Reliance Communications Launches GSM Telephony Services

[saketsamir 0]

Major excerpts about the new Reliance GSM Launch

• State of the art next generation GSM network with digital voice clarity and India’s first nationwide enhanced EDGE for fast internet access
  
• Next-gen electronics for super digital voice clarity
  
• Seamless coverage on major railway routes, national and state highways through dedicated mobile towers
  
• Access to a Reliance owned fibre network for unlimited capacity - both in India and overseas, resulting in unmatched quality on local, STD or ISD calls
  
• Nationwide enhanced EDGE for fastest internet access speeds
  
• Stutter-free video capability including 16 TV channels, sports updates as well as access to popular video sharing websites like Youtube
  
• Widest R-World mobile content offering entertainment, music, news, cricket, bollywood, maps and search
  
• One-click set-up and access to email and social networking offering communication convenience of a PC
  
• Reliance’s No. 1 CDMA network is now supported by India’s strongest GSM network. With this, Indians will have the unique proposition of being able to choose between two nationwide world class networks
  

Edited December 31, 2008 by saketsamir

[Venkatagiri 53]

There are some questions which come to mind :

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

Trust me.

GSM coverage is normally horrible compared to CDMA.

GSM

Clarity of voice -Low

Accessbility-Poor (even if the called number is free, the network would be busy)

Requires more towers to cover same area.

What is the point in having a good GSM handset with above problems?

[KumaarShah 143]

From rcom.co.in website: -

December 30, 2008

Reliance Communications announces world’s largest customer experience programme and launches GSM service in over 11,000 towns all over India

Roll-out marks the completion of Rs 10,000 crores committed investment

Reliance announces world’s largest customer experience programme

GSM service to be available nationwide in over 11,000 towns through 2,000 exclusive retail stores and over 1 million retailers

Fastest network launch covering 1 billion people within 11 months

Project 6 months ahead of schedule. Reliance completing in 15 months what other operators have taken 15 years to complete

State of the art next generation GSM network with digital voice clarity and India’s first nationwide enhanced EDGE for fast internet access

Reliance’s No. 1 CDMA network is now supported by India’s strongest GSM network. With this, Indians will have the unique proposition of being able to choose between two nationwide world class networks

Mumbai, December 30, 2008: Reliance Communications will, over the next few days, launch a nationwide enhanced GSM service covering over 1 billion people.

A launch covering 1 billion people in 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages is by far the widest one-time launch. In India, this coverage is being rolled out by the industry over 15 years since launch. In comparison, Reliance's network has covered a billion people within 11 months, having received start-up GSM spectrum only in January 2008. Despite the scale, the project is running 6 months ahead of schedule.

Compared to aging mobile networks prevalent today, Reliance's new 21st Century Network brings a number of innovations that our customers will experience over the next few days:

* Next-gen electronics for super digital voice clarity

* Seamless coverage on major railway routes, national and state highways through dedicated mobile towers

* Access to a Reliance owned fibre network for unlimited capacity - both in India and overseas, resulting in unmatched quality on local, STD or ISD calls

* Nationwide enhanced EDGE for fastest internet access speeds

* Stutter-free video capability including 16 TV channels, sports updates as well as access to popular video sharing websites like Youtube

* Widest R-World mobile content offering entertainment, music, news, cricket, bollywood, maps and search

* One-click set-up and access to email and social networking offering communication convenience of a PC

With the launch of its enhanced GSM service, Reliance's customers will be able to use the widest range of over 250 handsets and devices compared to any other operator in India. Reliance's customers can now roam on more networks globally in more than 200 countries - offering the widest choice available to customers in India.

"In 2003, Reliance changed the face of the telecom sector in India", said Mr. Anil Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Communications. "Through our nationwide GSM launch coupled with Reliance's continued focus on our No. 1 CDMA network, we will once again endeavor to re-write the rules of the industry by offering our customers an unbeatable proposition across coverage, quality, service breadth, handset range and above all, value".

About Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications Limited founded by the late Shri. Dhirubhai H Ambani (1932-2002) is the flagship company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group currently has a net worth in excess of Rs. 63,000 crore (US$ 14 billion), cash flows of Rs. 12,000 crore (US$ 3 billion), net profit of Rs. 8,000 crore (US$ 2 billion) and zero net debt.

Rated among "Asia's Top 5 Most Valuable Telecom Companies", Reliance Communications is India's foremost and truly integrated telecommunications service provider. The company, with a customer base of over 60 million including over 1.7 million individual overseas retail customers, ranks among the Top 10 Telecom companies in the world by number of customers in a single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes 2,100 Indian and multinational corporations, and over 800 global, regional and domestic carriers.

Reliance Communications has established a pan-India, next generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire communications value chain, covering over 20,000 towns and 450,000 villages. Reliance Communications owns and operates the world's largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 175,000 kilometers of fibre optic cable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.

In Chennai, CC on *222/*333/ 1800 100 3333 says no idea about launch date. "We can expect services shortly" is the response, they just want to create a huge hype and then cash out.....

Edited December 31, 2008 by KumaarShah

[dkaile 1,051]

Now that's a statement by AA; lets hope he sticks to it... par bharosa nahin, kahin nai saal me hamara chu**a hi bana de...

[ravi_patent 28]

update from sp shukla, Rcom official on gsm rollout. (video is also avlbl now)

http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/bus...e-r-comm/373257

Edited December 31, 2008 by ravi_patent

[theking 35]

update from sp shukla, Rcom official on gsm rollout

http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/bus...e-r-comm/373257

The given url is incorrect. My office has firewall, cant access money control. Tried through a proxy.

Pls provide the correct url

[Harshal 11]

update from sp shukla, Rcom official on gsm rollout

http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/news/bus...e-r-comm/373257

The given url is incorrect. My office has firewall, cant access money control. Tried through a proxy.

Pls provide the correct url

The URL is correct. Just because your office has a firewall, does not mean the URL is incorrect. I have pasted the transcript for you in my next post

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with SP Shukla on CNBC-TV18.

Q: Are you focusing as a company purely on a tariff plan to woo away customers or will you have other elements in the pricing strategy that you will unveil shortly?

A: There will be more than one element in our strategy. That is why we are taking a segmented approach on a circle-by-circle basis. If you look at our customers, there are from more than one segment. If you look at high-value, high-usage customers they are looking for a new 21st century network, which is H-capable (handheld) and where H actually works on GSM. That happens only when you are not having congestion. So, when you begin with a new congestion free network, with no call drops, no engaged tones, high value customers want to move over there. Even if you match tariffs, they want a better quality network.

At the same time, there is another segment which will be value conscious. These are typically low usage users. So, we will have a segmented approach to get high value customers banking on the technical capabilities of our new network, with suitable attractive offers for the value conscious segment.

If you are opening in circles, a new operator who is starting a greenfield project has a big advantage. In urban areas, penetration levels are high. You can count upon us to be banking on very high percentage of churn from existing people who will see merit in moving to a new network. In rural areas, penetration is low and you are looking at participating in tremendous growth which is already taking place in the GSM sector. So, there you participate in growth. This is a multiplying strategy which will see us opting for profitable growth in which quality will be the prime factor and tariff will of course play its role.

Q: Would you offer significant price advantage to your value conscious customers?

A: Advantages can be offered in many ways without affecting your average revenue per user (ARPUs). You can offer more for the same, you can offer the same for less, so there are different approaches through which one can still offer a good deal without affecting your ARPUs. This is what we called bundle offers. Reliance has had tremendous experience from its CDMA part to offer bundle offering and that is the experience we will be leveraging in the field of GSM. So, while we offer value to the customer, we protect our ARPUs.

Q: Is that entirely possible for a new entrant into a market, where there are fairly well entrenched players that too in a fairly competitive landscape to come in with attractive offers but even then protect margins at current levels? Would you have to make some sacrifices on margins for starters?

A: It is entirely possible. You can offer more for same which means you don’t affect your ARPUs and still offer more minutes to the customer. So, your revenues are protected and customer get a better deal. You can do it only when you have an empty network.

Q: You stressed upon some of the quality parameters which you are likely to base your pitch on in the urban areas. But quality parameters only get tested post sampling. Initially, would you look at wooing or churning away some of the established player clients by offering them some better pricing or anything like that, so that they can sample the better quality that you are talking about?

A: Absolutely. We are going to be launching an experience campaign so that customers can experience our great network quality. Once they experience the quality they would want to stick on. This will be unveiled in the next few days gradually across all circles one by one. We are customizing it for each circle, depending upon the penetration levels of the circle, depending upon the competition mix, and intensity of competition, because circles are different in their field of competition, and different operators are doing better in different circles. So, we have the late mover advantage. All the lessons of the past have been learnt. There are more than 30 crore people already sitting with GSM handsets, all I need to do is get them to change their SIM card while participating in the growth, which is the one crore new customers coming in every month. So, I participate in the growth of one crore new customers every month, but I have the advantage of attacking simultaneously 30 crore customers who are already there, who have the handset. I don’t have to sell a handset to them, just make them change their SIM card.

Q: There will be a limited period introductory pricing even in cities?

A: Certainly, there will be. I will look forward to churning you first.

Q: Yesterday, Anil Ambani spoke about the kind of capex and investments that he has lined up. I remember that there was some consternation on the part of analysts who track your stock. Back in October-November when you spoke about or indicated that you would probably go little slower on your investment and capex plans, the assumption was that you will deploy maybe 20% less towers than you were originally planning to do before that period. Have those issues been addressed? Are you on target to layout or rollout as aggressively as you were planning before October or is there still a material dip between what you were planning then and what you are planning now?

A: Our capex plans has been absolutely on schedule, in fact it is ahead of that. We give our capex guidance in January every year, so that has been right on dot. Our next capex guidance will again be announced early next year. We had indicated that we will be doing GSM launches starting end of this year and will be completing that by the middle of next year. We are right on dot. In fact, we are ahead by few months. We hope to beat our target of middle of next year and are confident of beating it.

As Ambani announced yesterday, we today have GSM service in 11,000 towns which is a great beginning. We will double it and take it to 24,000 towns. We are absolutely on dot. What perhaps is been said and that is what I will reemphasise is that a bulk of the capex has already been incurred for our GSM rollout and committed and incurred.

Future capex will depend upon the need for capacity and coverage. We will assess how much capex we need to incur. But the start-up capex which is what you need to start the project has been committed, incurred, and completed.

Q: I will give you a specific example. Earlier, Reliance Communications has said that they would put up 60,000 towers, which was that scaled back at some point to 48,000 towers. This is probably what created this confusion about lowering capex and investments?

A: I think there is confusion between two things. That is the Infratel business and they rollout their plans based on more than one tenant, whereas when you talk about wireless it is the rollout plan of Reliance Communications in the mobility business. So, perhaps more than one number is being discussed. As far as Infratel is concerned, they will definitely meet their rollout target of 60,000 towers without any doubt.

Q: As you rollout and maintain two separate networks ‑ GSM and CDMA – it could lead to inefficiencies running dual networks which might impact margins or is that an overstated concern?

A: In fact, it is a big advantage for us. We are adjusting infrastructure where we have a tower. The generator set, AC, shelter, etc are all common to both CDMA and GSM. What is incurred incrementally is GSM electronics, which is put on the same tower. Electronics constitutes about 15-20% of the total capex depending upon the intensity of coverage in a particular geography. So, with a small capex I am in a position to launch an all India service. So, it becomes a very big advantage. There is only small incremental cost in terms of electricity consumption. Rentals remain the same, security expenses remain the same.

So, we are actually operating two services and not two networks. Operating two services or products to the market is actually done at a very marginal and small incremental cost. Look at the GSM marketing now, our same retail outlets will be stocking up CDMA, GSM talk time, top up vouchers, and recharge vouchers. These same centres will collect the bills. These same collection agencies will send out postpaid bills and collect the monthly bills. At very minimal incremental cost, you can add another service. It is not really two networks being operated. It is two service offerings from the same network. So, it becomes a tremendous advantage.

Q: When both the services stabilize, maybe in a couple of quarters, when they are running full tilt and without any kind of initial glitch, do you think Reliance Communications will be able to report the kind of operating margins it works on today or did at last quarter?

A: We are confident of meeting the best margin levels in the industry, whichever are prevailing in any quarter.

[theking 35]

thanx for the update, harshal

[s207 1]

Dear friends,

Request you all to keep each other informed about RCom's GSM launch and tariff details for the same (whenever available).

I have read in one article that RCom CDMA subscribers will have the option to migrate to RCom's GSM network with same number. Even before start of inter-operator Number Portability.

Would it be a wise choice CDMA to GSM?

Many like me must be in dilemma about real benefits of the same.

Thanks

[raccoon 53]

Whats the dilemma about?? You gotta wait a bit before you start getting reviews of the GSM service! After that you can decide.

If you opt for GSM, you will at least be free of RCom/Qualcom's handset monopoly... and also get to choose from a much wider range of handsets. That itself could be the deciding factor!

[theking 35]

same posts

why the spam?

[Arun 795]

I have read in one article that RCom CDMA subscribers will have the option to migrate to RCom's GSM network with same number. Even before start of inter-operator Number Portability.

Reliance will probably have to wait for some more directions from TRAI before implementing the internal mobile number portability. So it might take some more time.

[Asit 4]

same posts

why the spam?

No spam. It was just merged.

[Arun 795]

same posts

why the spam?

No spam. It was just merged.

I have now moved "Reliance GSM" category towards the top (above CDMA Handsets category) so that everyone would spot the new category better.

[saketsamir 0]

Any news about the initial GSM tariff plans? I am in Hyderabad, and there is no news from any of the retailer about the new GSM tariffs!!

[KumaarShah 143]

^^^

They only want to create mass hysteria about the product and then depending on the response, they will start their offers. Read Shukla's interview above and you will understand their psychology....

It will take them atleast 15 days to 1 month or even more for a complete roll-out. ADA has just brain-washed everyone into thinking that it will be a all India rollout - it will be but it won't be simultaneous. This is my understanding after reading Shukla's interview above.....

@honest, where did you get the info that RCOM GSM SIMs are available in web worlds? If yes, what are the tariffs?

@ @mitj@in and pkdaga, why are you people silent here? Why not comment on these matters also? Or has RCOM told you to remain silent?

[Honest 836]

@honest, where did you get the info that RCOM GSM SIMs are available in web worlds? If yes, what are the tariffs?

My dear Kumaar Bhai, I had stated that Reliance GSM Sims are avialable with local dealers only.

Web Worlds only got POSTERS by now.

Hope they too will get the Sims soon.

Regards.

[Sadikk 301]

I will be getting one sim tomorrow, will update about the review. but i am sure i will not be able to use it as there no network in my bedroom where i am most of the time.

will update.

[Honest 836]

there no network in my bedroom where i am most of the time.

Hmmm..... most of the time in BEDROOM.

[P. K. Daga 3]

Billing to distributors is going to happen only on 15th of jan in Chennai

[@mitJ@in 256]

In Delhi, It should come in March.

As Right now the network condition of GSM is not Ok,

I have to call 4-5 times a Number to connect.Most of the times Engage Tone, And call gets disconnected.

Only after 4-5 attempts a single call gets connected.

[srk006 21]

Something strange is happening for sure. I am not getting the IND 11 signal from past 2-3 hours while manual scan. Seems some work is going on and they have switched off their BTS.

[Honest 836]

Some issues are definetely their with Reliance GSM my dear friends. As it is in starting phase, it will take some time to settle the issues.

[ravi_patent 28]

agreed that there will be birthday pangs ...but the way anil was making tall claims abt

the completion of the work...

[Sadikk 301]

there no network in my bedroom where i am most of the time.

Hmmm..... most of the time in BEDROOM.

Most of the time when i am home, talking to u know who