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| Tuesday, August 29, 2006 |
| After Nokia N series it's now Meridian's Fly Mobile |
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After Nokia N Series, Indian consumer now has the choice to choose a Meridian Fly Mobile.
Four models were introduced in India. The one that you are seeing is FLY SL 500 M.
It is a feature-rich handset with a 262K colour screen and a 1.3 Mega-Pixel camera with Flash. It also has a Video Recorder and Player that allows for continuous video recording. It has a 60 MB Internal memory, and Expandable External Memory (T-Flash) slot. It allows for video ring tones with MPEG 4 and IRDA. It also has other features such as MP3 player and 64 tone polyphonic and MP3 tones.
Fly SL500m is available in two colours, Black & Titan.
Fly SL 500M is priced at Rs 9,999/-.
Their are 3 other models(Fly MP 330, Fly 2040, and Fly MX 300) priced between Rs8000 and Rs10,000. A comprehensive review of fly mobiles released in India is here. |
Published on Tuesday, August 29, 2006 at 7:19 AM  |
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| Thursday, August 24, 2006 |
| Airtel outsources network operatiosn to Ericsson. |
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 Earlier this year, I had reporetd on the unique business model adopted by Airtel for network expansion, upgradation and management - outsource the entire networking operation to GSM equipment manufacturer, Ericsson. Airtel has done it again. It has outsourced a Billion dollar(Rs4,600 crores) contract to Ericsson for the next 3 years to help Bharti expand and upgrade its GSM network in the country.
Akil Gupta, Joint MD of Bharti-Airtel told that the deal would be financed through internal accurals. Had anybody thought in the 90s that Indian telecom would be a market worth billions of dollars and European telecos would get a considerable slice of this market ? Well early investment by those companies in India has paid off as revenues on their home-turf have slowed down. With 3G services in the offing, Telecom MNCs in India can expect a bigger slice of this market. |
| Published on Thursday, August 24, 2006 at 4:24 AM |
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| Tuesday, August 22, 2006 |
| Airtel ties up with Microsoft |
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Bharti Airtel and Microsoft have tied up to offer Windows Mobile services targetted at SME(Small and Medium Enterprise) customers in India. Airtel already offers blackberry services to corporates and SMEs.
Speaking on the ocassion, Manoj Kohli, President of Bharti-Airtel Mobile division said that the company plans to offer both Blackberry as well as Windows Mobile services to its customers. With the enhancement of Windows Mobile, one can expect to have access to compact/mobile versions of Outlook client, Office suite(Word, Excel, Power Point), IE and Windows Media Player.
Customers can look for iPaq or Acer handsets which support Windows Mobile. The price range for these handsets is from Rs16,000 to Rs65,000 and they usually come with expandable memory. |
| Published on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 1:30 AM |
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| Saturday, August 19, 2006 |
| $95Million per circle for 3G spectrum - Overvaluation ? |
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If ET is to be believed, then TRAI is proposing Rs85 crores for every MHz of spectrum to offer 3G services. TRAI is considering auctioning the spectrum on European model of Telecom business - Price it for every MHz. For any operator to offer 3G services efficiently then he has to atleast have 5MHz of spectrum. However, recall that, in the past officials and telcos have said that the economics of west can’t be applied in the Indian context because of bandwidth scarcity. Considering Rs425 crores per circle and 23 such circles in India it will cost operators who want to have PAN India presence a whopping $2.0 Billion to acquire the licenses. Insane ? Ask TRAI.
FCC is auctioning AWS(Advanced Wireless Services) spectrum in the United States. With AWS spectrum you can offer 3G services like Voice, Data, Video and other applications requiring wireless broadband. After round 28, the bids total stood at $11.3 Billion. So will revenues of Indian cellular service providers be comparable to their American counterparts ? If TRAI is adamant on its pricing structure at Rs85crores/MHz then not many cellcos will come forward or they may opt to start in fewer circles(Metros) and then expand gradually. Tata’s have asked for a flat fees of Rs1500 crores while Reliance Telecom aligned itself with COAI and is seeking Rs150, Rs100 and Rs50 crores for Metros, Circle A and Circle B respectively. If TRAI manages to sell the spectrum at this price to atleast four all India mobile operators, then P.Chidambaram is a happy man with $32 Billion in his pocket :-) |
| Published on Saturday, August 19, 2006 at 12:46 PM |
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| Friday, August 18, 2006 |
| Dish TV or Triple Play in India ? |
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I read a review of Tata Sky TV which prompted me to peek at Zee’s Dish TV offering. I must admit that I have been lagging behind in using or atleast testing these two services. I was kind of lost thinking that IPTV is the way to go. But lets have a closer look. Dish TV services, both by Tata and Zee are not bad at all. Their picture quality is better than our local cable provider but not the DVD quality which they claim. Sound is as good as played on an original track CD. The choice of channels is directly proportional to the depth of your pocket :-) On an average the service costs Rs300/month.
I am beginning to doubt about how IPTV can be offered at a price of just Rs300/Month. Airtel-Broadband’s DSL in Karantaka costs Rs250 for downloading 400MB of data. If you want the same quality of Audio and Video as that of Dish TV, I atleast want a speed of 512KBPs(with all complex compression techniques), 1MBPS recommended. Current bandwidth costs for 1MBPs line are way too high. Also, you cannot force a customer to opt for high speed expensive broadband and then push him into the bouqet of IPTV. I had requested the results of Bharti-Airtel’s pilot project on IPTV in Delhi and the request just got passed from one to another without reciving any response. This makes me wonder if the results were awful to be published ? Traditional and Dish TV is very popular amongst Indians while IPTV may not see the same demand. Dish TV with a DVR will also let you view movies on demand, play games, record a TV serial in background while your kid watches a cricket match and will definitely be cheaper than IPTV. Maybe this is the reason why Reliance is silent on its Dish or IPTV plans and in the next few months we will know if Mittal has his midas touch on Airtel’s Triple Play :-)
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| Published on Friday, August 18, 2006 at 9:58 PM |
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| Thursday, August 17, 2006 |
| India leads in online population growth |
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The number of Indians over 15 years of age accessing the internet rose 7.8% in Q2-2006 to 18.02 million from 16.71 million. India currently ranks at ninth position in terms of total online population. America has retained top slot with 153 million users according to comScore. China and Russia followed India with 5.22% and 5.14% rise in its web-users respectively.
Internet penetration in India will increase further in the next few years and this is visible by the rate at which Yahoo and Google are localizing their online properties for the diverse population of India. With the rapid penetration of broadband in tier-2 and tier-3 cities, one can expect increased e-commerce as well as some innovative startups ? Hope so :-) |
| Published on Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 1:44 AM |
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| Monday, August 14, 2006 |
| Maxis owned Aircel to get LoI from DoT |
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DoT has cleared the deck for Aircel to operate in seven more circles in India. Aircel currently operates in the circles of Chennai, TamilNadu, Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir and North East India. It has receievd approval from the DoT to start operations in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh service areas.With the entry of Maxis, the number of mobile service providers with PAN India presence now goes up to nine.
Aircel is majority owned by Maxis Telecom of Malaysia. With the entry of Maxis, you can only expect your call charges to go down |
| Published on Monday, August 14, 2006 at 4:49 AM |
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| Saturday, August 12, 2006 |
| From e-learning to m-learning |
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The west is caught in converting traditional softwares like spreadsheet and wordprocessor into web enabled tools like Writely and Google spreadsheet. While in Pune, India, Kalzoom a startup which is aiding e-learning is moving up the value chain to also aid m-learning.
Kalzoom has expertise in m-enabling the traditional e-Learning content into formats suitable for your mobile, depending upon the types of devices envisaged. They are doing this on behalf of a client in Singapore. However, the going is not so smooth as Sunderaraman COO of Kalzoom said that ,
One needs to decide on the kind of content that can be framed in a
downloadable format.
Also “search” is another feature they must work on. Maybe Google mobile labs can come to their rescue. |
| Published on Saturday, August 12, 2006 at 10:51 AM |
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| Friday, August 11, 2006 |
| Mobile operators pool resources to avoid congestion during crisis |
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During floods or other crisis like 7-11 of Mumbai, you should feel lucky if your mobile call has gone through. To avoid congestion in the event of such crisis, Airtel, Hutch and Idea have joined hands to make their network function as a single unit. No you should not be worried about the rates, it doesn’t affect you. The goal of this was in response to TRAI findings that the congestion rate was alarming.
An Airtel executive said that,
The experiment has been successful to a large extent in keeping the
congestion off a single network as the burden is being shared by all the three
operators.
I recall some mobile service provider sending a mobile base station near cricket stadium during one day cricket match to avoid congestion. Its a good job done by our mobile service providers considering the necessity of such a system. |
| Published on Friday, August 11, 2006 at 12:10 PM |
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| Thursday, August 10, 2006 |
| Toll free number incompatibility |
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We are talking of Telecom revolution in India and boasting about lowest rates in India. But everything is coming at some cost. Poor QoS and customer service, lack of security and incompatibility between operators. What ? Yes did you know that Toll Free calling is incompatible between telecom service providers. If a company provides a 1-800 Toll Free number, then you can’t dial the same from your Bharti-Airtel phone and you have to call from your BSNL or MTNL land phone only. Strange? It sucks big time!!!
If such small issues can’t be taken care off, are the Indian telcos ready for Number Portability which is a far more complex issue to deal with ? |
| Published on Thursday, August 10, 2006 at 8:45 PM |
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| Wednesday, August 09, 2006 |
| Telcos and Cellcos in expansion mode |
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Looks like telcos and cellcos in India are in no mood to slowdown. Reliance Communication’s GSM arm, Reliance Telecom has announced to expand aggressively in 4,000 cities and towns. Reliance has also sought a license fees of Rs150 crores and Rs100 crores for 3G licenses for Metro circles(Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkatta) and Category A circles respectively.
Global long distance company AT&T has got approval from the government to launch its servcies in India. Tata Tele said it would invest Rs2,500 crores in expansion during 2006-07. Maxis which has applied for 11 more licenses after acquiring Aircel plans to invest Rs2,500 crores. Idea cellular which is bleeding with a $1 Billion loan has already announced to have a PAN India footprint and has applied for necessary licenses.
Historically, telcos and cellcos have not been extremely profitable due to government regulations and innovative applications of disruptive technologies. On this day looks like their will be 6 companies in the GSM segment with all India operations - Bharti-Airtel, BSNL, Hutch-Essar, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom and Maxis controlled Aircel. Tata & Reliance Infocomm in the CDMA are already having all India operations. WoW! The ultimate benificeary will be the Indian consumer. |
| Published on Wednesday, August 09, 2006 at 8:06 AM |
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| Tuesday, August 08, 2006 |
| Tata Sky Dish TV launched |
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The long awaited Tata Sky TV(Dish TV) will be soon available to you. Tata Sky is a 80:20 joint venture between Tata and Star TV. With majority of the Telcos opting for IPTV, Tata’s took the Dish TV path while Reliance communications is still in a fix.
Tata Sky intends to provide DVD quality video and CD quality audio through Tata Sky TV. The company is focused on quality and customer satisfaction by having a 24*7 call center and a strong groung workforce of 4000 folks spread throughout India. Tata Sky TV will be marketed through LG, ITC e-Choupal and IOC. The service has an upfront sign-up fees of Rs3000 and a monthly service charge of Rs200 and will offer 55 channels such as Sony, Discovery, Disney, MTV, NDTV, ESPN STAR Sports, National Geographic, Eenadu, TV Today and Asianet. |
| Published on Tuesday, August 08, 2006 at 8:12 PM |
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| Monday, August 07, 2006 |
| Finance Minister favours entery fees for 3G licenses |
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Finance Ministry has favoured entry fees for autioning 3G licenses. The fees could be as high as Rs250 crores for each of the metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkatta. Each of the “Category A” states (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Mahrashtra, Gujarat and Tamilnadu) are likely to attract fees of Rs150 crores. At these rates the government will be add to the exchequer, Rs4,000 crores from metro circles and Rs3,000 crores from “Category A” circles.
I am sure the already bleeding telcos will not hesitate to pass on the additional fees to their consumers. It is not advisable to impose a flat fees rather government should go for a revenue share model as telcos are now busy expanding their presence in reote villages which is so essesntail for the Indian economy. Bharti-Airtel’s, CEO Sunil Mittal was not in favor of additional fees for 3G services and the issue is widely debated. Your thoughts on entry fees ?
In a separate development the fight and spat between Hutch and Essar over BPL Mumbai continues and the shots coming from Hutch alleging the that the termination notice was wrongful. |
| Published on Monday, August 07, 2006 at 10:49 AM |
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| Historic Tariffs in Indian Telecom Industry |
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ISD/ILD prices have fallen from a peak of Rs90/Minute to less than Rs9.0/Minute now.(Airtel offers @ Rs7.2/Minute to the US/Europe). STD/NLD Tariffs have fallen from Rs40 to Rs1.0 in IndiaOne plan and even less on Reliance & MTNL capital region plans.
Local calls on Landlines have just halved(they should be eventually be free, some telcos provide free calls for dial-up internet users) while that on Mobiles have fallen from Rs14.0/Minute in 1996-97 to Rs0.5/Minute depending on the scheme now.
Check out this graph. |
| Published on at 8:01 AM |
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| Saturday, August 05, 2006 |
| Weekend Telecom Updates |
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After SEZs, its time for a wirless park. Telecom multinationals operating in India - Nokia,Motorola and Siemens are setting up shop in Jarkhand’s Rs75 Crores wireless park.
Hutch and Essar continue to battle over BPL mobile’s Mumbai circle. Latest acquistion by Esaar group is, Hutch executives tried to poach the top management of BPL mobile. Bharti-Airtel’s Sunil Mittal says he is not interested in BPL Mumbai if its up for sale. However, Reliance Telecom could be interested
TRAI has instructed all the telcos in the country to upgrade their technology to monitor and intercept signals of roaming cellular subscribers in the interest of national security. |
| Published on Saturday, August 05, 2006 at 9:37 PM |
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| Friday, August 04, 2006 |
| Tech Mahindra IPO gets terrific response. |
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| Tech Mahindra’s IPO closed today and according to figures made available by the National Stock Exchange of India, the issue has received terrific response. The institutional part of the issue was oversubscribed by a whopping 104 times leading to a collection of Rs29,000 crores($6.3 Billion). However, institutions will get allotment of just Rs279 crores and the excess will be refunded. The High Networth Individuals quota was oversubscribed 142 times and the retail investors quota was oversubscribed by 7.84 times leading to collection of Rs6,645 crores and Rs1094 crores according to NSEIndia release @ 20:15Hrs on Friday. Rs4600 crores($1 Billion) |
| Published on Friday, August 04, 2006 at 12:49 PM |
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| SMS and Web help realize carpooling on demand in Mumbai |
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It is a well known concept to carpool with colleagues or others in the vicinity of your workplace. Typically you goto a carpool classifieds and hook with other drivers. However, it is common to stay back at work late evenings to talk to your co-workers in the US or Europe. Essentialy your return times are never fixed. But you still want to carpool, how would you do it ?
With rising oil prices and traffic, Mumbai based, MESN(Mumbai Environmental and Social Network) came up with the idea to introduce hooking carpool drivers and ride seekers on the go. They have a website KoolPool. Ride Seekers and Ride Givers can register and try to hook up by means of SMS or Web based scheduling minutes before you both decide to ride back home.
Ride givers earn 25 fuel points for every person picked up and they can redeem their points in HPCL fuel outlets. Ride Seekers should BUY a pre-paid account which gets debited the moment they confirm they want a ride by means of SMS or on the Web. Isn’t it a really cool idea for the busy Mumbaikars |
| Published on at 12:45 PM |
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| Wednesday, August 02, 2006 |
| Will VoIP innovation hit Indian ISD carriers? |
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Anyuser Telecom has reduced ISD tariffs again. It now costs just Rs0.99/Minute to call the US and Canada :-) Another lesser known Indian firm is at the heart of innovation and leading the bleeding edge of VoIP technology - GeoDesic. GeoDesic has an IM client - Mundu for enterprises, portals and also your mobiles. Install Mundu Speak on your handset and talk unlimited to any phone in the world which has Mundu client. Currently, Mundu is supported on Nokia 6680, 6681, 6682, 6630 & N-Series N70, N90 on the Symbian platform; and phones with Windows Mobile 5.0 / Windows Mobile 2003SE for Pocket PC. Mundu already boasts about 1 Million users within the first 3 months of launch.
Yahoo also supports its YM! client on Nokia N-Series so will all other leading clients(MSN, AOL, GTalk) be ported to popular phones to grab a slice of this market.
Bharti-Airtel has the following GPRS plans which you will need to use Mundu Speak. Rs399, Rs599 and Rs799 per month which lets you download 100MB, 1GB and 1.5GB of data respectively. Above those limits its Rs0.10/KB. Isn't it really a cool product to keep in touch with your overseas friends and relatives so cheap that you can rant about Ramayana and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi over your mobile ;-) |
| Published on Wednesday, August 02, 2006 at 1:07 AM |
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| Tuesday, August 01, 2006 |
| Can we really trust Indian newspapers ? Read On... |
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I was determiend to find out what were the 4th cellular operators license costs in India that were auctioned of in 2001. I first looked at DOT & TRAI but I couldn’t expect more from them being government managed websites. Then I landed up on Hindu. I found two reports which contradict each other as to what prices the telecom operators paid to the government as license fees. Check out - One and Two.
In the first report it says Bharti was the top bidder for Gujarat (Rs 102.56 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 77.85 crore) and Kolkata (Rs 77.85 crore). It also leads in Kerala (Rs 40.53 crore), Uttar Pradesh (West) (Rs 30.54 crore), Uttar Pradesh (East) (Rs 30.54 crore), Haryana (Rs 21.45 crore) and Madhya Pradesh (Rs 17.45 crore).
In the second report for Bharti it said Gujarat (Rs 109.01 crore), Haryana (Rs 21.46 crore), Kerala (Rs 40.54 crore), Madhya Pradesh (Rs 17.45 crore), Maharashtra (Rs 189 crore), Tamil Nadu (Rs 79 crore) and UP West (Rs 30.55 crore).
In the firsr report for Reliance it said Kolkata (Rs 25 crore).
In the second report for Reliance it says Reliance-promoted Reliable Internet, which had initially bid for 15 circles, won the circle of Kolkata for Rs 78.01 crore.
Also for Punjab - Rs105 crores first report Vs Rs151crores in the second report.
Both of the above were reported by Hindu News Bureaus and not PTI. So were the operators allowed to change the bids after they were submitted ? That will be a larger telecom scandal ;-)
Its not just the question of Hindu or BusinessLine. Check out what EconomicTimes writes about Reliance’s results in comparison with Bharti.
While Bharti gets nearly 74% of its revenues from mobile services, the share of wireless is lower in the case of Reliance Communications. They are so wrong about it. Check out page 9 of this official Bharti report which says, they derive 71% of their revenue from Mobile division and not 74% as reported by EconomicTimes. Infact Reliance derives 74.8% from its wireless operations.(Rs2432 crores from total revenues of Rs3250 crores)
I am glad I had a closer look before making my BUY/SELL decisions on both of these stocks and not just rely on flawed data from Indian major financial daily, The EconomicTimes. |
| Published on Tuesday, August 01, 2006 at 10:39 PM |
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