Himanshu Singh

airtel has launched a new plan at a monthly rent of 888. it offer 1000 mins of local plus STD calls to any operator. it also offers 1000 local plus national sms to any operator free every month. ocal calls to mobiles cost 30 paise and to landlines cost 50 paise while all STD calls cost Re.1. local and national sms beyond 1000 sms cost 50 paise.

Its another useless plan from Airtel. The actual rent including tax comes to Rs.997. So for about Rs.1000 one gets 1000 mins free. Its better to be in prepaid if thats the case. Instead of 1000 mins they should have given Rs.1000 discount every month. The only positive is the national free sms which is a first for GSM operator in Delhi. Moreover this plan could have given at least 500 mins of free on net calls every month. In my view the new plan c from MTNL is better as it offers unlimited on net calls free every month,Rs.500 discount on all kinds of usage except international calls, local calls to mobiles and fixed lines at 30 paise, local sms at 25 paise, std at 1.25.

its really a welcome move by the regulator. it has once again proved it could bite when required. all the orders were much needed and could not have come at a better time. MTNL already adheres to the order regarding the top up and also they dont have any concept of sms black out day. they dont require customers to send sms to get the benefits of reduced call charges. i am happy that other operators will also follow the rules now.

Dolphin postpaid has made changes in two of their postpaid plans wef september 1. Plan C/ CUG 499 Rent Rs.550/499 Free calls allowances Rs.550/499 Local on net calls unlimited free Local offnet calls@0.40 STD calls@1.25 Local sms@0.25, STD sms@1.00, Premium sms@1.00 The plan does not look very lucrative at first glance as we now have similar plans from private GSM operators where the effective rent is zero. What makes this plan hot? 1. Unlimited on net free calls, which means one can call all MTNL Trump, Dolphin, Garuda and Landlines for free. 2. Local calls to other mobiles/landlines cost only 40 paise per minute. If I were to assume that someone made only local calls, in these plans he could make 1375/1247 calls for free every month. 3. The usual sms tariff is better than other plans. The CUG plan offers 100 sms(50 local+50 national) free every month.

its only 349 for unlimited internet in delhi.

I did a manual search in Delhi and I got a new operator network IND 05 in Nokia set and 405 05 in Samsung set.

its going to be a flop show for airtel vodafone and iphone.

since this midnight idea is not showing location info on my hand set. in the place they have put up their promo advertisement. has someone else in delhi experiences the same thing today?

IPHONE is going to be a big failure in India. It lacks basic feaures like sms forwarding, mms,video recording and battery cant be replaced. Plus 3G will take atleast 1 year to come up in India. Plus its network locked and ridiculously high priced.

Bharti, Vodafone, BSNL agree to interconnect with RCOM TOI reports: A day before the expiry of telecom regulator Trai's directive, leading GSM players Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and BSNL are understood to have agreed to link with Reliance Communications' GSM network. Sources said while BSNL has decided to allow RCOM's GSM services on the existing points of interconnections, Bharti and Vodafone Essar have agreed to open up their mobile switching codes to the Anil Ambani Group company. "We are in consultation with Trai and a final decision will be taken on Thursday," a spokesperson of Bharti Airtel said. Earlier in the day, five other operators - MTNL, Aircel, Tata Communications, Spice and Idea Cellular - have agreed to open their networks to RCOM. This development comes a day before Trai's deadline to operators to give interconnections to RCOM or face penalty. With these latest developments, COAI, the GSM operators body which was planning to challenge Trai's directive on the interconnection in TDSAT, may not require to go to the tribunal as all the operators are learnt to have agreed to provide interconnections to RCOM. COAI director general T V Ramachandran was unavailable for comments. The move would pave way for RCOM's smooth GSM network rollout as its subscribers would be able to connect with other mobile users. On August 14, regulator Trai had asked GSM players Idea Cellular, BPL, Voadafone Essar and Bharti Airtel to interconnect with RCOM by August 21. It has also asked state-run BSNL to link up with RCOM. The GSM operators had earlier contested the claim by Reliance Communications to be provided interconnection for its GSM foray by reasoning that its GSM foray was part of a new licence and hence would require new negotiations. But the regulator had refuted this by saying that RCOM's GSM foray was part of the UASL and hence does not require any new negotiations. The GSM operators had said that their present agreement is restricted to provide interconnection to RCOM's CDMA network. Trai has cited it as a licensing condition for service providers to provide interconnection to other players, implying if a mobile operator does not give interconnection to another based on mutual commercial agreement, it is a violation of licence condition attracting penalty. Meanwhile, the Trai rejected any contention for renegotiation.

Airtel's days at the top are numbered. The countdown has begun.

Well at least the person agrees that he has nothing more or better to offer than what is already available in terms of pricing of products. I believe that the next round of battle is going to be for quality of services and not the pricing as the tariffs are already near rock bottom.

Guys I think Operators should be let free to decide whom to connect with and whom not to. I know it sounds foolish and would create chaos and confusion but seeing the way Airtel and Vodafone have behaved with Rcom i think Reliance should publicly announce that they dont wish to interconnect with Airtel and Vodafone. It wont put only Rcom subscribers at discomfort. Even Airtel and Vodafone customers will suffer. In fact I would go one step ahead and ask Rcom to stop interconnecting Airtel on its CDMA network till it agrees without any conditions to link with its GSM network. Hold the bullies by their horns Mr. Anil.

One thing I am not prepared to believe is the number of subscribers which the companies keep boasting of every month. I am sure they dont even know how many people dump them every month. It serves no purpose other than cornering spectrum( may be).

THE BEGINNING Idea cellular has been my personal favourite ever since I decided that I could have no more of Reliance's pathetic billing experiences. I got an Idea I card in April 2007 and till June 2008 I had no reasons to even question that decision.I knew Idea was a small fry when compared to Airtel, Reliance, Tata, MTNL or even Vodafone but I was not impressed by any of them save MTNL. HAPPY TIMES With I card I was able to call 5 STD numbers for Rs.1.32/min, send local or national sms@0.25.I have few local calls to make so local calls@1.99 was never a worry for me. And in case I needed to call local I had my MTNL which charged Re.1/min.All this when other operators were charging Rs.2.75/min for std calls, Rs.1.99for local calls,Re.1.20 for local sms and Rs.2 for std sms. I was very happy with I card which gave such benefits for daily rent of Re.1. When Idea launched Gang card I was again up for it. Gang to gang@0.10/min,Local mobille calls@0.50/min(Rs.2/min in evening), landlines@2/min, all sms for 0.10(25paise in evening), STD calls@2.75 but with 39 recharge it was @1/min for calls to mobiles only(only during happy hours). Within months Idea did a great thing. First it reduced local calls to Re.1/min during evening hours. Then soon it went a step ahead and reduced the local landline call rate to 0.50/min during happy hours. Further Idea removed the concept of happy and non happy hours for STD calls which meant that on a recharge of 39 all std calls, including calls to landline, cost Re.1/min for 24 hours. Idea went ahead and allowed special packs like sms pack, free idea to idea mins pack with Gang card which were not allowed earlier. THINGS GO WRONG! All this was happening and was good news for Idea subscribers. But since July there have been multiple problems with idea. 1. Idea's network has deteriorated during past 1 month. Incidents of call drops, congestion, phones not being reachable due to poor network have increased significantly. 2. Idea has increased the cost of most of its VAS services during past 30-40 days. For example I2I packs are more expensive now. GPRS plan which offered unlimited usage@5/day was increased to Rs.20/day. All India std pack which used to come for Rs.31 now comes for Rs.34. 3. Idea has first increased the talktime and then decreased it suddenly in case of most small denomination recharges like Rs.10( earlier 7.90 now 6.90) Rs.25(earlier 20.25 now 19.25) and even 100(earlier 89 now 85). 4. Full talktime on 333 used to come with Rs.333 normal talktime and 33 free I2I mins, 555 used to come with Rs.555 normal talktime and 110 I2I mins, 999 used to come with Rs.889 normal talkime and 889 I2I mins. Now all I2I free mins with Full talktime denominations are withdrawn. 5. All India STD calls were increased from Rs.1.30/min to Rs.1.50/min in Delhi circle wef July 16, 2008. WHAT WENT WRONG? I wondered as to why Idea was going through such a phase? The answer was not hard to find: 1.Idea Cellular had reported a 14.7 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 263.1 crore in the first quarter of this financial year due to forex losses and higher interest charges. 2.Idea had applied for the licenses of Punjab and Karnataka when it applied for a pan-india gsm license. It has already paid the license fee amounting to Rs.350 crores for these two circles.The Department of Telecom has said that the company will have to surrender its licence in Punjab and Karnataka without getting a refund of entry fee paid for these circles to avoid overlapping of service areas. This obviously was not something Idea's think tank had anticipated. They hoped that they would get the refund of the entry free paid to the DoT. 3. DoT’s decision also means that the B K Modi Group may also stand to lose money it paid for acquiring licences in Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra circles as Idea Cellular already has operations in these circles. 4.Idea Cellular has coughed up nearly Rs 3,500 crore for the acquisition of Spice, including the Rs 543.97-crore it paid as a non-compete fee to the BK Modi Group. 5. Idea is expanding its services to Mumbai and Bihar by the end of this quarter which incurs capital expenditure HOPE AND REALITY Now the question remains will Idea be back to what it was? 1.It still remains a good proposition for prepaid users due to gang card. 2.The customer care executive can be accessed within 60 seconds of dialling the number unlike Airtel where it is a harrowing experience to get to a talking soul. 3.The talktime offerings are still better than all other operators in Delhi. I hope Idea gets well soon!

Business standard reports: The new telecom licensees, which are planning to start operations in rural and semi-urban sectors, are likely to end up earning from only entry-level customers. This, experts say, will bring down the industry’s average revenue per user (ARPU), which is used to measure a telecom company’s financial strength. This is alarming for the industry, which is already grappling with the ever-sliding ARPU and is looking at measures to arrest this decline. Most new players are expected to start operations with an ARPU of as low as Rs 100 per month. This is almost one-third the existing ARPU (for both pre- and post-paid customers) of around Rs 280 per month. The new players, including Videocon-controlled Datacom Solutions, Unitech, Shyam Sistema, Swam Telecom, STel and Essar Group firm Loop Telecom, are expected to start operations by the end of this year. Also, existing GSM operators like Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications are looking at expanding into new circles. A Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official said: “To get a headstart, the new entrants will be looking at starting operations in ‘B’ and ‘C’ circles where there is not much competition. This means they will acquire entry-level subscribers, resulting in a low ARPU.” The ARPU from rural and remote circles will be less than even this. “For the entry-level players, this means initial losses,” he adds. According to Frost & Sullivan’s Principal Consultant (ICT Practice, South Asia and West Asia) Sourabh Kaushal, the companies’ ARPU will depend on the strategy they adopt to increase their subscriber base. If the companies are to start operations with urban and rural circles, chances are that the ARPU will be much lower than the industry average, he says. The companies would also be looking at a huge churn (users moving from one service provider to another). However, Datacom Solutions (a subsidiary of Videocon Industries) CEO Ravi Sharma has a different view. “Most new entrants will be looking at increasing their subscriber base and according to a recent study, the churn in the industry stands at around 3.5 per cent per month. This, on an annual basis, will be around 42 per cent of the 287 million subscribers in the country,” Sharma said. This provides the new players an opportunity, he says.

This plan is good only for people having high local usage. I dont think people with high std usage would like to opt for the above plan. Paying 500 for without getting any free std mins is not that lucrative after all. There are better options available in postpaid with reliance and tata.

Yes dear friend you are right. But sometimes it also happens the other way around. For example: 1. Roaming rates were first slashed by MTNL Mumbai and not MTNL Delhi. 2. The jadu pack 49 which cuts local call rate to 49paise/min has already been launched in Mumbai. But you would be surprised to know that despite having advertised about this pack since July 1, 2008 and an sms pack(600 local sms free for Rs.30) in Delhi, MTNL is yet to make them available at any of their sanchar hats or elsewhere. 3. The security deposit for ISD calls were first slashed by MTNL Mumbai followed by Delhi.

MTNL has slashed the broad band charges in Delhi. for details one is advised to call up their help line. for unlimited plan of 899 the monthly charge is reduced to 599 from september 1.

True. its going to be offered by others soon, i think.

Manoj kumar,the legendary actor, won a suit against om shanti om and its director and producers for the insulting portrayal of him. the court has ordered a permanent injunction of the scenes where manoj kumar has been lampooned.the court also directed sony tv to delete those scenes when telecasting it later this month.

Days after offering increased talk time Idea seems to have done what it does best- a shameful u-turn. In latest trick it has decreased talk time from 20.25 to 19.25 on a top up of 25 and from 89 to 85 on a top up of 100. Its the same things Idea did for its STD rates, first decreasing it to 1.30 and then increasing it to 1.50. What an Idea, What a shame!

what this constant chopping and changing does is to rob the customers because these changes are made suddenly and without proper advertisement. customers tend to recharge with the older denomination for special tariff but they would end up getting only topup talk time and not their desired benefit. how ethical is it? for example, if an unaware idea customer wants to get the reduced std tariff of re.1 per min. he would go to the dealer and ask for a 31 recharge but he will only get talk time and not the desired thing. similarly if one gets a 30 or 50 recharge he wont get any free mins but only talktime. all this for no fault of his.

after increasing the std pack cost from 31 to 34 in delhi, idea has now increased the cost of a few other add on packs which shows their short sightedness and cunning attitude at the same time. the 100 mins idea to idea pack now costs 36 as compared to 30 earlier. similarly the 200 mins idea to idea pack now costs 60 now as compared to 50 earlier. what is next?-should be idea slogan than samsung.

friends i dont know if its true that airtel has stopped giving location info on handsets. i would request someone using airtel in bihar to share his experience.