Reliance Infocomm To Expand Coverage

[linuxguy 0]

CDMA is extremely superior to GSM, in terms of noise immunity, quality, reliability, etc.... I remember when I first took DAPO, the signal was so strong that I could get it even in basements. But now there are too many subscribers and the signal is so weak at some places that its very difficult to talk....

[SexyGurl 0]

I always find 5 bars on my handset, anywhere I go in Delhi .... except Delhi Cantt. (where I have also seen just 1 bar on my handset).

Never checked, but Ridge road (all surrounded by forest) would also be weak.

I don't know if there are 100 towers in mumbai or not .... but I read some time back, that in Delhi there are.

(Delhi has the largest no. of Subscribers, for all circles of Reliance - 1.3 million mobile, and total 1.5 million, if FWP is included). So, it's normal that CDMA towers would also be largest here.

But Mumbai has a peculiarity .... everybody goes to south mumbai to work (so large needs there during daytime) ... and comes back up at night (so large needs at night) ...

I read in a magazine this was causing some problem for cell operators, that they needed to have large capacity both in south and north. (Most places, including Delhi, have more evenly spread out telecom traffic, during all times of the day).

[linuxguy 0]

haha. Telcos have a tougher time in Mumbai...

[abhay 0]

Reliance Infocomm targets 25 per cent market share in Gujarat

Reliance Infocomm plans to capture about 25 per cent of the mobile market share in Gujarat by expanding its telecom services in 425 towns.

According to VK Garg, CEO of the company's Gujarat circle, it has charted out an aggressive growth pattern for the state and by March 2006, the network coverage would expand to 425 towns. At present, the company covers 265 towns. Garg said the company had about 800,000 subscribers in the state. "Capturing 25 percent of the market share would require it to increase the base by 100,000 subscribers a month in the next four months," he said.

[linuxguy 0]

RIM Isn't being very competitive lately. Wonder how they are gonna capture that 25% :|

[abhay 0]

hehe there are loads of people picking up reliance FWp/t's in gujrat sircle

many many of relatives have SWITCHED over to reliance <-- well this is offcource because reliance has a unoffical MARKETING person with them = me

and this is all due to the unlimted local scheme reliance offers! people keep relaince @ home as well as their offices so u its cheaper then the MTNL/BSNL ka dabba

[abhay 0]

Reliance Info reaches 460th town in UP, Uttaranchal

The country's largest private telecom company Reliance Infocomm today reached the 460th town in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal by launching its mobile services in Kashipur industrial town of Udham Singh Nagar district.

Speaking on occasion CEO Reliance Infocomm (UP and Uttaranchal) VV Singh said that ''Post Phase II roll-out the company will be covering more than 95 per cent of the urban population and over 60 per cent of the rural headcount in the twin states by the year end.

The company aims at 100 per cent network coverage on state/national highways and railway routes in the two states, Mr Singh added.

[SexyGurl 0]

Reliance India mobile service launched in Sagar

Wednesday December 7 2005 08:07 IST

SHIMOGA: Reliance Infocomm launched its Reliance India Mobile service recently in Sagar. It has its service centre in about 3000 cities across India and in more than 225 cities and towns.

Reliance infocomm has plans to reach out to four lakh villages across the country by the end of this year. The Company’s 80,000 km of terabit optic fibre cable network forms the backbone of its countrywide expansion, which will facilitate unlimited and uninterrupted voice, data and video applications.

This massive operation, touching 65 crore Indians, will cover nearly two-third of its villages and over 5,700 cities and towns.

This expansion involving 8,500 BTS towers will also cover 91 percent of the country’s national highways and 85 percent of the rail routes. With this rural India will also have great access to Internet.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?I...rnataka&Topic=0

Edited December 7, 2005 by Vishal Gupta

[abhay 0]

where is this sagar btw

[anujit 0]

Here it is - http://www.fallingrain.com/world/IN/35/Sagar3.html

[abhay 0]

Reliance Infocomm to roll out services in south Bengal

Reliance Infocomm will roll out Reliance India Mobile (RIM) services in south Bengal towns like Contai, Digha, Amlagora, Ramjibanpur, Egra, Datan and Belda.

A Reliance Infocomm spokesman said that the rollout would start next week. With this, RIM services would be available in 160 towns in the state.

[abhay 0]

Reliance Infocomm to add half million rural customers next yr

The dream of industry doyen late Dhirubhai Ambani of seeing a mobile in each Indian home remains unfulfilled as merely two out of 100 rural Indians avail of telecom services.

But this could soon change with Anil Ambani controlled Reliance Infocomm aiming to restructure its rural presence, adding 200 more towns in the country to its network spread across 4,000 odd cities.

The private telecom operator recently crossed the one million customer mark in rural and semi-urban parts, is all set to expand rural telephony in a big way, he said, but declined to disclose the number of rural customers that the company is planning to add.

"We have planned a major rural penetration programme, under which we would be adopting 'region-centric' approach to reach the rural customer with a bouquet of services," Reliance Infocomm Rural Marketing head, Sanjeev Govil said.

He said that there was a difference between marketing a product in rural and urban area. Reliance Infocomm's data connectivity as well as R-World services are already getting tremendous response in rural as well as urban areas.

"We have had a good run with these services...infact in many areas these services have become our brand identity...in some of our markets people recognise the phone as TVwala phone...we plan to catch this nerve to enter the rural telephony in a big way," he said.

Presently Reliance Infocomm has a distribution network of around 1,500 distributors, which it aims to expand to cover each and every region of the country.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1336215.cms

[anujit 0]

Umm what happened to the calls at the rate of a postcard gimmick? Do post cards cost 2 bucks these days?

[raccoon 53]

Well, I guess they modified that slightly - "Calls cheaper than the rate of envelopes"!

Edited December 19, 2005 by raccoon

[abhay 0]

Reliance Info in JV with Maldives companies

Reliance Infocomm will lay a submarine cable between India and the Maldives. Infocomm has formed a consortium with Wataniya Telecom Maldives (WTM) and Maldivian internet service provider (ISP) Focus Infocomm, to lay the undersea cable and set up a landing station in Maldives. This will be the island nation’s first international submarine cable link connecting it with the rest of the world.

The Maldives has high telecom tariffs and is dependent on satellites for international and intra-national connectivity. The setting up of cable link is expected to bring down tariff rates there. “The India-Maldives cable is expected to be ready for commercial use in about a year,” a top official sources in Reliance Infocomm told ET.

While Infocomm’s wholly-owned subsidiary Flag will lay the cable, the landing station will be set up by the JV company, to be incorporated as Warf Telecom International. The consortium will own, operate and manage the landing station. It has already been approved by the Maldivian Telecom Authority. Reliance Info is expected to own around 30% in the company while the other two will have 35% each. The JV will also sell bandwidth locally.

WTM, which is the second largest mobile operator in Maldives, and Focus are two of the three top international bandwidth users in that country. “Reliance will benefit as the local partners will source bandwidth from the company,” officials said.

“By setting up their own landing station, Infocomm will be able to do away with individual service providers and have complete control over calls,” they said.

Earlier, this month, Infocomm had signed a deal with China Telecom to provide direct connectivity between the two Asian giants for the first time, prior to which the calls to China were routed through the US and Europe, making them expensive.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1339566.cms

Edited December 21, 2005 by abhay

[linuxguy 0]

heh. Maldives in for a surprise! Some ****ty tarrifs RI is going to piss them off.

[Arun 795]

Reliance Infocomm gets 1 million new subscribers in December

- Rediff.com

Rajesh S Kurup in Mumbai | December 31, 2005 09:46 IST

CDMA major Reliance Infocomm has registered over one million new connections in December this year, the highest ever recorded by the company after its 'Monsoon Hungama'. This increases the total number of the company's customers to 17 million, making it the leading CDMA player in the Indian telecom sector.

"The record increase in customers were due to the various schemes launched by the company during the month, with 1, 2, 3 and lifetime validity offers. The company's full amount refund scheme and full talk time schemes also contributed to the addition of one million users in last month," sources told Business Standard in Mumbai on Friday.

This is the second highest subscriber addition for the company, the earlier being during the time of its 'Monsoon Hungama' offer. During the offer period, Reliance Infocomm had garnered over one million users during a 10-day period.

Monsoon Hungama, which was launched in July 2003, targeted entry level customers with both a low entry cost and a low monthly spend. The scheme was also instrumental in roping in customers to the newly CDMA services from the monopoly of the GSM service providers in the country. It also helped the company in establishing its presence in the telecom sector, as the scheme has lowered entry barrier to Rs 501.

The company has also increased its coverage to over 4,500 towns during the calendar year, from its presence of around 1,500 as on the beginning of 2005. Its network footprint was increased to cover around 300,000 villages during the year from the earlier 120,000 villages, and Infocomm is planning to extend it to over 634,000 villages, they said.

These initiatives were under the company's rural foray, and the Anil Ambani-owned company is positioning its entry-level handsets coupled with attractive tariffs to penetrate into the remotest Indian villages.

As most of its handsets can access the Net, the company with its R Connect, an Internet application, was looking at providing broadband services in the rural areas.

[FEVIN-RAJ 61]

Reliance Info plans big roll-out

Kripa Raman

Mumbai , Jan. 11

RELIANCE Infocomm plans an aggressive rollout of its mobile and fixed telephony access network to reach more towns and cities across the country during the next six months.

The company, which plans to augment its network to cover 9,000 cities and towns (up from 4,500 currently) across the country, will cover half these additional locations by June , said a senior official with the company.

The newer tariff plans and packages that are the trend today will be of great appeal and use to populations in the B and C class cities, said the official. "We need to be where the growth is, where the numbers can come," he said.

Moving into smaller towns means that villages in their periphery would also get covered, said the official, according to whom the company has 1 million rural customers, the largest of any private telecom operator in the country.

The company's record of experiences shows that the customer potential in the hinterland could be vastly underestimated, said the official.

One strong factor is also the availability of information on commodity trade, weather and agricultural data.

[abhay 0]

Reliance Infocomm to expand network in MP, Chhattisgarh

Claiming to have emerged as the "number one" mobile operator in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh with more than 6.26 lakh subscribers, Reliance Infocomm on Tuesday unveiled plans to expand its network in 400 additional towns and 20,000 villages in a year in the two states.

"The company added 49,641 subscribers in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh last month to corner 24.49 per cent share of the states' mobility market," Reliance Infocomm's circle chief executive officer Santanu Chakrabarty told reporters.

Citing data prepared by the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), he said the company ended December, 2005 with 6,26,644 mobile subscribers, more than any other operator in the two states.

At the present rate of growth, the company's subscriber base will very soon touch eight lakh in these states, he said, adding within a year it would spread its network to 400 additional towns and 20,000 villages in the two states, particularly along highways, railway tracks and in peripheral towns.

The company seeks to maintain growth by working towards developing deeper customer relationships.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1607103,00020020.htm

[abhay 0]

Reliance Infocomm Jan user base up 5.12% MoM

The subscriber base of Reliance Infocomm Ltd. grew by 5.12% last month, as the company added more than 1mn new subscribers, the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUTSPI) said on Tuesday. Reliance Infocomm added 1,008,431 new users in January to take its total to 16,380,565, from 15,582,674 in December 2005. Of the total new additions, 804,207 were digital mobile subscribers while 197,724 were WLL (Fixed) users.

Tata Teleservices Ltd. added 406,242 new subscribers in January, taking its total user base to 8,129,818, from 7,723,576 in December. This represents a month-on-month growth of 5.25%. Of the total new additions, 380,595 were digital mobile subscribers while 21,049 were WLL (Fixed) users, and 4,598 were fixed-line subscribers.

The Gross Addition in January for all the basic service providers stood at 1,468,129, taking the Grant Total to 26,471,979 users, the AUTSPI said.

http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/news.asp?dat=75703

[Arun 795]

Reliance Infocomm completes Phase II expansion in Tamil Nadu, plan to start Phase III now

TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 2006

- ChennaiOnline.com, Economic Times, The Financial Express, PTI

Reliance Infocomm has announced the completion of its prestigious phase II project in Tamil Nadu. Phase II covers 600 towns, 10,000 villages and 4.3 crore people in the state. The Tamil Nadu circle of Reliance Infocomm is targeting over 100% growth during the current fiscal.

The company will unleash on April 14, the Tamil New Year, a 360 degree marketing and communication campaign highlighting its coverage leadership that is an aggregate of congestion-free traffic, lower call drops, more BTS (base tower stations), clarity and high data download speeds. The campaign presents two unique facets: modernity brought by its world-class technology on the one hand and the cultural spirit of Tamil Nadu, on the other, said V G Somasekhar, Circle CEO, Reliance Infocomm Ltd. 'We are the only service provider in the country to provide fibre optic connectivity that links BTS units with switches as compared to radio or microwave links of other operators. Hence, we have the potential for ready scalability to reach out to more customers across towns and villages with congestion free network,' he added.

The company would be adding 110 more base stations at the end of May 2006 to its existing 1,000 odd BTS at an investment of Rs 50 crore as part of its Phase III roll out in the State. With a customer base of 1.5 million, 95 per cent of them were subscribers to Reliance India Mobile, the company has been adding not less than on lakh new customers through mobile telephony in Tamilnadu. The State contributed 8-10 per cent of its all India subscriber base. 'After this completion of Phase II, we have become the number one provider of telecom services in Tamilnadu with convergence of uninterrupted voice, data and video applications of high clarity because of our fibre optic network, besides wireless connectivity,' Somasekhar declared.

"The third phase will be completed by May 31, 2006" V G Somasekhar, Circle CEO, told reporters on Tuesday.

Responding to queries, he said that Tamil Nadu contributes 9% to the company’s overall numbers. Of the total 1.5 million subscriber base, mobile alone holds 95%, he added.

"We are committed to remove the digital divide in Tamil Nadu. People will now get uninterrupted voice, good call clarity and wireless Internet connectivity. This is a Tamil New Year gift to the state," added Somasekhar.

Reliance Infocomm's 80,000 km of terabit fibre optic network forms the backbone of its network expansion. The network can support unlimited and uninterrupted voice, data and video applications across the country, he said.

R World is one popular application. With over 150 applications from news to railway ticketing to commodity prices, it has become a virtual computer for many in a country with a very low PC penetration. R Connect is another application that gives the user instant any time, anywhere Internet connectivity, Somasekhar said.

Reliance Infocomm's point of sales terminal facilitate credit and debit card transactions in smaller towns, usually bereft of supporting communication infrastructure. With more and more banks finding the application useful, it is catching up fast too. Unlike a standard PC that is fixed at the merchant establishment, Reliance-enabled PC is mobile as it is wired to a RIM phone, he added.

Smaller towns have seen mushrooming of mobile ATMs, pointed out Somasekhar. Banks are increasingly making use of the company's nationwide network to provide mobile ATMs. The State Bank of India's floating ATM on a barge in Cochin is the world's first such ATM. ATM-on-wheels can now be seen at Kumbh Mela too.

Ajay Awasthi, business head, TN Circle of Reliance Infocomm, presented the first copy of a CD having a set of musicals, created as part of a reworked marketing drive in Tamilnadu, to Somasekhar on the occasion. For the first time, Reliance Infocomm has customised its advertisement campaign in India. To capitalise on the huge potential of the fastest growing state in India, Reliance Infocomm will be launching a 50-second customised ad campaign exclusively for Tamil Nadu customers. Written and developed locally, the ad film is expected to catch the attention of one and all.

[abhay 0]

Inquiry against Reliance, Bharti

The Government has initiated investigations against telecom giants Bharti Airtel and Reliance Infocomm on provision of service in the buffer zone along international border, Lok Sabha was informed yesterday.

Minister of State for IT and Communications Shakeel Ahmad said in a written reply that investigations were also going on against AT&T, BT, Equant and MCI for providing services without license, although AT&T has now acquired the license.

Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd faces inquiry on a complaint on charging excess from public by its PCO franchise, while VSNL is under investigation for under-charging carriage cost of long distance calls. TTSL (Delhi) also faces enquiry on overcharging.

TTSL, Airtel, Reliance Infocmm face investigation for extension of area of coverage to Bahadurgarh SDCA by mobile service provider and TTML, Idea and Reliance are accused of providing services beyond their allocated area of Maharashtra.

Reliance Infocomm also had wrongfully claimed funds from the Universal Services Obligation Fund.

Vebtel faces enquiry for providing internet telephony operations through franchise beyond their service areas.

Ready Link Internet Servcies are also operating beyond their service area in Trichy and Salem. ISP Services Ltd was also operating beyond service area, Ahmad said.

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200612070343.htm