Posts Tagged ‘Reliance Communications’

Mobile call rates would double in some circles if the recommendations of TRAI on spectrum pricing are accepted, telecom CEOs who met Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal warned on Tuesday.

“…there will be circles which will have more than a 100 per cent price rise (in tariffs) if they were to absorb the impact of what is being recommended,” Bharti Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor told reporters here.

“In one circle, the cost of spectrum, the reserve price is Rs 7 crore and on other end, there are metros where it is Rs 717 crore, which is a 100 times differential,” he said.

The chiefs of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Uninor and Videocon met Mr. Sibal and Department of Telecom Secretary R. Chandrashekhar to discuss the implications of TRAI recommendations.

Top officials of CDMA operators Sistema Shyam Teleservices, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices and CDMA body AUSPI also met the minister earlier in the day on the same issue.

Mr. Kapoor said, “The discussion was about two things — one is the TRAI recommendations made on the reserve price and auction, and basically (its saying) that the recommendations will have an impact of 2 paise on the industry, and the other was about reframing.”

TRAI has not considered the price elasticity of demand while formulating the 2 paise assumption, he said.

“As the prices rise, the consumption goes down. And it has been absolutely assumed as if the consumption will remain constant which is not correct,” Mr. Kapoor said, adding that there is a 30 paise per minute impact and not 2 paise as TRAI has assumed.

TRAI has suggested a base price of Rs 3,622 crore for one megahertz (MHz) for pan—India spectrum.

This is around 10 times higher for pan—India operations than the price at which 2G licences bundled with 4.4 MHz spectrum were allocated in 2008 under the then telecom minister A Raja.

Mr. Kapoor said TRAI has taken into consideration only 576 Mhz in the 1800 Mhz band for calculations, whereas in reality 1167.40 Mhz of spectrum is at play.

“Now the difference between what Trai has taken is three times apart because TRAI has taken Rs 93,000 crore into cognisance whereas the cost of spectrum that I just mentioned is more than Rs 2,84,000 crore,” he added.

Reliance Communications – the second largest mobile operator in India based on users – claims 2.8 million active 3G users, the highest in India.

Idea Cellular has 2.25 million 3G users. While around 30 percent of 7 million 3G users of Bharti Airtel are active, according to media reports.

India’s total 3G user base is around 10-12 million.

Recently, Reliance Communications has started 3G services in more than 333 towns in all the 13 circles RCOM have won spectrum.

Idea Cellular has provisioned 3G services for more than 5 percent of its existing 106 million customer base. Idea as on 31st December has more than 2.25 million active subscribers on 3G platform in the month of December with an average usage of 235 MB per month and 3G Data incremental ARPU at Rs 79.

Vodafone India, which launched commercial 3G services in February last year, saw a huge surge in data revenues, which grew by 29 per cent Rs 647 crore. The company provides 3G services in 683 towns and cities across 20 circles. Its total data customers accounted to 31.2 million by the end of December. That was 21.5 per cent of its total subscribers of 144.9 million.

Vodafone, Idea, Airtel in pact for pan-India 3G services

In an undeclared roll-out of inter-dependency in the highly competitive telecom market, three major telecom players – Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel – have entered into agreements to provide pan-India 3G services.

The three will now use each other’s networks through intra-circle roaming arrangements where they do not have licences.

Airtel, Aircel and Reliance Communications each own 3G spectrum licence in 13 of the 22 telecom circles, while Vodafone, Idea and the Tatas each have licence in nine circles.

The communication further explained: “With this agreement, Vodafone / Airtel / Idea will bring a pan-India experience of 3G services to their customers.”

9 million users connect to 3G in 4 monthsq

Since the launch of 3G services four months ago, telcos in India have signed up as many as 9 million consumers.

The leader of the 3G pack is Bharti Airtel with 3 million subscribers followed by Tata DoCoMo with 1.5 million users.

Idea Cellular, Vodafone and BSNL have over a million 3G customers each.

Reliance Communications did not give out its numbers but sources said that it also has close to a million 3G connections.

3G Industrial Training

Reliance Communications plans to launch 3G by year-end

Reliance Communications, plans to launch  3G service by end of the year.According to Mr. Syed Safawi, Head of Wireless Business, Reliance Communications, the company expects to be in the 3G market by end of the year.

RCOM has 13 circles including the metros of Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata and is the only operator without capacity constraints on 2G in these circles.

Reliance Communications, Bharti Airtel and Aircel have won the largest number of 13 circles each in the auction of airwaves for third generation (3G) telecom services, and will collectively pay the government 27,379.96 crore ($6.08 billion).