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Tata woos Virgin for telecom alliance When the entire nation is engrossed in the unfolding Hutch drama, another landmark deal is in the works. Two of the world's most admired business leaders — Ratan Tata of the Tata Group and Richard Branson of the Virgin empire — are coming together for an alliance in India's telecom landscape. A source familiar with the development said the Virgin Group is in talks with Tata Teleservices to introduce Virgin Mobile brand in India. Globally, Virgin Mobile's business strategy is to act as a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) which buys bulk space from an existing wireless company and resell it under the Virgin brand. However, this model is not yet allowed in India. (For instance: Virgin Mobile has a tie-up with Bell in Canada, while it has an alliance with Sprint in the US). Instead, Virgin is planning to become an exclusive franchisee of Tata Teleservices which is permitted in India. For this, a new entity largely owned by Tata Teleservices will be formed. The products and services will be bundled under Virgin name, supported by the services provided by Tata Teleservices. The source added that discussions so far has been good and if all goes well with the regulatory approvals in place, Virgin Mobile would be launched in April this year. When contacted, a Tata group spokesperson declined to comment. In simple words, there would be two brands -- Tata Indicomm and Virgin. Tata Indicomm positioned as a mass market brand, while Virgin would be positioned as a youth brand pitted against brands like Hutch. This is been done as Tata Indicomm does not appeal to everyone in terms of popularity and appeal. Tata Indicomm has already established itself in the mass market category while Richard Branson's touch could bring in more subscribers. This comes at a crucial time when Dayanidhi Maran, Union minister of communications and IT, is pushing to promote passive (mobile tower sites) and active infrastructure (branding, service alliances) sharing, which would help companies to reduce its cost of rolling out services. Though wireless subscribers in India have already crossed the 100-million mark, making India one of the top five markets in the world, still more than 50% of the population is to be covered by mobile services. For the British billionaire, this is part of his strategy to expand his businesses — telecom, radio, food and beverages, financial services — in India. In 2005, Branson launched his airline Virgin Atlantic's flight services in India. Tata Teleservices pioneered the CDMA technology platform in India and it serves 13 million customers in over 2,500 towns in India. Its customer base increased thanks to its hugely successful schemes like ‘non-stop’ and 'don't stop'. Recently, Tata Teleservices saw a change in ownership structure with NRI businessman C Sivasankaran's Sterling Infotech group and Singapore government's private equity arm Temasek acquiring stakes in the company.

CDMA players say impact limited ‘’We have ensured that there will be no negative impact on the operators and so that their expansion plans are not hit,” Mr Mishra said. He also added “Trai would closely monitor market developments on roaming and if perceptible competition evolves in the market, it would revisit the issue and even consider forbearing roaming tariffs”. CDMA players said that the telecom regulatory authority of India directive would have a negligible impact on their subscribers as these operators allowed roaming only within their networks. “The impact will not be more than Rs 20 crore annually,” Reliance Communication sources told ET but added that increased volumes would offset the impact. Responding to the Trai directive, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the body representing all GSM operators said, the micro management of tariffs for value added services (such as roaming) would force service providers to review their entire tariff structure in order to maintain the sustainability of their businesses. “The decline in roaming tariffs would most likely necessitate an increase in local call tariffs as roaming tariffs were hitherto being priced at a level which allowed the operators to offer the overall most economically affordable services to their consumers. This would adversely affect the low end and marginal consumers who may now have to pay higher rates for basic local connectivity,” said COAI director-general TV Ramachandran. Endorsing the same line, India’s leading mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, said: “We believe that the policy of forbearance of mobile tariffs which has been followed has worked extremely well and has enabled market forces and competition to provide the best value to the customers.” “We therefore believe that a selective departure from policy of forbearance is unnecessary and unwarranted, particularly when certain services are currently being offered below cost,” Airtel said.

Hi Punnet, We are really gonna miss you...All the best dude

This rebranding exercise will definetly help TATA to increase revenue. I think it is the right step at the right moment by Ratan TATA. But i think still this has to be cleared by central ministry and DOT..lets wait and watch

Hi Anuj, Based on what parameters you are saying Airtel and HUTCH MMS service is good. Can you please elaborate.

Yeah, I tried this and it works very much fine. Any yahoo user can send sms to ur mobile. He will be allowed to send 3 message at the max ( If you are not replying). I was charged Rs 3 ( as special messages).

But NAV of the SBI ELSS fund is more...so better to go for fresh ELSS funds, where in lot of growth potential will be there. Reliance ELSS fund will also be fine as its NAV is still at Rs15

Thats true Rajeev..It could be small price. But when they intend to give ring tones as complimentary and send out a message, they should take enough care to send right keyword or code. I am using Nokia 6235. And this error doesnt seems to be s/w incompatibility issue. It clearly says invalid/wrong keyword or code, which in turn unable to retrieve the ringtone from their database. Even if Reliance doesnt provide free ringtone i am not bothered, but sending this type of messages(which says free) and unable to download, will really irritate customer. I got 7 messages(one per day) for last one week and all have failed to open.

For past one week, daily i am receiving one message from Reliance mobile world saying Free Ringtone, Free Video etc. But when i try to open, it says Invalid keyword or code. Stupid people. They are sending messages which are of no use. And definetly they will be charging connection charges of 10p/min.

Hi, Is there any possibility for temporary disconnection for Reliance Netconnect connection with datacard. Becoz my friend own a datacard and he is going to onsite for short term and he dont want to pay rental during this period. So we wants tempory disconnection on the same. Pls confirm whether this is possible or not?

Thank you very much for your Information.

Can anybody tell me where can i get RUIM enabled in Bangalore

Hi friends, Reliance has released one more lowend handset which is priced at Rs1599. Its a B&W phone with color film background for display screen. It has 32 preloaded poly tones with ringtone download capability through SMS. Phonebook storing capability for 300nos...

I think Radio One has to vacate that frequency and move on to 94.3. Even Radio Mirchi in Blore did the same at Bangalore by moving from 93.3 to 98.3 and made way for BIG FM launch. I think the freq gap should be atleast 0.8 Mhz as i noticed in Blore the channel freq as below Radio City--91 Radio Indigo--91.9 Big FM--92.7 Vacant(presently)---93.5 Radio one---94.3 Mirchi---98.3 BIG FM is completely with local flavour...Blore being a cosmo city, they should play more HINDI songs apart from local language songs..

All these tone are from RWorld only. This is one kind of promotion to give awareness to the customers abt ringtones offered by Reliance. Infact i had received quiet few, which could be saved at free of cost. And recently i received a one which said preview--free of cost, ringtone save--Rs10 If u miss it now, u can always search it in Rworld if u know the name of the tone.

Will i get Mumbai circle prepaid no or any other circle of my choice. Becoz i want one AP prepaid no

Hi Meher, Can i use TATA motorazr on Reliance network by purchasing Reliance RUIM card?

I read in a telugu news paper that it got launched in HYD yesterday....any update from HYD guys??

I feel this move will extensively help Reliance and partly for Airtel. As Reliance wants to starts its GSM services in all parts of India, It could go with infrastructure sharing with Airtel whereever it is already presents. Reliance is using its BTS shelter for its wireline services too in Top 29 cities. So already there is lot of space constraint in these shelters to accommodate new equipment. So reliance may use Airtel towers in these top cities and can lease out its infrastructer in remote areas to Airtel.

Nokia 6235 can store up to 70 sms..irrespective of memory available.

Yup..Airtel can definetly offer this eventhough its not commercially viable for them. Because it gives them a big psychological advantage over Reliance and also it can tarnish image of Rel comm a bit if not it affects it business.

Yup...Reliance is implementing this proj in very fast pace...It is deploying soft switches for the same. Lucent is working day and night for the implementation. And Lucent has come up with their latest s/w releases for MSC which is being getting implemented now as per my friend from Lucent and Reliance. Lets see..how these things are going to change our mobile experiance..

Hi...since two days i am seeing that all categories except HotNnew section are missing in my Reliance world menu....i am using Nokia 6235 handset. When i called up CC and asked for a help...they are asking me to visit nokia service centre..can anybody tell why this is happening...and help me to resolve the issue.. Note-->I am able to access Reliance world and also able to use the applications in HotNnew...but not able to see any other categories in the main menu

even i felt the same and requested cc guy to take my complaint and forward it to their technical team for solution..but they are straightaway denying that they dont have any issue with their server and if at all it is there all the customers will get affected. so they asked me contact nokia service centre for s/w reloading. I am really confused, how can my s/w gets corrupted suddenly? If at all it is corrupted, how come i am able to use applications in Hotn New section..? problem got resolved by itself..donno how...anyways my Reliance mobile world is working fine now.

Reliance has released one more low end model targetting tier2 and tier3 cities, from UTStarcom. UTStarcom is basically a Network equipment manufacturer from china. This is a B&W handset with all basic features in it which is priced at Rs1600. Features of the Handset: a) Sleek,bar type, elegant b ) B&W display c) Supports R-world but doesnt support R-connect d) 12 preloaded polyphonics tones e) Group sms f) phone book of 100X4