coolrajiv 1 Report post Posted January 15, 2008 BSNL to invest $500 mn for CDMA services NEW DELHI: Even as Reliance Communications and Tatas are moving to the GSM turf, they will soon face a new competitor on their home ground. State-owned BSNL is all set to launch full-fledged CDMA-based mobile services in all major cities in the country. “After our application for a full-fledged CDMA mobility licence is approved, we plan to roll out CDMA services in all major cities and towns. The initial investment will be about $500 million,” BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal told ET. This is also the first time that BSNL has put a figure to its CDMA rollout plans. In fact, the company has been working on the finer details of its CDMA project for several months now. On November 26 last year, minister for communications and IT, A Raja, had informed the Parliament that BSNL has applied for nationwide, full-fledged CDMA licence. “BSNL has submitted a report to the government recently seeking permission to provide fully mobile services using CDMA technology in addition to the GSM technology under the existing CMTS (cellular mobile telephony service) licence in 21 service areas,” Mr Raja had said. According to Mr Goyal, BSNL will be in a position to roll out CDMA services as soon as the approvals come through. “We already have the requisite start-up spectrum in place,” he said. BSNL is using the same clause in the modified UASL (unified access service licence) that allows service providers to offer services on both GSM and CDMA platforms, which Tatas and RCOM have availed of to make their GSM forays. More important, unlike private players, BSNL will not have to pay the Rs 1,651-crore entry fee, performance bank guarantee fee and also need not provide other financial guarantees for its CDMA foray since state-owned players are exempt from all these. BSNL is also in the process of hiving off its 40,000 towers into a separate company and lease it to other telcos. Several other service providers including the likes of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Spice and Idea Cellular have adopted this business model to reduce both their capex and opex as they expand their services to rural India. Importantly, as reported earlier by ET, 2008 is also likely to see the PSU go in for an initial public offer. This could well be the mother of all IPOs as BSNL, which has about 70 million customers, is learnt to be looking at divesting about 20 per cent stake within the next 12 months. Analysts estimate that the PSU to be valued at close to $100 billion, which puts a 20% stake dilution at $20 billion — the largest that the country has witnessed so far. For its CDMA rollout, BSNL will largely rely on its existing infrastructure. “We will use our existing infrastructure. We will roll out towers in places where it is required,” Mr Goyal added. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ssr 10 Report post Posted January 16, 2008 (edited) After this I hope that reliance will start accepting any CDMA handsets like TATA Edited January 20, 2008 by ss_rakesh Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
srikanth_kv 3 Report post Posted January 16, 2008 great news! we can expect a good competition to reliance can this bring in price wars.. and other goodies!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Honest 836 Report post Posted January 16, 2008 ^^^ Hope so my dear friends, competition in any manner will definetely brings the price wars. After all in the end the customer only will be benefitted. Regards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrasool 0 Report post Posted January 18, 2008 (edited) After this I hope that reliance will start accepting any RUIM handsets This flexibility is already there. Reliance Mobile (CDMA), Tata Indicom and Ping (CDMA-Punjab only) R-UIMs can be used with any R-UIM enabled open handset available in the market. Edited January 18, 2008 by mrasool Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KumaarShah 143 Report post Posted January 18, 2008 ^^^ But most of the RUIM enabled handsets offered by either Tata or RCOM are network locked. The only exception are the ones launched by Samsung directly. Correct me If I am wrong. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
@ksh@T 20 Report post Posted January 18, 2008 i support u kumaar Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrasool 0 Report post Posted January 20, 2008 ^^^But most of the RUIM enabled handsets offered by either Tata or RCOM are network locked. The only exception are the ones launched by Samsung directly. Correct me If I am wrong. You are majorly correct. But there are open(unlocked) CDMA R-UIM enabled handsets available from Nokia, Spice, Usha-Lexus, CECT/Cosun, Mex & Samsung Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ssr 10 Report post Posted January 20, 2008 (edited) More dual mode Phones Edited January 20, 2008 by ss_rakesh Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
