ravi_patent 28 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/Per-second-billing-unsustainable-Aircel/articleshow/5446584.cms Aircel Cellular, promoted by Malaysia’s Maxis Communications, on Thursday said it was targeting 100 million users by 2012, over three-fold increase from the current base of 31 million. However, Aircel’s strategy for subscriber addition will be data driven and not tariff driven. “Per-second billing is unsustainable. It constrains EBIDTA margins. We will see these tariffs for another year-and-a-half after which consolidation will set in,” Aircel COO Gurdeep Singh said after announcing an agreement with GTL Infrastructure to sell its towers. He pointed out that for operators, the cost per-minute is 40 paise and tariffs below 50 paise per minute did not make a business case. “With tariffs hitting all time low, only value-added services could increase revenues,” he said. Currently, data services constitute 7% of Aircel’s revenues and the company is targeting to take that to 11% by 2012. “Differentiation can come through only value-added services,” he said. The company is targeting to complete pan-India footprint by June this year. It is currently present in 18 out of the 23 telecom circles. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 Gurdeep Singh is an intelligent yet brave man.I agree with him. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
chintan1 6 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 Hope so Aircel will improve there network coverage & value added Services in Maharashtra also ...... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
::Hitesh:: 1,763 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 ^^^ I am also waiting for that. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Himanshu Singh 19 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 I am not sure if this piece of news has been talked about in this forum.Aircel is offering local/std calls while roaming@1paise per second in circles where it has its own network for a recharge of Rs.99 having 1 year validity. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raccoon 53 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 RCom is offering PPC and PPM with lifetime validity; but PPS has 1 year validity only! I wonder why Aircel is saying PPS is unsustainable... I guess too many people are making very short (< 1 min.) calls? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
me_saket 73 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 yes, and this will make burden on aircel for TERMINATION chargs of 20paise, and even not able to to recover infrastucure cost of newly added circle. so sold tower's to GTL. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
KanagaDeepan 1,084 Report post Posted January 15, 2010 (edited) RCom is offering PPC and PPM with lifetime validity; but PPS has 1 year validity only! I wonder why Aircel is saying PPS is unsustainable... I guess too many people are making very short (< 1 min.) calls? The problem is NOT the 1p/sec tariff... We all know that IUC for local calls is 20p/min and even many small calls lasts for 20 or more secs... Any call going beyond 20 sec is a GAIN for operators.. Even for the few PAISE LOSSES by very small calls can be adjusted by few longer calls.. It is the 1p/2sec tariff (for a rent as small as Rs180 for 6 months) that is killing the operators... For 1p/2sec tariff, operator can get @MAX 30p/min... If a call gets completed within 40 secs, it is a LOSS for the operator.. Further if a call ends @61 to 79 seconds also, IT IS A LOSS.. They have to adjust those few PAISE losses with the Rs30 they charge per month (3000paise to be precise).. If a call goes beyond 80 seconds (or between 40 to 60 secs), then only they the operator can have FEW PAISE for themselves ... So I use Docomo's 1p/2sec for long calls and for short calls I use 1p/sec of BSNL (BSNL gives 9000 sec FREE and receives Rs225 as rent, so it can adjust those losses).. I am doing this because, I don't want Docomo to die.. It should be ALIVE, so that I can continue to get nice tariffs I am not ready to cut the hen, but wait and get its eggs instead... Similarly 30p is IUC for STD (Home and Roaming).. Any call beyond 30sec is GAIN for operator.. So even 1p/sec roaming is also not going to kill the operator much imho... ONLY SOLUTION EXISTS FOR THESE PROBLEMS:-As some one suggested earlier in our forum that IUC should changed and also to be calculated in seconds say 0.2p/sec (works out to 12p/min) so that operators won't get loss for even a single second call... I am waiting for that to happen soon ... Then our operators will then offer 1p/3sec Local calls And this will happen (or atleast the IUC for local will be reduced to <20paise/min) soon after Etisalat DB launches its opeartion .. Edited January 17, 2010 by kanagadeepan Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
manishag 17 Report post Posted January 16, 2010 well earlier these robbers use to make money by call dropes. now they are forced to improve the network and to minimize the call drops Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
raccoon 53 Report post Posted January 16, 2010 Lol! This per second thing should have been around just a couple months or so ago... Airtel would have gone burst! Used to drop calls every few seconds! Would have loved to see them go burst! They have improved a bit now... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
