Irritation level of mobile owners is set to reduce drastically. Subscribers harassed by telemarketing calls can expect some relief from the proposed do-not-call (DNC) registry that will come into effect this April.

ET reports that Trai, in its guidelines on the DNC registry, will specify that subscribers will only have to inform their service provider to enroll. It will then be the operators’ responsibility to register these subscribers’ numbers in a central DNC registry that will be maintained by an independent agency. The guidelines will be made public next month.

Customers who enroll for the DNC registry can opt for a blanket ban on all telemarketing calls or can select the kind of calls they wish to receive. For instance, a member of this registry can opt to receive only telemarketing calls related to home loans or FMCG products.

But TRAI cautioned that the DNC registry would not offer a 100% solution because it cannot impose financial penalties on violators.

The telemarketing sector comes under the category “other service providers”, the guidelines for which can be issued only by the Department of Telecom. But in a bid to address this issue, Trai is contemplating a move, where service providers will be asked to disconnect the phonelines of telemarketers, who make calls to subscribers registered with the DNC.

TRAI also shares the view that allowing subscribers to opt for selective telemarketing calls will ensure that this industry is not hit.

Telecom Regulatory Authority of India issued a tariff order substantially reducing the tariffs
for national roaming for mobile subscribers. This would result in reduction of roaming tariffs to the extent of 22% to 56% compared with the current market rates.

• Distance neutral composite ceiling tariffs specified.
• No rental for roaming in any form.
• Mobile operators can not charge any type of fixed or recurring charges for accessing roaming facility, for example, monthly rental, weekly rental , daily rental etc.
• Receiving SMS is free while roaming.
• Maximum permissible per minute charges for roaming calls, irrespective of the terminating networks, and irrespective of tariff plans would be:
  • Rs. 1.40 for outgoing local calls
  • Rs. 2.40 for outgoing NLD calls
  • Rs. 1.75 for incoming calls

The order will become effective on 15th February 2007.

Tidbit: About 10% of the service providers’ revenues come from roaming. (Source: ET)

Reliance does not charge a roaming rental. It has a country wide network and the subscriber always stays on its network while roaming unlike GSM operators where a subscriber of Operator A can use the network of Operator B while roaming.

BSNL doesn’t share its network with roaming users of other GSM operators except MTNL. I am curious to know what roaming rental did BSNL users pay till now.

India added 6.48 million new mobile subscribers in December 2006, slightly lower than 6.80 million added in the month of November 2006.

At the end of 2006:

• Total wireless (GSM, CDMA and WLL-F) subscriber base stood at 149.50 million
• Wireline subscriber base reached 40.43 million
• Gross telephony subscribers in country reached 189.93 million
• Overall tele-density reached 17.16%

Sunil Mittal has been adjudged “Asia businessman of the year” by Fortune magazine for making Bharti Airtel the telecom leader in India.

This Fortune article talks about how he built a mobile-phone empire by turning outsourcing on its head.

The epiphany.

The more he pondered, the more Mittal doubted his ability to build out a network fast enough to keep pace with all that growth.

“I was meeting with people from Orange, Vodafone (Charts), and T-Mobile,” he recalls, sitting in a bungalow on the outskirts of Delhi that serves as Bharti’s headquarters. “And I saw that these were huge companies, hugely resourced. And it began to dawn on me: I have to be like them. But could I afford to be like them? We’d need to hire 10,000 people, maybe 20,000, within two years. Did we have the resources to do that? Were we the best company to attract that kind of talent? The answer, clearly, was no.”

Bharti’s outsourcing model was the solution.

But Mittal figured he never owned the network in the first place. “If something goes wrong with my switch, there’s no way anyone from Bharti can do anything about it. An Ericsson guy is going to have to come and fix it. I don’t manufacture it; I can’t maintain or upgrade it. So I’m thinking, ‘This doesn’t really belong to me. Let’s just throw it out.”

Sunil shares a belief regarding his core strategy of partnerships.

And he ascribes much of his success to his refusal to tie up with other Indian firms. “It’s very hard for two Indians to partner well,” he says.

I like this oft-quoted quote.

Bharti’s initial estimate of $25 million to build a network in Delhi was too low by a factor of four. Says Mittal: “People told me this was a business for companies with deep pockets. Had we known how deep, we’d never have tried it.

Also Read: The making of Sunil Bharti Mittal

Mobile Monday Mumbai’s first event in 2007 will be held on 22nd January on the topic “Mobile VAS = .com bubble?”.

Thanks to Indiagames for hosting the event and supporting the Mobile Monday community.

Agenda:

• Presentation by Vishal Gondal - CEO, Indiagames
• Discussion on the topic

When:
Monday, 22nd January, 2007
6.30 pm - 9.00 pm

Where:
Indiagames
423, Sai Commercial Complex Annex,
Next to MTNL office,
B. K. S. Devshi Marg, Deonar
Mumbai – 400 088.
Tel: +91-22-25571128/29/30/31

Sponsors:

Admission to the event is free for mobile industry professionals and enthusiasts. But seats are limited and admission is strictly for confirmed registered participants only.

So please Register if you are planning to come.

Airtel post-paid users in Delhi can now pay their mobile phone bill from the mobile itself by using mChek’s newly launched mobile payment service.

mChek is a payment system using mobile phones. Currently any credit card issued by any bank can be used with mChek. mChek transactions will be reflected as any other transaction in your credit card statement.

If you are a post-paid Airtel user in Delhi, you might have received the following messages.

Airtel presents a complimentary bill payment service on SMS. For details send MCHEK to 170(free).

On sending the above message, you get a 3-SMS reply with the following message:

(1/3) Airtel presents the World’s first Mobile Bill Payment Service using mChek. Simply pay your bills over an SMS. Register your valid Visa/Master Credit Card.

(2/3) Just send MCHEK to 458(toll-free) or visit www.mchek.com & follow instructions to register your Airtel mobile. mChek is Visa Certified & absolutely Safe.

(3/3) This Facility is available to you Free of Cost. Thank you and have a pleasant day.

Here is a demo of how this works.

Disclosure: Rajesh Jain, MD of the company I work with, is on the Board of Directors of mChek.

The Mobile Pundit is back. With a scoop. Well, almost.

The story is really about Reliane Retail signing a deal with Bharti Airtel to source mobile and enterprise communication services.

Reliance Retail CEO Raghu Pillai confirmed that talks are on.

“All stores would be connected to each other and to the logistics chains to meet our high-end communication needs,” Mr Pillai said. Reliance plans to invest Rs 25,000 crore in its retail venture, spread across 784 cities and 6,000 towns in the country. It expects revenues of over Rs 1 lakh crore by 2011.

Confirmed a Bharti Airtel spokesperson.

“We have tied up with Reliance Retail to provide enterprise solutions, we have expertise in telecom solutions and are going to provide world-class services to all our clients. If we are competitors in another space, so be it. These solutions will also be put to captive use for Bharti-Walmart,” he added.

Another interesting tidbit in the article is that Reliance is planning a pan-India Wimax network for back-end communication needs of its SEZs.

Reliance plans to invest about $750 million (Rs 3,400 crore) to obtain spectrum and lay out the network. Reliance Retail has already announced that it would be looking at a GSM-Wimax roll out for its mobile and enterprise communication needs.

Reliance Retail is expected to have a network of 8,000 retail stores across the country. It will be the biggest rival to Bharti group’s retail foray with Wal-Mart. The retail market size in India is estimated to be about $300, billion which is expected to grow to $427 billion by 2010. Organised retail currently accounts for only 2-3% of the retail market in India.