Reliance Gsm Lauches Lowest Prepaid Tariff For Kolkata

[Arun 795]

The Statesman

Kolkata, February 4, 2009

Reliance Communications today launched a new set of mobile tariff rates in the city. The new set of tariff are on a promotional basis and will be valid for six months. The new SIM cards will be available tomorrow onwards. Under the new tariff scheme, a customer can buy a Reliance Lifetime GSM SIM card for Rs 50. The SIM cards will have a talk-time value of Rs 5 and the user can use recharge coupons of any specified talk-time.

Once the user purchases the SIM card, the customer gets the benefit of making local calls to any Reliance phone, GSM or CDMA enabled, at 15 paise per minute. Under the new tariff scheme, calls to landlines and other mobile service providers will be charged at 35 paise per minute. STD calls will be charged at Re 1 per minute. Night-time calls ~ between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.~ to all Reliance phones will be charged at 5 paise per minute.

In case of existing Reliance GSM customers, the new tariff scheme will be available after a user recharges his phone with a Special Tariff Voucher of Rs 49. Even existing customers can change their connection to a lifetime one by recharging with a voucher of Rs 52. Speaking at the launch of the new tariff rates, Mr Khurshed Ahmed, regional head, RCOM, said: “This will be the lowest ever tariff rates in Kolkata. The offer will be valid for six months and will be available to users in Kolkata only.” He further added that there would be no additional monthly charges or hidden costs involved in the new tariff.

RCom has about 6 lakh GSM subscribers in the Calcutta telecom circle. According to the Cellular Operators Association of India data, there were 70.5 lakh GSM subscribers in the circle. Bharati Airtel had nearly 23 lakh subscribers, Vodafone over 25 lakh and BSNL over 12 lakh.

[pasumark 51]

Here starts the real price war

[situ1962 21]

That's right.it will hot up further.but when they are going to offer this to other circles,remains to be seen.

[srk006 21]

Is this the tariff for Smart customers or the new GSM connections?

[Arun 795]

Reliance Mobile GSM (CEP)

[srk006 21]

But I still don't understand why launch a product that was already there from the beginning. GSM was already there in Kolkata. right? and they were talking of bringing Reliance Telecom under Reliance Mobile. So why launch a separate offer there?