Ratan Tata’s acqusition on subscriber number authenticty gets a blow.
ET & PTI report that TRAI chairman, Nripendra Misra has confirmed that the figuers of subscribers released by cellcos are authentic. Earlier Tata group chairman Ratan Tata had questioned the authenticity of subscriber numbers released by cellcos on which they are eligible for further spectrum according to TRAI and DoT spectrum allocation policy.
“The figures announced by mobile operators every month are correct and authentic.” said Misra
Telecom Minister, Dayanidhi Maran in a statement said
“Best of international practices are being followed which is very stringent in subscriber counting and definitely we believe the operators.”
It is high time that the Ratan Tata realize he is dealing in one of the most competative Telecom markets in the world and better conduct himself professionally without laundering money from group companeis & making false acquistions against respectable and competative Indian Telcos.
In a separate development TRAI released a paper on 3G spectrum allocation. Details here.
Indian mobile advertising market to grow leaps and bounds.
I am extraordinarily bullish on the Indian and Asian Mobile market in general. Lately, Indian Cellcos have been toying with the ideas of cashing in on its vast mobile subscriber base by offering more value added and innovative services. Mobile coupons, Location Specific Services, Mobile Portals, Advertising on mobiles by sms as well as mms are some of the services different service providers will roll out in the next two quarters.
ActiveMedia Technologies in association with Hutch, India’s fourth largest mobile operator are trying to promote m-coupons which can be encashed at retail outlets like Dominos Pizza, Baritsa and Lifestyle. While India’s larget cellular operator Bharti-Airtel, has tied up with Enpocket for innovative advertising on its subscribers mobile like Location based service. Mobile2Win has already developed the technology for delivering location based services.
Its not just the Telcos who are aggressive about mobile advertising, but soft drink major Pepsi is also exploring opportunities to reach consumers via mobile. Pepsi estimates that it will spend about 5% of their budget on Mobile advertising. Global mobile advertising market is expected to be around $3 billion and Indian telecom service providers want to cash in on this before any disruptive technology like Google hits the market.
NOTE: With inputs from The Economic Times
Indian Bandwidth Prices to Crash ?
The International court of Arbitration today ruled in favour of Reliance Telecom, who owns and controls international carrier Flag Telecom. Flag Telecom’s landing station in India are under the control of Tata’s owned VSNL. VSNL refused to give access to Reliance Infocomm thus creating a monopoly to carry international traffic. Lately, Tata’s have been behaving very incompetently especially with their telecom ventures. Soon after the ruling, BPO companies in Guragon and Bangalore were cheering as they are expecting to get more bandwidth at cheaper prices. Cheers to International court of arbitration 
Google Mobile Targetting India and China
Timesonline is reporting that Google Mobile Labs is targetting the fastest growing Mobile marksts of the world, India and China. Earlier I had reporetd that the equation for Mobile 1.0 is not the same as Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 - East will rule the West It is interesting to see if MSN Mobile will follow Google Mobile ? Also the potential for value added services in the Indian mobile industry is very high, which is evident from the fact that Bharti-Airtel by itself was able to sell 75 Million tones so far. The concept of caller tones/tunes is absent in the US.
BSNL makes call cheaper to private networks
Hindustan Times is reporting that, BSNL is reducing the tariff for local calls originating from its network and terminating on private GSM or CDMA networks. BSNL subscribers who were paying Rs4.80 to talk for 3 minutes to a GSM or CDMA phone will now pay only Rs1.20 and ofcourse this applies for IntraCircle & the rules governing local calls less tha 50/100 Kms. BSNL has been aggressively competing with private players. Recall earlier this year it came out with India One or One India Plan, which costs customers Rs1 to talk to any phone in the country.
On Mobile Number Portability – Insiders View
Earlier I had reported about mobile number portability in India. I happened to read an article by Alok Singh of CyberMedia published in their magazine Voice & Data April-05(Jeez I am so late, a procrastinator).
Alok quotes that…With regards to MNP, the pertinent issue is why does it have to take one year ? The current state of technological readiness of the operators and the availablity of MNP applications can let the facility roll out much earlier.
I would like to differ with Alok as MNP is not an ordinary issue at all. When MNP was first introduced in the US, their were so many backend issues that need to be handled which created panic and left some users without mobile services from 48 hours to 30 days in some cases. AT&T lost consumers heavily during this transition. Also don’t forget US has one of the best telephone numbering mechanism known as the North American Numbering Plan. I can only imagine the mess our mobile numbering mechanism will create once MNP goes online.
Feed
