Reliance Communications fund raising plans
With buoyant capital markets around the world and an ever lasting appetite for Indian equity, Anil Ambani is all set to cash in on the boom.
Reliance Communications has planned several secondary offerings. Reliance Communications’ subsidiary, Flag Telecom, which is building the world’s largest next generation IP network maybe listed on the London Stock Exchange and raise $500 million.
RCom has received approval from the Union Finance Ministry to raise $1.2 Billion by means of an ADR offering which are likely to be listed on NASDAQ.
And this is not all, RCom plans to unlock the value of its hidden assets – Wireless Towers [both GSM & CDMA] by transferring them to a separare company, Reliance Telecom Infrastructure Limited [RTIL]. All new towers and related infrastructure will be set up by RTIL, with independent financing, thereby reducing capex requirements and leveraging on the company’s own balance sheet. American Towers is eyeing a 20% stake in RTIL.
TRAI slashes roaming charges in India
The TRAI in an order issued just a while ago has asked to slash domestic romaing rates for mobile users on the go. Tariffs have been lowered between 22% and 56%.The maximum permissible per minute roaming charges according to new schedule are as follows,
- Rs 1.4 for outgoing local calls
- Rs 2.4 for long distance calls
- Rs 1.75 for incoming calls
Also the mobile operators can no more charge [daily/ weekly / monthly] any kind of fees for providing roaming facility. For instance Airtel charged me Rs 49 to avail romaing facility in Delhi NCR because I am a registered user of Airtel Karnataka. The order comes into effect from Feb-15th-2007.
Recall, Maran had asked at the 3G conference to consider slashing international roaming rates and hopefully he will get it done soon 
Tags: Mobile India, mobile+roaming , Mobile, Mobile Tariffs
India Mobile Subscriber Statistics – December-2006
At the end of December 2006, India has 146.1 Million Mobile subscribers. [40.7 Million CDMA + 105.4 GSM].
Top 5 Mobile Service Providers in India [GSM and CDMA]:
- Bharti Airtel Ltd - 31.2 Million subscribers
- Reliance Communications Ltd – 29.7 Million subscribers [26.3 Million CDMA + 3.4 Million GSM]
- BSNL Cellone – 23.61 Million [Excludes MTNL in Mumbai and Delhi]
- Hutchison Essar – Hutch – 19.06 Million [Excludes BPL Mumbai]
- Tata Indicom Mobile – 14.4 Million [All CDMA]
Top 5 GSM Service Providers in India
- Bharti Airtel Ltd - 31.2 Million subscribers
- BSNL Cellone – 23.61 Million [ Excludes MTNL in Mumbai and Delhi ]
- Hutchison Essar – Hutch – 19.06 Million
- Idea cellular Ltd – 12.43 Million
- Reliance Telecom – 3.3 Million
RCom and Tata Indicom are the only two major service providers in CDMA segment.
For the quarter ended Dec-2006, Bharti-Airtel and Reliance Telecom saw a marginal increase in market share at the cost of Idea Cellular and BSNL. According to Macquire Research, Indian wireless subscriber base is all set to touch 400 Million, while Citigroup Investment Research has revised the figure to 387 Million from 365 Million for 2010.
Tags: Mobile India, Wireless, Wireless Subscribers, Telecom India
Bharti Airtel to provide mobile services in Sri Lanka
Emerging Asian Telecom Giant, Bharti Airtel Ltd has received permission from the Sri Lankan Telecom Regulatory Commission to provide 2G and 3G cellular services in Sri Lanka. Airtel was directly competing with Reliance Communications and Maxis Telecom to become the 5th GSM operator in Sri Lanka. In Sept-2006, Airtel bagged cellular license to provide services in the Channel Island nation of Gurnsey.
Sunil Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel, said
We are delighted to have received the offer to provide mobile services in Sri Lanka.Today the South Asian region offers tremendous growth opportunities and Sri Lanka is a very promising market for telecom services.
In another development, RCom controlled Flag Telecom and Tata controlled VSNL are in race to wire African countries.
Tags: Mobile, 3G, Sri Lanka Telecom , Asian Telecom, Emerging Market
Mobile IM closer to reality in India
Last October, Manoj Kohli, President, Bharti Airtel Ltd had unveiled plans about a common Mobile Instant Messaging platform being undertaken by the 10 GSM cellcos in India. The promise has inched closer to reality as COAI said in a release that the service will be launched in 3 weeks from now.
What is Mobile Instant Messenger ? Mobile Instant Messenger is a thin client that needs to be installed on your handset and using GPRS you can authenticate and log-on to chat with your friends on other mobiles or even friends logged onto desktop messengers. Looks like it is fully interoperable though I have not tested yet. This is only available to all GSM Mobile Phone users in India.
Now if your mobile service is GPRS enabled, you might also want to try Mundu’s Wireless client [Handset dependent] or any other client that supports mobile phones to make inexpensive VoIP calls
Tags: Mobile IM, Mobile India, Mundu Wireless, GPRS
Airtel, ICICI and American Express fined for tele-marketing
India’s largest Cellco, Airtel and largest private bank, ICICI along with American Express have been severely fined for unsolicited tele-marketing. A complainant, who neither had any banking nor any business relationship with ICICI / American Express dragged them to the consumer court and made Airtel a respondant in the case as she suspected Airtel had shared consumer info with the two Banks.
TRAI which invites consultation paper after paper has no final word on the much awaited Do Not Disturb registry.
Tags: TeleMarketing , ICICI, AMEX, Do Not Disturb Registry India
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