Dalal, a legal adviser, has filed documents which show that to become a subscriber under the ‘Dhirubhai Ambani pioneer offer’ scheme customers had to fill in a ‘loan application form of Reliance Capital Limited’.
The application form termed the payment as “… advance payment towards availment of telecom services to be provided by Reliance Infocomm and other services using RIC network to be provided by Reliance Communications Infrastructure and/or any other company as specified by RIC and purchase a handset from handset supplier (where applicable) and confirm that the loan will be used for the stated purpose.”
But the loan so sanctioned by Reliance Capital was for nil rupees.
And here are the excerpts of Reliance’s response from the article:
An RIC spokesperson said, “our company doesn’t want to comment on this.”
The official spokesperson for RIC refused to explain or comment on this.
“The company doesn’t want to comment on this either,” said an RIC spokesperson.
RIC’s official spokesperson Deepak Neogi declined comment on this allegation.
A questionnaire sent to RIC did not evoke any response despite repeated reminders.
Indian Telecom sector happens to be one of the highly taxed sectors vis-a-vis other countries.
Levies on the Operator are:
- Duties on imported equipment
- Annual license fee
- Contribution to the universal services obligation (USO) fund
- Spectrum fee
And the consumer pays:
- Service tax
- Interconnection charge
- Access deficit charge
This Economic Times story says that simplification of the duty structure is on the cards in the budget including sanitizing the definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR).
Business Standard reports that auto-maker Mahindra and Mahindra is launching a racing game on mobiles based on its SUV Scorpio model.
Bollywood uses mobile games as a form of merchandise around films and there have been various cases of leveraging mobiles, especially SMS, for marketing. But M&M is probably the first company in its category to use mobile games for branding in India.
Essentially, the effort is to connect with high-end mobile users who are either currently own or are potential customers of Scorpio. Adds Bhagwat “We see the Scorpio owner or potential customer as a fun loving person who has arrived in life.” And that is were the high-end mobile connect is established.
Interface also has taken extra efforts to see that the Turbonator is built completely around the Scorpio brand from the ground up rather than the brand being shrink-wrapped around an existing game.
Telecom Asia covers Bharti chief Sunil Mittal’s talk at 3GSM World Congress in Cannes saying that India can be a model for GSM operators in other emerging markets.
According to Mittal, India is still bursting with untapped potential, citing over 11 million households that can afford mobile service. As prices drop, that should increase to over 32 million in 2009, by which time by current growth rates India will become the third largest mobile market in the world after China and the US.
Rediff has a guide on do’s and dont’s when buying a mobile phone.
Nokia’s checklist in the article is more useful:
* First, what’s your profession (executive, student, housewife)?
* Second, what do you want the phone for (only voice, or imaging and music).
* Third, are you an outdoor person, a family person, a socialite?
* Fourth, what do you do in your leisure time (gaming, see movies or are you a family person)?
* Fifth, do you travel by car, do you have to move around a lot or are you stationary at your desk most of the time?
* Finally, how much are you willing to pay for the phone?
Pauly claimed that the sheer number of operators involved in remote workers’ lives–one for their mobile phone, one for fixed office telephony, one for wireless Internet access and one for fixed broadband access at home–made it almost impossible for budget controllers to keep track of costs…
Obermann added that the next challenge for the mobile industry was to effectively “cut the wire to the PC” and let users access all the applications they have in an office environment via their mobile. “This is going to require a lot of focus by the industry,” he said.
Source: Corporate customers want less cellular fluff | CNET News.com
The national average revenue per user (ARPU) for GSM operators has fallen below the Rs 400 mark to Rs 396.41 during Oct-Dec 2004, down 1.42 per cent from the previous quarter.
Hutch (Rs 484.08) and Bharti (Rs 433.35) are the only private GSM service providers having above average ARPUs.
Despite the decline in the APRU, cellular companies are happy that the rates are stabilising. “Over the last year, the decline has been marginal. Prior to this, the ARPU was dropping relentlessly at over four per cent every quarter…
According to Deepak Kapoor, executive directive and leader, telecom practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers, telecom operators were unlikely to be concerned about their ARPU, as the decline was due to the falling tariffs.
“Another round of tuning will lead to stabilisation in the tariffs - it is then that that average revenue would be important as a good measure, as cost of addition of a subscriber to the network becomes negligible,” he said.
Source: Average mobile bill below Rs 400
Business Standard story on Bangalore based Subex Systems. The company makes fraud management and revenue maximisation software products for telecom service providers.
Intel Capital has drastically reduced its holding in Subex Systems by more than 50 per cent since November last year. Intel Capital’s holding as on February 4, 2005 stands at 4.073 per cent against 10.36 per cent at the end of second quarter ended September 2004.
