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Honest

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  1. Telcos must rejig business model for 3G success: Study 29 Aug, 2008, 0000 hrs IST, ET Bureau KOLKATA: Telecom operators may be betting on 3G in India, but the latest study has indicated that operators will have to redesign their business models to make data services affordable for Indian consumers. The study has highlighted that issues such as revenue sharing between operator and content developer are one of the main reasons behind premium pricing of data services, and hence their limited success. The study is part of a report on 3G in emerging markets conducted by an international research and consulting firm, Strategy Analytics. The firm estimated that the total mobile phone subscriber base in India will reach around 800-850 million by 2013, of which around 271 million subscribers will be using 3G services. The report said only limited number of services like ringtones have tasted success due to high price of mobile value-added service (VAS). The current data average revenue per user (ARPU) of operators in India is around $0.7 per month. “Though the rollout of 3G will definitely benefit the data services portfolio of operators, it does not guarantee its success,” said Strategy Analytics head (global wireless practice) David A Kerr. There is virtually no demand for data services in the rural belt due to high tariffs and low user spend. “3G services will gain acceptance in rural areas only when localised content can be offered at a very nominal price,” the study notes.
  2. TDSAT rings the final bell for govt and GSM operators Business Standard, August 28, 2008, 19:00 IST Telecom tribunal TDSAT today granted final opportunity to government and six GSM operators to file their reply of its notices issued on a petition filed by Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Communications, seeking withdrawal of additional spectrum held by rival operators. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) direction came after counsel appearing for RCom informed the tribunal that despite its directions neither the Department of Telecom (DoT) nor any of the six GSM operators has bothered to file their reply. "Respondents (DoT and operators) are given final opportunity... Reply should be filed within three week and no further adjournment would be given in this case," said the tribunal. The operators are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Aircel Cellular, BPL Mobile and Spice Communications. On being asked about the reason for delay by TDSAT Chairman Justice Arun Kumar, DoT informed that some meeting at the higher level did not happen, so it couldn't reply within the given time limit. Later, TDSAT asked from the GSM operators,"Are you waiting for government reply". On it, counsels appearing for GSM operators requested the tribunal to give them a last opportunity which was accepted by the TDSAT. In its petition filed in January this year, it had alleged that the six GSM operators were hoarding over 52 MHz of excess spectrum that DoT had alloted free of cost, which was beyond their eligibility.
  3. Rcom Unveils Motorola W362

    @Chetan My dear friend, as Manpreet also told above, you can bet on Spice C810 anytime. It could be the best option for you. Regards.
  4. ^^^ My dear Kumaar lets hope for the best from BSNL this time. And I don't think that this will be delayed at all. Regards.
  5. My dear friends, hope that MTNL too should follow the suite soon. We are eagerly waiting for MTNL to start the 3g services. Regards.
  6. iPhone security flaw exposes private data 28 Aug, 2008, 1948 hrs IST, ET NEW YORK: A security flaw in Apple Inc's iPhone allows unauthorized users to gain easy access to private contacts and e-mails even when the device is locked, but the company said a fix is on the way. Popular technology blog Gizmodo and an online forum run by the Mac Rumors site showed that it took only three taps to gain access to locked iPhones, which run the latest 2.02 iPhone software. A spokeswoman said in an e-mail that Apple was aware of the problem and was readying a software update to fix it. In the meantime, she recommended users set the iPhone's "Home" button to open up the phone's iPod music collection rather than the phone's "Favorites" menu. The spokeswoman did not say when the software update would be made available. The flaw could be seen as a momentary setback in Apple's ambitious plans to compete against Research In Motion, whose BlackBerry smartphone has become a standard issue device in corporate businesses around the globe. Earlier in August, technology research firm Gartner issued a report that said iPhone's software had met Gartner's minimum requirements for business support, although some issues persisted. The author of the report, Ken Dulaney, was not immediately reachable. Last week, Apple released a software update for the iPhone that reportedly helped fix problems connecting to faster third-generation (3G) wireless networks, after receiving a flurry of online complaints from customers around the world. Apple, which started selling the new 3G iPhone on July 11, has said it expected to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.
  7. BPL Mobile launches software for Blackberry 28 Aug, 2008, 2012 hrs IST, PTI MUMBAI : BPL Mobile and Research in Motion (RIM) on Thursday announced the launch of Blackberry Connect software 4.0 on a range of handsets from BPL Mobile. With the software, users will be able to access Blackberry services with support from Blackberry enterprise server and internet service. "Blackberry Connect Software enables users to enhance their mobile communications and productivity by connecting to the feature-rich and sophisticated Blackberry services," BPL Mobile President Sunzay Passari said in a statement. Blackberry Connect software provides support for push-based wireless email access, wireless email reconciliation and attachment viewing.
  8. 3G auction to also include CDMA: Raja 28 Aug, 2008, 1842 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI : The Govt has decided to auction CDMA licences for 3G services, a change in policy that means Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices will have to bid for spectrum they were previously guaranteed of getting. No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications and sixth-ranked Tata Teleservices are the only operators with major CDMA operations in India, where the GSM platform dominates. At the start of August, the government announced plans for a global auction of 3G licences. At the time only two CDMA licences were thought to be available, so the plan was that Reliance and Tata would pay a pro-rata price based on the outcome of the GSM auction, telecom minister Andimuthu Raja said on Thursday. "Now one more operator has been permitted. So again we consulted the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) and took a decision that it can also be auctioned." CDMA and GSM mobile services are provided on different bandwidths. The government has said the global auction for GSM 3G spectrum would end by December. Current Indian telecoms operators and foreign firms with prior experience in 3G services are eligible to bid. Reliance Communications has some GSM subscribers, and is expanding its network, but at present more than 80 percent of its customers are on the CDMA platform. Chairman Anil Ambani has said Reliance would consider providing 3G both on GSM and CDMA. Tata Teleservices has acquired licences for second-generation GSM mobile, but is yet to start services.
  9. 3G spectrum auction to end by October-end 28 Aug, 2008, 1936 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI : The government on Thursday said the auction for allotment of 3G spectrum will end by October-end, while services will roll out before 2009. "Auction of the 3G spectrum will be completed by the end of October, and the government plans to roll out services by the end of this year," Communications and Information Technology Minister A. Raja said at a function here. In another major related development, the minister said the spectrum for CDMA operators for 3G services would also be auctioned now, like the way it is being done for GSM operators. Earlier, with only two players in the CDMA segment, there was not much competition. Now with other players joining, competition is increasing. The auction will be conducted as per the recommendations of the telecom watchdog, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, instead of allocations being made on the basis number of subscribers, the minister said. Till date, Reliance Communication was the only contender in the 3G CDMA space on account of its high subscriber base. With Raja's latest announcement, other operators too can place bids.
  10. Mukesh Ambani backs Tata in times of trouble Economic Times MUMBAI: It’s not just corporate rivalries and bitter feuds that make interesting stories. In fact, most readers are perhaps beginning to accept that acrimonious exchanges and behind-the-scenes machinations by business houses to outgun each other are a way of life for India Inc. So, a statement on Wednesday evening by Mukesh Ambani, strongly backing the Nano project — Ratan Tata’s dream venture — came as a bit of a surprise. “A fear-psychosis is being created to slow down certain projects of national importance. This will be counter-productive for the country’s economic growth, its global image as well as our ability to attract investments from across the world,” said Mr Ambani — India’s richest man and chairman of Reliance Industries, the country’s biggest private company. “The Indian industry and the political leadership in the country need to work together to deliver on the aspirations of the millions of Indians in urban and rural areas, ” said the statement issued by Reliance. It is unclear as to what extent this would strengthen the West Bengal government’s resolve to stick to the October deadline for the Nano’s launch and put some pressure on Mamata Banerjee to come to the negotiating table. However, coming from a traditional business rival, it was a gesture that may go down well in corporate India and political circles, but also bolster Reliance’s public image. Incidentally, Mr Ambani had faced protests during his Reliance Fresh rollout in West Bengal. According to Mr Ambani, “The Nano project is a unique and innovative initiative, which will establish India’s position as a small car hub. The Indian industry must be encouraged to make such large investments in order to build the country’s competitiveness as well as support job creation.” There has been a media frenzy ever since the project scheduled to be housed in Singur in West Bengal, started facing stiff resistance from Ms Banerjee and her party. Mr Ambani’s statement also encouraged another big name in Corporate India to speak in favour of the Nano project. Rahul Bajaj, chairman of Bajaj Auto, said: “The impasse created in Singur is extremely unfortunate, not only for the Nano project but also for the industrial development of Bengal. This project must come up at Singur. I have always said that farmers whose land has been acquired by the government in public interest must receive adequate and fair compensation. Return of 300-400 acres of land which are spread all over the Tata land, is, I understand impossible. Hence I plead to Mamtaji to give up her insistence on the return of the land to the farmers and accept on behalf of the farmers an alternate piece of equivalent size of fertile land and an increase in the monetary compensation which has been offered.” Although no one in Tata Motors is officially “even thinking” about the next course of action, sources have said that in the event of Singur not working out, one option could well be to manufacture the first lot of Nano cars from Pantnagar and Pune before the new site is up and running. As it is, the first batch of around 4,000-5,000 is reportedly ready at Tata Motors’ plants in these locations. These can be rolled out as early as October this year. How things move from this point onwards will be decisive. The Rs 1,500-crore Nano plant in Singur has been in trouble right from the time it was announced in late 2006, sparking off protests in the area. Since then, Tata Motors has had to deal with more several rounds of protests and flooding at the plant site. As things stand, the bone of contention is the 400 acres which has been earmarked for the ancillary units of the project. Overall, the West Bengal government has given Tata Motors 1,000 acres on lease. The agitators are pushing for the return of the 400 acres to farmers who are unwilling to give up their land for the project. The WB government says this is impossible as the land is not contiguous. Giving back the land would mean the end of the project, according to both the state government and the Tatas.
  11. HTC's S740 Answer to the iPhone, BlackBerry? HTC is all set to break the dominance of iPhone and BlackBerry in the smartphone segment with the launch of S740. HTC is out with their newest smartphone, the HTC S740. The phone, a successor to the S730, is inspired its looks by HTC Diamond, which was released earlier this year. It has a matte black faceted back and a 2.4 inch QVGA display. The phone measures 116.3 x 43.4 x 16.3 mm and weighs 140g with battery. The Windows Mobile (6.1 standard) based S740 is meant to work as an efficient mobile messaging solution. For this, the phone has a combination of a traditional 12-key phone design with HTC's signature sliding QWERTY keyboard. It also supports POP3, IMAP, and Exchange push email. The 3G-ready phone comes packed with 2 cameras, a 3.2 megapixel and a VGA. The main camera (3.2 megapixel) features fixed focus. For connectivity, there's WCDMA/HSDPA (900/2100 MHz for EU and Asia) and GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz. According to HTC, the S740 has the fastest mobile broadband capabilities with a maximum download speed of 7.2 Mbps, which is up to 18 times faster than 3G. Of course, actual speeds will vary according to your carrier's network status. The phone also features Bluetooth, WLAN, GPS, FM radio, Google Maps, RSS Hub, and HTC ExtUSB with mini-USB and audio jack in one, and includes USB 2.0 High-Speed. While it's more or less certain that the HTC S740 will release in Europe this September, there's no word yet on pricing. And it's unclear when the S740 will reach Indian shores and how much it will cost. With the iPhone being priced out of reach in the Indian market, the S740 could galvanize the market with some smart pricing. Courtesy : Techtree
  12. Mobile banking guidelines likely in a fortnight Business Line, Mumbai, Aug. 26 As Indian banks gear up to offer mobile banking as the next step in payment systems, they also need to address customer concerns with regard to security. The dependence of banks on mobile payment service providers would place the knowledge of customers in public domain. Therefore, banks would need to take adequate risk control measures to manage such risks and protect sensitive customer data. This was the opinion shared by speakers at a seminar on mobile banking organised by Banknet here on Tuesday. With mobile subscriber base touching 300 million in India, banks are increasingly exploring ways to adopt mobile banking practices. Most of the banks are waiting for the issuance of final guidelines from the Reserve Bank of India to roll out mobile banking services in India. The bankers are expecting the final guidelines to be released within a fortnight. Expansion opportunity Bankers were of the opinion that mobile banking gives the banks an opportunity to expand their customer base without incurring additional infrastructure costs. It would also help in financial inclusion as it would provide a large number of unbanked people access to banking services. Banks could save a huge amount of money on card issuance and merchant acquiring with zero point of sale cost. Mobile banking could be used to make remittances from person to person, banking purposes and to make payments for purchases or services provided. However, the banks would need to allay customer fears on account of hacking, breach of service, denial of service and other technological failures. Also, plain text SMS is prone to tampering and needs to be complemented with an interactive voice response system (IVR) or some other measures. Areas of concern There was also a lack of consensus among bankers on the need for banks to converge on a common platform to set up an integrated network regarding the usage of mobile commerce. There is also a conflict of interest between the banks and the telecom provider, as banks would be using the customer base of the telecom companies.
  13. What exact problem are you facind my dear friend ? Or what is the error you are getting while setting up the internet ? Regards.
  14. Telcos may have to pay up to Rs 5000 for each unverified user 28 Aug, 2008, 0046 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI: All major telcos will soon be subject to penalties which may run into hundreds of crores. While the department of telecom (DoT) has issued over 180 showcause notices to service providers over the past couple of years, it had not specified financial penalties. ET has learnt that the DoT’s internal committee, which was set up to determine penalties, plans to impose fines ranging between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000 per subscriber for unverified customers that telcos have. Indian regulations mandate that telcos carry out 100% verification of their subscribers. So far, DoT has issued about 133 showcause notices to telcos after investigating instances of subscriber verification failures. On the issue of providing mobile services in border areas, the committee has proposed that telcos be fined Rs 1 lakh per week for every tower that had been set up in restricted areas. DoT has issued 22 showcause notices to operators for setting up towers within the 10 km buffer zone from the international border. This committee also wants a ‘token penalty’ of Rs 1 lakh per week for those operators who have launched value-added services (VAS) without DoT approval. On this front, DoT has issued about 28 showcause notices to telcos for launching VAS, without the requisite approvals. It must be pointed out that DoT can impose these fines only after its proposals have been endorsed by the Telecom Commission. The Telecom Commission is the apex decision-making body of the DoT. Last year, the communications ministry had asked all telcos to re-verify all their customers and also directed them to disconnect those users who could not be verified. DoT then conducted special drives to verify the telcos’ claims to having complied with the government directive, following which it issued 27 showcause notices to Reliance Communications, 22 to Bharti Airtel, 21 to BSNL, 20 to Tata Teleservices, 16 to Vodafone, 11 to Idea Cellular and 10 to Aircel, among others. Sources close to the development say that telcos will be asked to pay Rs 1,000 per subscriber for each of the non-verified customers in those zones where DoT had conducted the drive. However, after April 2009, DoT wants three different slabs of penalties — the Rs 1,000 per unverified user will be applicable only for those telcos whose verification rate is over 95%. DoT wants this amount raised to Rs 5,000 for those telcos with 90% verification ratio and Rs 10,000 per customer for those operators below the 90% cut-off. On the VAS front, Bharti tops the list with 20 showcause notices to its name, followed by Vodafone Essar with seven. Till 2006, DoT had put Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar (then Hutchison Essar) in the dock for violating the national numbering plan and also for offering ‘subscriber local dialing services without government approval.’ It had also hauled up Vodafone Essar and Tata Teleservices for providing Push-To-Talk services prior to the government’s clearance for such offerings in India.
  15. Know-how About Sms Short Codes

    @Sachin Tanwar My dear friend, their is no need to start the new thread when you had already posted in the forum. As of now your new thread has been deleted. You can carry on the discussions here in this thread only. And in the future please do not start new thread on the same topic that you already posted on the forum my dear friend. Regards.
  16. Some Optical Illusions.

    Thats really great my dear Asit. Regards.
  17. Spice Launches Music Phone Spice Mobile has launched a new music phone - Spice S-820. The S-820 has an integrated Yamaha audio amplifier, has an expandable memory support of 1 GB, an integrated FM player and an integrated 1.3 mega-pixel camera. The S-820 comes pre-loaded with one-touch access to world news through Thomson Reuters. The S-820 comes bundled with a stereo Bluetooth headset and costs Rs. 6599. Courtesy : Tech2
  18. DoT to dial 50k villages 27 Aug, 2008, 0030 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI: The department of telecom (DoT) is set to sign an agreement with state-owned BSNL for providing telephones to the newly-identified 50,000 villages according to census 2001. These include villages with population below 100 and those that were left out earlier due to various reasons. With this, the DoT is of the view that it will realise its target of providing village telephony to remote villages under the Bharat Nirman programme. Additionally, the DoT will soon launch another scheme to provide public telephone facility to the remaining villages in an attempt to provide public telephones to all villages in India. To promote last mile connectivity, the center will also provide subsidised public telephone facilities to 66,822 uncovered villages of which 54,700 have already been covered. Besides, BSNL will extend its broadband facilities as many as 30,500 villages. The installation work of public telephones in all villages is expected to complete by the end of the next year. BSNL was awarded the work for providing Village Public Telephones (VPTs) in all the remaining 66,822 uncovered villages in 2006 with support from Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF). All telcos pay a part of their revenues towards the USOF. This fund, which was set up to pay for the installation of basic fixed-line telephones in villages, has been amended to fund installation of wireless telephones too. So far, the villages with population below 100, villages lying in deep forests and areas affected with insurgency were excluded from the ambit of state sponsored public telephones. About 5,000 remote villages are being provided with VPT facilities using satellite technology as they cannot be reached by fibre.
  19. Acer Aspire One

    @Puneet My dear friend, hope the below mentioned news could be useful for you. Regards.
  20. Nokia Launches Two New N-Series Handsets Nokia has just launched 2 new handsets as additions to their popular N-Series range – The Nokia N79 and N85. The N79 has a typical candy bar form factor where as we see yet another N81 slash N95 type design in the N85. N79 The N79 will offer users plenty by way of multimedia and functionality with features that range from GPS with A-GPS support on Nokia Maps 2.0 and Geo tagging support, a 5MP auto-focus camera with Carl Zeiss optics (behind a lens cover like the N82) and dual LED flashes and N-Gage on board. The handset will also come with Xpress-on smart covers that are available in five colors: Light Sea Blue, Espresso Brown, Olive Green, White and Coral Red. A combination of three of these comes with each Nokia N79. It’s a 3G enabled handset with HSDPA speeds and Wi-Fi support as well, aside from the usual EDGE and GPRS. It also has Bluetooth with A2DP support. The N79 comes equipped with a 2.4 inch TFT display with a 240 x 320 pixel resolution sporting 16 million colors. "The Nokia N79 packs cutting-edge technology into a compact design - a characteristic of the iconic N-series - that allows people to discover, create and share their passions with others," said Juha Kokkonen, Director, Nokia N-series. "It has been designed for those who want a device that is as appealing as it is powerful and comes with interchangeable covers that have automatically matching screen themes." The Nokia N79 comes packaged with a 4 GB microSD memory card. A Friendster widget will also be made available for the Nokia N79 via the WidSets service. This will allow people to browse Friendster friends' profiles, view and post shoutouts, upload pictures taken with their handset, and browse their own and friends' photo albums. New users can even register for Friendster directly on their device via a link to Friendster's mobile site (m.friendster.com), create an account and instantly begin participating in the Friendster global community. Courtesy : Tech2
  21. DoT delays pre-bid meet for selection of agency for 3G auction Press Trust Of India / New Delhi August 26, 2008, 17:14 IST Department of Telecom (DoT) today revised the time schedule for the process to appoint an agency for the e-auction for 3G and Broadband Wireless Spectrum in the 22 circles in the country. The pre-bid conference for receiving the request for proposals for the designated agency was to start tomorrow. It will now start on September 8 and consequently all the earlier dates have been revised as per which the submission of the technical and financial bids will now be on September 22 instead of September 3, an official statement said here. When contacted the Ministry's spokesperson said, "The revised time schedule would not delay the process. We had to made few modification in the original time schedule as a number of prospective bidders wanted more time." The opening of covering letter and selection of bidders, who meet the eligibility criteria, is now also on September 22. Qualified bidders make presentation on September 24 and government will also open technical bids on this date. The financial bids of technically qualified bidders will open on September 26 in lieu of 19 of that month. The date of finalisation of bids will be September 30. Earlier, Sidhharth Behura, the Telecom Secretary, had said, "Technical and financial details are being discussed. Once that is done, this e-auction process for 3G spectrum would be finalised by September 30."
  22. 'India could have 270 mn 3G subscribers by 2013' 26 Aug, 2008, 1859 hrs IST, PTI NEW DELHI: India could be the largest 3G market among emerging countries as 270 million subscribers are expected to use these high-end value added mobile services in the next five years, says a research agency. The guidelines have been already issued for 3G services and the Government hopes to roll out high-end mobile services by December. "In terms of subscribers, India is going to be the largest market for 3G users among all emerging markets...India could have 270 million users subscribing to 3G services by 2013," research agency Strategy Analytics VP, Wireless Practice, David A Kerr said. The research agency said 3G subscribers would constitute more that one third of the total wireless users in the next five years. Initially, the subscribers would come from metro and 'A' category cities, and enterprises and business customers would make the largest chunk of it, it said. "India has 700 million untapped customers and it is very much possible to have 270 million 3G subscribers in next five years." At present, the country's total mobile subscriber base is about 290 million. "At the initial stage corporate and enterprise users as well as tech-savvy young generation would drive this market," Kerr said.
  23. DoT again says yes to Virgin 27 Aug, 2008, 0026 hrs IST, ET NEW DELHI: After studying Virgin Mobile’s operations in India over the last couple of months, the department of telecom (DoT) has given the company a clean chit yet again and said that its services here were not that of a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). This is the second instance of DoT clearing Virgin Mobile. Earlier this year (March), both the DoT and sector regulator Trai had studied Virgin’s business model and endorsed the company’s claims that it was only a franchisee of Tata Teleservices. The latest clearance comes after a section of the DoT had studied Virgin Mobile’s advertisements, SIM card, tariffs and services on August 20. Richard Branson’s Virgin Mobile had launched services in India in March 2008 in partnership with Tata Teleservices. However, GSM operators led by their industry lobby—The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI)—alleged that the UK-based telco was offering full-range mobile services like a licence holder in violation of existing regulations while also adding that its services here were similar to those offered by Virgin as an MVNO in other countries like the UK and Australia. The Tatas have always maintained that the tie-up for Virgin Mobile-branded services was above board and completely in compliance with the laws and regulations of the country. They also added that since there was no selling of bulk airtime, the partnership cannot be classified as an MVNO. The DoT in an internal note dated August 21 has said that an MVNO would involve purchase of minutes from facility-based mobile network, freedom to prescribe tariff, customer ownership and separate licence, but the Tata-Virgin JV did not involve any of these factors.
  24. Idea set to ring in ops in Mumbai 18 Jun, 2008, 0000 hrs IST MUMBAI: Idea Cellular is close to launching operations in Mumbai, which generates the highest avaerage revenue per user (ARPU) in India. The AV Birla group telco will start services by August to become the seventh player in the highly competitive circle. Idea is also expected to roll out in Bihar before September, sources told ET. With these launches, Idea will cover 70% of the country. After the impending acquisition of Spice Communications, having 4.4 million subscribers in Punjab and Karnataka, Idea will have a foothold in all the major circles of India. The company is investing Rs 650 crore from IPO proceeds for the rollout in Mumbai. It has awarded a four-year contract to Ericsson, valued at $100 million. In Bihar, the investments have been made from internal accruals. Mumbai, with 14 million subscribers, is the highest-revenue generating market. According to telecom regulator Trai, the blended average revenue per month per user (pre-paid+post-paid) is the highest in Mumbai at Rs 274. The post-paid ARPU is as high as Rs 630. However, wireless penetration in the financial capital is as high as 70%, signalling tough competition for Idea. “But since no operator has launched services in the circle since 2004, the entry of Idea may shake-up the market. Idea is expected to wean subscribers away from BPL Mobile, which has failed to gain users amid dispute between the Ruias and Vodafone Essar,” an analyst told ET. BPL Mobile, once the most popular brand in Mumbai, has less than 10% share in the circle with 1.3 million users. Other operators present in the financial capital are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Tata Indicom, MTNL and Reliance Communications. The Mumbai circle has been adding nearly 0.35 million subscribers every month while Bihar has over 10 million users and is adding 0.5 million on a monthly basis. Mumbai and Bihar jointly account for nearly 8% of total monthly wireless net additions in the country. “Mumbai launch will offer Idea an opportunity to increase ARPU in comparison to other circles as there is substantial national and international traffic out of the city. Bihar, on the other hand, is an under-penetrated market and leaves ample scope for Idea to grab subscribers,” said the analyst. Idea is the market leader in Maharashtra circle with around 23% share while it ranks second in Gujarat with 15% market share. “Expansion will lead to low termination and interconnect charges, resulting in savings,” he said. In Mumbai, Idea will use towers of Indus Towers.
  25. Idea ties up with Nokia to offer N96 from September 27 Aug, 2008, 0028 hrs IST, ET MUMBAI: Taking on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular has tied up with the world’s largest handset maker, Nokia, to offer the N96 smartphone, considered the biggest competition to the Apple iPhone. The dual-slide handset will be available on Idea networks from September. N96 comes with 16 GB storage space, which can be expanded to 24GB. This memory allows the user to store up to 18,000 songs, over 20,000 images at 5 mega pixel, 20 full-length movies or nearly 60 hours of video. It has a 2.8 inch screen and comes preloaded with ‘Wave Secure’ security application which allows consumers not only to track the phone if it is stolen or lost but also create a back-up through the Internet. Idea’s partnership with Nokia also extends to other mid and high-end range from the Finnish giant’s stable besides the ‘N’ series. “Idea plans to introduce several attractive offers and innovative tariff plans, on various devices, starting with the N96, in early September, targeted at a varied cross-section of customers,” the company said in a statement in Mumbai on Tuesday. “We are pleased to partner with Nokia in leading the industry to bring customers a complete suite of Idea communications, browsing, content and Internet services. This is a logical step for Idea to take, as it will further help augment our customer experience. These high-end Nokia handphones are known worldwide for their versatility and utility,” Idea Cellular MD Sanjeev Aga said. Nokia India vice-president and managing director D Shivakumar said the alliance would offer consumers an option to choose from a wide range services from Idea Cellular on Nokia’s handsets.
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