savramesh

^^^ thanks deepak for the translation.. 'rvcd' instead of 'rcvd' confused me..

^^^ what is it ???

Business Line Wednesday, Apr 22, 2009 Bangalore April 21 Wipro Technologies, the global IT arm of Wipro Ltd, has acquired the Mobile Broadcast Solutions unit of cellular handset maker Nokia for an undisclosed sum. The 40-employee enterprise mobile TV unit develops software and hardware that enables mobile TV technology on the phone to find and access the broadcasting network. Wipro officials did not comment on the buyout citing silent period ahead of the company’s annual results on Wednesday. However, Reuters quoted company spokesman from Helsinki saying “We wanted to focus on the consumer side of things, the mobile TV client in the devices, rather than on the business-to-business side.” The Nokia Mobile Broadcast Solution is basically a DVB-H (digital video broadcast – handheld) server platform for offering commercial mobile TV services. Nokia had clients such as KPN, a mobile TV service provider in Europe, and MiTV Corporation Sdn Bhd in Malaysia for its broadcast solution. The buyout of mobile TV unit is the second such acquisition of Nokia’s assets by Wipro in recent years. Nokia is one of the key customers of Wipro. Two years ago Wipro had acquired the Berlin-based, 58-engineer R&D unit of Nokia Siemens Networks that focussed on radio access technologies. Wipro shares ended flat at Rs 274.25 on the BSE on Tuesday, while the BSE IT index shed 1.6 percentage points to end at 2420.98.

^^^ checked, its no where written...

The Economic Times 20 Apr 2009, 0557 hrs IST Institutional Holding* 14.8% Dividend Yield: - P/E: 17.1 M-Cap : Rs 16,766 cr CMP: Rs 54.1 *As of March' 09 IDEA Cellular, the fifth largest mobile operator in the country, made large investments in FY09, including the acquisition of Spice Communications, to expand its operations. They are likely to pay off this year with the company improving its margins and keeping the rapid growth in revenues intact. Future growth prospects in the booming Indian telecom industry and cheaper valuations compared to its peers make Idea a good stock to consider at the current level with a horizon of two years. Business: Idea Cellular, a part of the Aditya Birla group, provides telecom services based on GSM (global system for mobile communications) technology . Idea, which has licences and radio frequencies to operate in all the 22 service areas or telecom circles in the country, is active in 15 circles. It has about 15% share in the GSM user base, with 43 million subscribers, just behind BSNL, the third largest GSM operator with 16% market share. In June ‘08, Idea acquired Spice Communications, which offered GSM mobile services in Punjab and Karnataka . Idea also started operations in Mumbai and Bihar last fiscal. All these, plus the impressive gains in other circles, helped the company increase its user base by 72% in FY09. Idea has seen a gradual decline in its average revenue per user (ARPU) per month over the last few quarters. However, the fall is substantially lower compared to its peers. In the December ‘08 quarter, its ARPU fell by 4.7% to Rs 266 from the year-ago levels. During the same period, Bharti Airtel’s ARPU dropped by 9% to Rs 324, while Reliance Communications (RCom) saw a steep decline of 20% at Rs 271. Idea has also seen an improvement in the usage pattern of its subscribers. It reported an 8.8% jump in minutes of usage per user per month (MoUs) at 410 minutes during the December ‘08 quarter. For Bharti, MoUs increased by 7% to 505 minutes whereas RCom witnessed a sharp drop of 8.7% in MoUs at Rs 449. Revenue from non-voice segments known as value added services (VAS) has seen a gradual improvement for Idea in line with the industry leader Bharti. Idea’s VAS revenue as a percentage of ARPU rose from 8% in the December ‘07 quarter to 9.5% in the quarter ended December ‘08. During the said period, Bharti’s share of VAS revenue remained steady at 9.5%, while for Rcom, it crawled from 6.4% to 7.4%. Growth drivers: Idea Cellular plans to expand into Tamil Nadu and Jammu and Kashmir in FY10. Idea’s operations are expected to stabilise over the next two-three quarters. The operations in Punjab, Karnataka, Mumbai and Bihar are likely to turn profitable during this period. Post-Spice acquisition, Idea had witnessed a gradual slump in customer base in Punjab and Karnataka. But now, it is on the recovery path. While Idea has already regained its subscriber base in Punjab, it has got the momentum going in Karnataka too. Apart from the basic wireless operations, Idea is focussing on international long distance (ILD) operations , using Spice’s infrastructure. Idea is already providing ILD services to Sri Lankan operators and is in talks with operators in Europe and the US. Until now, Idea was using services from other operators to terminate ILD calls. Now, it will not have to pay carriage charges to other players. Financial performance: Idea’s revenues have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 46% in the five years ended March ‘08. Its operations turned profitable in FY05 and the net profit has increased more than 10 times since then. In the December ‘08 quarter, its revenues shot up 53.2% year-on-year to Rs 2,620.9 crore. Earnings before depreciation , interest, tax and amortisation (EBDITA) rose 22.5% to Rs 569.4 crore. Net profit, however, grew just about 8% to Rs 256.2 crore, following higher depreciation and increased operating expenses due to entry into new circles. Valuations: At the current price of over Rs 56, Idea attracts the cheapest valuation among the top three listed mobile operators (see table). Its enterprise value (EV) is close to seven times its EBITDA. Idea’s value per subscriber is also much lower than that of the other two. RINGING NUMBERS Idea Cellular holds 16% stake in the teleocm tower company Indus Towers. Bharti Airtel and Vodafone are other partners in the company Idea along with Spice Communications, which it acquired last June and Aditya Birla Telecom operates in 15 out of 22 telecom circles in the country IT caters to 43 million subscribers across circles and covers 58% of the population in the country Over 94% of its mobile revenue comes from prepaid customers, which has grown from 92.6% a year ago The rate at which it loses its prepaid customers is more than its postpaid churn. However, the prepaid churn has come down . to 4.4% from 4.9% a year ago. In the same period, its postpaid churn has dropped from 2.9% to 2.7% While share of its revenue from value added services has increased from 8% to 9.5% in a year, average realised rate per user has fallen from 74 pais to 64 paise With a manpower of 6,670, Idea has covered 1,37,585 villages and towns as of December’ 08

=>rcdma, rgsm and aircel sim working perfectly.. others did not check.. =>phone says "insert uim" when mts is used, but able to receive mts calls eventhough network not showing in phone ... mts is perfect in nokia 6265.. =>"no seriel number for battery"..

Tata Tele asks govt to process 3 GSM licences Economic Times 21 Apr 2009, 0013 hrs IST NEW DELHI: Tata Teleservices has demanded that the government process its applications for GSM licences and spectrum in three circles — Assam, North East and J&K — even as it maintained that there is no change in its plans to spend $2 billion in capital expenditure over the next two years. Currently, Tata Teleservices, India’s fifth-largest operator, uses CDMA technology to offer mobile services and accounted for about 34 million of the country’s 375.74 million mobile users as on February-end. Last year, Tata Teleservices had announced that it would spend $2 billion in capital expenditure for network rollout, while adding that a bulk of this would be spent for GSM launch. “We are on track. This amount ($2 billion) has been committed. We will be launching GSM services, starting with the South Indian states in a few weeks,” Telco managing director Anil Sardana said on Monday. While Tatas have got GSM licences in 19 of the 22 telecom circles, the company’s plans for the remaining circles has received a setback. This is because, an internal wing of the Department of Telecom (DoT) had recently proposed that Tatas’ applications for the remaining three circles not be processed and it be bundled with the 343 other pending applications for telecom licences. DoT’s logic was that the company had applied late for licences and spectrum in these three circles. “We hope that our request for grant of in-principle approval to use GSM technology in Assam, North East and J&K is being processed by DoT. In the absence of the in-principle approval, we are put to significant competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis other GSM operators who have a pan-India presence,” Mr Sardana said in a communication to DoT. Mr Sardana, in his communication has also said that despite Tata Teleservices having obtained CDMA licences in these three circles only last year, it has already rolled out mobile services on this technology platform in ‘a record period of eight months’. On the other hand, other telcos who were given licences, at the same time, are yet to rollout services, Mr Sardana added. Among the 19 circles where Tatas have got GSM licences, the company has received spectrum (radio frequencies or airwaves on which telecom signals travel) in all areas except Delhi. “We are a little concerned about Delhi and will be taking up the issue with the government,” he added. Tata Teleservices on Monday also announced the launch of ‘Quickfinder A-GPS’ (Assisted Global Positioning System) service, which is the first-of-its-kind location-based service in India. Quickfinder will deliver advanced location-based services, enabling consumers and enterprises to pin-point locations of interest or track vehicles and consignments from origin to destination in real time, the company said in a statement.

Earpiece volume is good loudspeaker volume is good headphone sound for fm is also good supports mp3 and midi ringtones, but didnot find option to add 'user tone' no gallery gsm call conference and cdma call conference available.. handset weight is reasonable. battery back up need to be checked.. right now its only 8 hrs usage after first charging.. overall seems to be cheap and best for those who use phone only for calls..

Dual standby, both numbers active at the same time. two signal bars with tag 'G' and 'C' =>seperate slot for gsm sim and cdma ruim.. cannot be swapped.. =>Line 1 is set for gsm and line 2 is set for cdma. =>firmware option to select default standby either gsm or cdma or both.. =>two call buttons for gsm call and cdma call.. =>for all incoming calls and outgoing calls there will be a tag "gsm calling" or "cdma calling" =>no gprs or wap support. =>two seperate sms inbox,outbox for gsm and cdma =>contacts options -> show sim contacts only or show ruim contacts only or show phone contacts only or show both.. =>preferred contacts storage - sim or ruim or phone =>phone supports 1000 contacts [fields -> name, number,home#,email, office#, fax, custom tone, birthday] =>call setup-> gsm call id, gsm call waiting, gsm call divert, gsm call barring, gsm ip, cdma call id, cdma callwaiting,cdma call forward, cdma call blocking, cdma ip and call guard =>phone supports 700 sms =>security- sim lock, ruim lock, phone lock, auto keypad lock =>games - puzzle and panda =>organizer - fm radio, calender,todo, alarm, world clock, calculator, unit and currency converter =>service menu for gsm

Tata Teleservices to roll out GSM services soon The Hindu Monday, April 20, 2009 : 1525 Hrs New Delhi (IANS): Tata Teleservices Ltd, one of the leading mobile telephone service providers in the country using CDMA technology, Monday said it has earmarked $2 billion as capital expenditure for rolling out services through the other technology, GSM. "We will roll out GSM services in few weeks," company managing director Anil Sardana told reporters here. Tata'a move will make it the second private telecom company offering services on both CDMA and GSM platforms, after Reliance Communication (R-Com). R-Com launched GSM services earlier this year. State-run telecom companies, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) are also offering both technologies.

Tata Tele draws up $2-bn capex plan for GSM mobile service Economic Times 20 Apr 2009, 1822 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: Tata group mobile service company Tata Teleservices Ltd, in which Japan's NTT DoCoMo has a 26 per cent stake, has drawn up a capex plan of USD two billion in 2009-10 for launching GSM-based mobile services. "We have a capex (plan) of USD two billion for the current fiscal (2009-10) for launching GSM services. The service will be launched in a few weeks," TTSL MD Anil Sardana said today after the company's launch of a value-added service. Tata Teleservices, India's fifth-largest mobile operator in terms of subscribers, operates on the CDMA technology, but is also expanding its services on GSM platform after the government's nod to telcos for using dual technology of GSM and CDMA on a single licence. The company has 35 million subscribers. He said the company has received spectrum (for GSM) in all circles, except in Delhi, and would start launching GSM mobile services in southern states soon followed by eastern India. Sardana said the company is waiting for statutory approval for the merger of its tower arm with Quippo Telecom. TTSL, in January, merged its tower arm with Quippo Telecom, a pure play towers company, to create a Rs 13,000-crore entity with 18,000 towers -- making it the second largest firm in terms of number of towers.

today i bought usha lexus 878D gsm+cdma dual sim phone for 3500.. i will post the experience tonight.. in the mean time if anyone have questions about the handset then pls post it here..

Business Standard Monday, Apr 20, 2009 Entrants’ financing need a useful latchkey Innovative financing options for the new telecom operators may be just the deal clincher for Chinese equipment vendors, now competing with European ones, in the Indian market. The European vendors dominate the market here, with over half the share. Recently, Chinese equipment vendor ZTE inked a deal with Essar group-promoted Loop Telecom. It is also in talks with Swan Telecom, Unitech and Datacom, all new operators. The company has also got a contract with the latest entrant in the CDMA segment, Sistema-Shyam, to provide national rollout of their services, together with ZTE handsets. All new operators are expected to spend about $1-3 billion on equipment, an addressable opportunity of at least $5-6 billion in the next three years. “There is not much difference in quality in any of the equipment vendors in the market. Therefore, the edge is dependent on financing options given by the vendors and innovative ways of structuring the contract,” said Prashant Singhal, telecom analyst, Ernst & Young. And added: “It’s easier now for equipment vendors to win new customers, rather than replacing existing players. So, they will get their fair share of incremental opportunity. Also due to their hunger for expansion, they will provide new operators the flexibility in spending and contract they (the latter) require.” ZTE claims its main advantage over incumbents is the financing options it provides following its five-year agreement with China Development Bank, which will provide ZTE a $15 billion credit line, including ZTE’s overseas project financing and ZTE’s credit limit. Says DK Ghosh, chairman and managing director of ZTE Telecom India, “All the new operators have to comply by the rollout obligations put down by the government, so a faster rollout is the key for which we provide them with financing capabilities. Also impacted by the global financial problem, the other players are not able to invest in R&D and innovation, which the Chinese companies are able to do now.” ZTE’s Chinese counterpart, Huawei, has also tied up with Sistema-Shyam and is looking to get its share of the new operators’ pie. A Huawei spokesperson said, “We entered the Indian market at the right time and that is what gave us the advantage. Most of the new operators have already joined hands with one or the other foreign operators, so it is hard to predict how they will place their orders.” It was estimated that service providers would place orders worth $15-20 billion over the next 24 months, of which Chinese equipment suppliers were expected to bag half. Besides business from new operators, ZTE and Huawei have also bagged deals from incumbents like BSNL, Tata Teleservices , Reliance Communications, Vodafone and Idea Cellular. ZTE’s sales revenue is $1 billion, a 30 per cent growth as compared to last year. Huawei in India has grown from earning $180 million in sales in 2006 to $1.5 billion in 2008. “Chinese players are very fierce competitors; they compete on price, which is very important for a market like India. But we have over 6,000 employees in India, along with strong customer support and a stronger research and development presence in India that gives us an edge over the other players, since we can also deploy equipment faster,” says Vivek Mohan, managing director, India regional unit, Alcatel-Lucent. Mohan is optimistic that with time, the experience his company has in India will pay off in the long run. “All across the globe, there has been the trend of price competitiveness. But, after a year or two, the situation rationalises. Also, when volumes increase, the price is bound to rationalise,” said Mohan. Says an executive of another leading telecom equipment vendor: “These Chinese players are doing extremely well in the market, but as for increase in market share, you also have to take into account the growth the entire market has seen, so they’re getting their share.” Adding: “The new operators have a Herculean task to deploy their network at minimum cost and yet have maximum coverage, so the Chinese players are capitalising on that.”

Telecom Tiger 20 Apr 2009 Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer is reportedly set to bag the GSM rollout contract from new entrant Swan Telecom, reports the Business Line. While the report says that Swan is expected to appoint two partners for the network rollout, Ericsson is certain to bag a part of the network. Ericsson had been left out in the race to bag contracts from new entrants. Till now Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE had bagged significant part of the contracts from the new entrants. Ericsson however has been a dominant player when it comes to network rollout of incumbent operators such as Airtel, Vodafone Essar. India market remains to be one of the major contributors to the company’s revenues. The Swan deal is likely to include managed services as well.

Times of India 20 Apr 2009, 0000 hrs IST BSNL puts 3G network plans on hold Ahmedabad : State-owned BSNL has put on hold its ambitious 3G network plans for Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. The problem being that Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) has mandated a fine of Rs 50,000 for mobile service providers who choose to erect towers on buildings that do not have Building Use permission. This permission happens to be absent for 65 per cent buildings in the city. BSNL being a government set-up cannot pay a "fine" as this will invite strictures from department of telecom of the Union ministry of communication and information technology. BSNL was to become the first mobile service provider in the city to provide broadband speeds on mobile phones in 3G technology. BSNL wanted to install 139 new towers and 3G installation on existing 180 towers for its technology. The total worth of the project is Rs 600 crore for Gujarat circle which also includes upgradation of 2G mobile service upgradation within Ahmedabad city and in the rural outskirts. BSNL had the announced its 3G plans for 12 cities in the country including Ahmedabad in early February. "BSNL officers have explained to us that private service providers have no hassles paying Rs 50,000 and legalising their towers on buildings without BU permission. As this is not possible for BSNL, we are working on an amiable way out of this rule," says a senior town planning officer. BSNL's woes don't end here. The fact that they will have to get stability reports from the three institutes too have axed their plans. "A letter by BSNL to AMC commissioner states that the stability tests for each building would take at least two months. This would only delay BSNL's plans of 3G installation," adds the officer.

Times of India 20 Apr 2009, 0558 hrs IST 4.69L new cellphone users in city this year CHENNAI: Job losses, pay cuts and the scare over economic meltdown have failed to adversely impact the ever expanding network base of cellular telecom service providers in the city. While during March the country had witnessed the highest ever GSM subscriber additions at 10.8 million, in Chennai alone more than 4.69 lakh residents have taken a new mobile phone service connection in the first quarter of this year. Statistics on subscriber base released by the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) reveal that while at the beginning of this year only 68,80,935 mobile phone service connections were active in Chennai, the figure had increased to 73,50,574 as on March 31. "As many as 4,69,639 new mobile phone service connections were taken during March alone. Of this, Aircel recorded the highest growth by providing 1,92,854 connections to subscribers in March. Airtel followed a close second with 1,26,165 additions in the number of subscribers followed by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) which added 76,433 customers and Vodafone Essar which attracted 74,187 new subscribers last month," a COAI spokesperson said. In fact, the growth in the number of cellular phone subscribers in the city is steadily increasing month on month. "While in January over 1.15 lakh new subscribers were added, during February the four cellular phone service providers in the Metro netted an additional 1.62 lakh subscribers. Last month, they cumulatively provided more than 1.92 lakh additional service connections," he said. Aircel is in fact the largest cellular phone operator in Chennai with 25,34,480 subscribers in Chennai. Airtel is second in the list with 21,77,600 subscribers followed by Vodafone Essar with 15,62,454 customers. BSNL is placed fourth with 10,76,040 subscribers in its kitty. According to T V Ramachandran, director general, COAI, during March we had the cellular phone service providers in India had the "highest ever subscriber additions at 10.8 million (excluding Reliance subscribers). This is the highest ever subscriber additions since the inception of GSM service in India. With this, the cumulative all India GSM subscriber base has now grown to 288.3 million in March (excluding Reliance), up from 277.5 million in February." Among the Metropolitan cities, Mumbai has the highest number of mobile phone subscribers. The business capital of the country has 1,15,98,443 cellular phone subscribers. In Delhi, as many as 1,08,24,006 persons own a cellular phone connection. Fourth in the list is Kolkata where only 68,15,603 residents have access to mobile phones.

^^^ yes even i didnt see the fup on the following ADSL tariff page.. http://tataindicom.com/......./adsl-tariff.aspx hope bsnl does not catch this fup fire.. yesterday i saw a bsnl broadband adv in trivandrum which was focusing the words "unlimited downloads".. hope they will not introduce fup..

^^^ if i am not wrong, TRAI has not forced any operators to reduce tariff due to reduction in termination charges, tariff reduction decision is up to the operator now.. i think operators are trying to reduce tariff indirectly by introducing new boosters, packs, offers etc instead of a direct reduction in rates... the problem is no operators want to reduce tariff now.. if any one reduces then it will force others too to reduce.. everyone wants to earn amap now and hesitates to step forward in tariff reduction...

u need to take the handset to authorised service center and they report phone dead and transfer number to a new handset [a back end process].. this is what i came to know from a service center long back.. not sure of present possibilities..

Press Trust of India / New Delhi April 12, 2009, 15:39 IST After MTNL's foray into Nepal and Mauritius, now its bigger counterpart BSNL is eying acquisitions of telecom companies abroad to get foothold in the global market. "We are looking at expanding our business overseas through acquisitions of telecom companies abroad," company's CMD Kuldeep Goyal told PTI. He said the criteria of acquiring a company would depend on the due diligence undertaken by it but its strategy is going to both organic and inorganic growth to drive revenues. Goyal said BSNL's Articles of Association empower it to go for bidding of telecom licences abroad and acquire companies if they fit into its growth parametres synergistically apart from the right valuations. BSNL along with TCIL may bid for telecom licence in Tunisia, he added. Analysts said high competition, fall in earnings and expectations of a growing global telephony market is leading company to other geographies. As for BSNL, it is the capacity utilisation that lies unused, while the stress is to gain the first-mover advantage in newer geographies, they said. MTNL already operates in Mauritius and Nepal. Although recently it has lost in a number of bidding process in many countries like Saudi Arabia and Kenya, it is still keen on African and the Middle East markets. A BSNL official said these two regions are target for them also.

The Hindu Sunday, April 19, 2009 BSNL sets up separate business unit for overseas foray New Delhi (PTI): Moving aggresively on its overseas expansion plans, state-run BSNL has set up a separate international business division to explore telecom opportunities abroad. We have created an international business unit recently which will look at possibilities abroad-- be it acquisition of companies and bidding for licences. M K Jain, GM, International Business is heading it, a senior BSNL official told PTI. BSNL Chairman Kuldeep Goyal had earlier said the company would look at valuable buy-outs based on due diligence of the target company. The PSU, he said has already received in-principle board approval to enter the global market and bidding for Tunisia is one such step. The North African Tunisian country is set to issue new licences for fixed line and basic mobile services. The licences, initially for 15 years, include national and international long-distance services. BSNL is a late entrant here but is trying to catch up with Indian telecom operators who are looking at Africa for expansion. Last year, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications entered into negotiations with the South Africa-based telecom giant MTN to expand in the African continent, but the talks failed. Earlier this year, Tata Communications announced plans to expand its operations in Africa through acquisitions, joint ventures, and new projects, and in January increased its stake in South African fixed-line operator Neotel to 56 per cent. BSNL's sister concern MTNL has already forayed into Nepal and Mauritius. Analysts said BSNL may be exploring the possibilities of bidding for mobile licences in Egypt, Rwanda, Malawi, Turkey and Iran. All these countries will open bids for licence auction within the next couple of months.

Business Standard April 19 2009 The 5 paise benefit for every minute’s incoming call will be credited now only after six months with Virgin. Existing customers in this category will get the credit from May 1. Speaking to Business Standard earlier, M A Madhusudan, CEO, had said that Virgin would always stick to its unique selling point of paying the customer for incoming calls and would never do away with the scheme entirely. He said, “Importantly, despite the changes, we will not make it zero, so that customers continue to get the benefit since even today no one (other than us) offers this service.” Agreeing that margins might get affected, Madhusudhan said, “If you look at our overall calls, initially, the number of incoming calls was more. As the subscriber base has grown overall, it has almost become 50-50. So, if my 30 paise has gone down, my outflow has also increased by the same. So, in terms of the financial impact, it is not a big negative.”

The Economical Times 12 Apr 2009, 1504 hrs IST, PTI MUMBAI: Nokia India plans to reposition itself from being a device-maker to a services and solutions provider. "We want to move from devices to services and solutions such as e-mail and music phone, among others," Nokia India Managing Director D Shivakumar said. "Last year, we had taken baby steps in this direction. This year, we will take significant steps," he said. The company would launch 40 products this year, he said. On the global front, India is the second biggest market for Nokia after China. "(However), we don't look at it as India versus China, but India and China," he said. Till last year, the company had invested $ 210- million in its unit at Sriperumbadur, near Chennai. "This year, the investment will be around $ 75- million," he said. The overall investment in its Sriperubadur facility would be $ 500-million.

Web Newswire April 19, 2009 Orange and Nokia extend strategic partnership with mobile email Orange and Nokia today announced they will extend their partnership with a new, simple-to-use email service for consumers. This extension to their multi-country agreement will deliver and launch a co-branded solution, Nokia Messaging by Orange, on a range of Orange Signature devices, aiming to bring mobile email to everyone with a phone, as well as working professionals. First announced in February 2008, this three-year agreement was formed by Nokia and Orange to meet growing demand for multimedia on the mobile. It combines and integrates the best available services from both companies in the areas of music, games and maps across a range of Nokia devices. The successful alliance will expand the portfolio to eight countries and will include up to 30 Nokia devices in the Orange Signature range in 2009. Launching first in the UK from this summer, followed by France and Spain, Orange customers will be able to take advantage of built-in push email on the forthcoming Nokia E75 and a range of Nokia devices. Olaf Swantee, Senior EVP of Orange's global mobile business, said, "It was only a few weeks ago that we announced our strategy to make mobile multimedia a mass market phenomenon. This extension to our partnership with Nokia shows how serious we are about bringing mobile multimedia to every customer. With our leadership in innovation, proven expertise in convergence across our fixed, mobile and broadband networks and knowledge of our customers, we think this offer will help increase consumer appetite for mobile email." Raoul Roverato, EVP of Orange's New Growth Businesses, confirmed, "Orange and Nokia have worked jointly as a team during those past months to provide the best of breed services to Orange mobile customers based on each company's assets and service platforms. This new milestone will strengthen our partnership with Nokia and underline our commitment to provide additional value to Orange customers. This will pave the way to new opportunities of partnerships between the two companies in the coming months." Kai Öistämö, Executive Vice President, Nokia says, "Orange is the first operator group to announce a European-wide offering of Nokia Messaging to their customers and we are very pleased about this extension to our service collaboration. The agreement on Nokia Messaging will boost the adoption of mobile email service and makes it easy for consumers to activate the service on-device and at Point-of-Sale. We believe that mobile messaging is for everyone, not just for a certain segment of the consumer market. " Orange customers will be able to aggregate and manage multiple email accounts while on the move via the Orange homescreen. This service is easy to set up and enables people to directly access up to 10 personal email accounts, letting them read, send, forward and reply to emails, view subfolders, download and read attachments and attach files to emails directly on the Nokia device. Orange and Nokia have agreed to launch Nokia Messaging in several major markets during 2009 with bundling, pricing and attractive tariffs announced locally across the Orange footprint.

Business Standard Sunday, Apr 19, 2009 The Reserve Bank of India's decision to treat authorisations, licences and rights - which are provided as collaterals while seeking a bank loan — as intangible assets is expected to hit new telecom operators the most. According to a banker, in a typical infrastructure project, nearly 50 per cent of the value of the loan comes in the form of securities, guarantees and other collaterals. Of this, half is accounted for by collaterals such as telecom licences, which now have to be treated as unsecured loans that carry a risk weight of 125 per cent. This is expected to put pressure on the capital adequacy ratio of banks, as they would have to set aside more capital for financing projects where the collateral is in the form of rights, in addition to guarantees provided by the promoters. Bankers said that in other projects, for instance highways, lenders have a charge on the cash flows coming through toll collections. In case of power projects, land used for the development of the project is provided as a security, while the machinery is hypothecated to the lenders. “There is unlikely to be much impact on projects other than telecom services,” said a bank chief. The government has given around 120 licences to telecom players to start mobile service operations. Of this, half-a-dozen players are expected to roll out pan-India services with each firm needing around Rs 10,000-15,000 crore to launch the services. Additionally, existing players are also raising debt to grow their footprint. While dealing with existing players who are raising funds to finance their expansion, lenders look at the market value of the licences to determine the value of the collateral. So, even if the cost of the licence to an operator was Rs 500 crore, it is benchmarked against the value of the latest licence issued to reduce the collateral requirement for the borrower. A pan-India licence comes with an entry fee of Rs 1,651 crore, along with free spectrum of 4.4 mega hertz. “In a way, lenders were using the valuations to their advantage. But RBI is now trying to put an end to the practice of assigning high valuations,” said the head of a finance company. Higher risk weights would also have an impact on the lending rates as the cost is typically passed on to the borrower. In the absence of loans from domestic lenders, promoters will have to seek overseas funding, which is not coming cheap as there are supply constraints due to the financial sector turmoil in the US and Europe. “More clarity is required for which we will soon approach the central bank,” said a senior executive at a public sector bank.