Reliance Communications Launches GSM Telephony Services

[saketsamir 0]

Mumbai, Dec 30: The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group announced its much-awaited GSM mobile telephone services spread over 11,000 towns and 340,000 villages with a capital infusion of Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion/USD 2 billion).

Chairman Anil Ambani, who launched the services from the Reliance Centre here, said the rollout happened six months ahead of schedule, with the company having secured the frequency spectrum for the services only in January.

“What has taken other companies 15 years to achieve, we have completed in less than 15 months,” Ambani said, adding that the GSM telephony will complement the group's CDMA offering to give customers a wider choice.

The CDMA network of Reliance Communications spans more than 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages and has some 60 million subscribers across the country, as per the company's web site.

The launch of GSM services came just two days after the 76th birth anniversary of the company's late founder Dhirubhai H Ambani. It was on his 70th birth anniversary on December 28, 2002 that Reliance had launched its mobile phone services.

Link to News

[nawalsingal 1]

Dear All,

at last anil has formally spoken about plans for launch of GSM services, telling that services are test started in mumbai. As for us, wait any where between jan-jun 2009 for a complete roll out (Source-Times now news bulletin)

[Arun 795]

Reuters:

Reliance's GSM services will be available in 11,000 towns from Wednesday and the network will reach a total of 24,000 in a few months, Ambani said.

[saketsamir 0]

The Financial Express:

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications on Tuesday, announced the rollout of GSM mobile services, which will be available in 11,000 towns countrywide.

Announcing the rollout, Anil Ambani said that the company has invested over Rs 10,000 crore in the project, which was completed six months ahead of schedule.

Reliance Communications mobile users will now have a choice of both CDMA and GSM services, Ambani said, adding, "the project was completed within 15 months", six months ahead of schedule.

[theking 35]

Cheers!!

28th Dec 2002-CDMA Launch

29th Dec 2008-GSM Launch!

and with that, I completed 400 posts on RIMWEB [ ]

[theking 35]

This seems to be circlewise launch as only 11000 towns covered!

[saketsamir 0]

This seems to be circlewise launch as only 11000 towns covered!

This launch is for major towns across India. However they are still in the process of converting the CDMA BTS tower compatible to GSM as well, which is an ongoing process. Most probably we would be getting this as a new year gift from Anil. I think that 1st Jan 09 onwards the nationwide GSM tariff plans will also be out.

[nawalsingal 1]

Any info regarding tarrifs/ Billing Plans?

Edited December 30, 2008 by nawalsingal

[Arun 795]

Source: Money Control

Here is a verbatim transcript of Anil Ambani's speech at the press conference.

Anil Ambani said that Reliance Communication will now offer a nationwide 'enhanced' GSM service. This nationwide GSM rollout will include over 11,000 towns and is expected six months ahead of schedule, completed in less than fifteen months. The company has invested over Rs 10,000 crore in the nationwide GSM rollout.

Reliance Communication marked a turning point and changed the rules of the telecom game forever. It was the start of a journey that would revolutionise the way India communicates with itself and the world.

Today, Reliance Communications is India’s largest integrated and fully converged communications service provider

and we serve over 60 million customers on a worldwide basis.

Today, we dedicate ourselves to Shri Dhirubhai Ambani’s vision once again of accelerating the transformation of the Indian telecommunications industry by now offering a nationwide ‘enhanced’ GSM service in addition to our number one nationwide CDMA service.

Our nationwide GSM rollout has been a very large project, wherein Reliance has once again proven its execution skills. We received the GSM spectrum only in January this year, which is less than 11 months ago. Since then our network rollout has been completed and more than 11,000 towns and 340,000 villages will be part of our GSM offerings to begin with.

Despite this enormous scale, we are at least six months ahead of schedule. To put things in perspective; what other operators have taken to complete in 15 years, we are completing in less than 15 months.

This massive GSM rollout marks the completion of our over Rs 10,000 crore worth of investment programme. Our GSM network deploys the latest generation electronics, which will offer customers the highest quality digital voice.

We are the first nationwide ‘enhanced’ EDGE network, a technology that would offer the fastest Internet access speeds available to Indians.

Through our global partnership on both GSM and CDMA, our customers will be able to roam internationally to more than 200 countries on more networks at attractive rates.

In summary, our number one CDMA network will now be supported by India’s world class GSM network. With this, Indians will have the unique proposition of being able to choose between two nationwide world class networks and have access to the largest handset range available of any operator in India, of over 300 different handsets.

SP Shukla, President of Wireless Business, Reliance Communications said, "As you all know, and most of you have perhaps covered it, when we launched the CDMA national service in India, we completely redefined the telecom game. Our entry impacted all the five parameters, which one monitors in this sector, whether it was call rates, whether the very concept of roaming, handsets and the way they were sold, the explosive growth in subscriber base, and community formation.

Video

[srk006 21]

Anyone already got GSM SIM? I suppose it should be available from tomorrow.

[ipkonfig 10]

Thanks for the info

[Mukeshlst 5]

Congractulation to all reliance user and others too.......

[Honest 836]

Reliance GSM Sims are available with local dealers now.

[ipkonfig 10]

Any ideas about the tariffs involved and the call rates? http://www.reliancemobile.com/webapp/Commu...elcom/index.jsp has not been updated yet !!

[Honest 836]

^^^

Well, the tariffs and call rates will be updated in a COUPLE OF YEARS on their website my dear Praveen.

Yaar, you know, how silly these Reliance people are.

[commonman 228]

The existing plans for Smart may be simply extended to other circles

[vmsanghrajka 0]

RCom ready to roll out GSM services in 11,000 towns today

After nearly one year of preparation, Anil Ambani is all set to roll out Reliance Communications’ (R-Com) GSM services in 11,000 towns across the country on Wednesday. The service will enhance RCom's product portfolio from the CDMA segment to the more popular GSM segment, which is adding 10 million users a month. He also confirmed that the company will bid for 3G spectrum in both the GSM and CDMA segments and will spend around Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000 crore for the purpose.

"You will forget the Rs 501 offer," Ambani said when asked how affordable the new services will be. RCom is known for breaking the price barrier by offering both services and handsets at very affordable rates by giving subsidies on handsets. Ambani promised to shake up the GSM segment with RCom's entry. "Bundling handsets is a core competence of our CDMA service. Undoubtedly, we will bring bundled handsets to GSM in 2009," said Ambani.

Announced nearly a year ago, GSM rollout had seen R-Com set apart Rs 10,000 crore. "Most of the amount has been committed already. we will invest a few thousand crore more as we rollout the services to more cities," Ambani said. With the launch on the last day of the year, Anil Ambani has kept his promise of launching GSM in 2008 itself.

Launching GSM services had been a high priority for the younger Ambani after RCom bet on the CDMA technology initially. However, the technology platform did not take off due to many constraints, primarily the near absence of big manufacturers such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson from the market. The equipment ecosystem failed to develop due to strict licensing policies by Qualcomm, which invented the CDMA technology.

Ambani added that the current network rollout as also been carried with the help of traditional RCom vendors such as Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE, Huawei and Sun Microsystems.

Ambani refused to give subscriber projections saying that seven out of 10 new mobile subscribers today are coming in the GSM segment. "We would like to see another 100 million subscribers added to RCom in 2009 including CDMA," he said. Currently, the company has 60 million subscribers.

On branding, Ambani said all the mobile offerings will be under one brand, Reliance Mobile. He added that the company's current GSM offering in the North East, Reliance Telecom will be brought under this brand.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/new...y/00/31/344832/

[theking 35]

"You will forget the Rs 501 offer," [/b]Ambani said when asked how affordable the new services will be. RCom is known for breaking the price barrier by offering both services and handsets at very affordable rates by giving subsidies on handsets. Ambani promised to shake up the GSM segment with RCom's entry. "Bundling handsets is a core competence of our CDMA service. Undoubtedly, we will bring bundled handsets to GSM in 2009," said Ambani.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/india/new...y/00/31/344832/

What will happed of the telecom ind!

Lets not hope that another lot of basic cheap GSM bundled handsets will be there in the market

[kshah 452]

Now portability of number will come. May be max next 2-3 months. I believe.

[h1ghlander 9]

Any details on the tariff for the gsm services?

[sgiitk 32]

There are some questions which come to mind :

1. What is going to be the modus operandi of switching from CDMA to GSM and vice versa for existing subscribers. Issues in addition to tariff will be number portability/change, etc. This is prompted by two reasons: much better selection is GSM handsets than in CDMA units (esp. Nokia).

2. Will the GSM network support Edge etc?

3. In terms of coverage how does the GSM network compare with the CDMA network?

[deepakbv 0]

Will it be possible to switch to a GSM connection by retaining the existing CDMA number? Anyone knows more information on this, please let me know.

[vvinayakpai 26]

^^^

Well, the tariffs and call rates will be updated in a COUPLE OF YEARS on their website my dear Praveen.

Yaar, you know, how silly these Reliance people are.

Awesone reply dude!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with you 100%. Reliance is so indifferent to its customers. I really envy the Tata Indicom website wherein all the details are so clearly listed.

[rahulsathe 0]

Number portability will now be launched in India for sure. I strongly believe that TRAI was waiting just for RCom to launch its nationwide GSM project.

[ipkonfig 10]

Will it be possible to switch to a GSM connection by retaining the existing CDMA number? Anyone knows more information on this, please let me know.

U will be able to do the same once number portability is in effect in India