number. After that period, you will get voice reply that the number has been changed. You can get premium numbers too. The last 5 digits will be retained but not in all cases. You will need STD facility to have roaming. You will be notified by SMS about your new number 1 week before it is going to change and the day on which the number changes, you will get another confirmation message. The changeover to the new number will be done in batches. Well thats all i can remember

Go for it tanveer. Try it at Web World before you buy anyway.

No POP access for GMail ? Dont worry... check out PGTG to download your GMails to your Outlook Express !

This facility is not available on RIM handsets currently. Maybe they'll start it soon.

Does anyone have more information/confirmation about the following news posted at The Telegraph website on June 14th, 2004 ?

Press Trust of India, MARCH 05, 2004 Source: Times of India MUMBAI: Reliance Infocomm is targeting around 25-30 per cent growth rate of the industry total of two to 2.5 million subscribers per month in the current year, even as it has garnered a subscriber base of around 3.5-4 lakh connections for its recently launched pre-paid connections. "Indian telephony industry is growing at a rapid pace and we are aiming at a marketshare of around 25-30 per cent, which would give us a commendable presence by the end of the year," Reliance group chairman and managing director Mukesh D Ambani told reporters here on Friday. "The company's total post-paid subscriptions were over 6.3 million connections, he said. Reliance Infocomm is also planning to build on its existing partnership with LG Electronics, a major CDMA handset provider to the company. Apart from LG Electronics, the company would also strengthen its existing partnership with Samsung, Nokia and the recently included Motorola, he said. On the infusement of capital to Reliance Infocomm, Ambani said that the company was looking at all options and would "take appropriate decision". Reliance group director Nikhil Meswani said that the company was planning to offer international roaming over its CDMA handsets, which would enable the user to globe-trot without changing the handset or number. However, he did not specify a date for the proposed launch, citing tests were being conducted on this front.