Exclusive: Videocon To Shut Down Services in Most Circles

After the cancellation of 2G licenses, it is now turn for Videocon to shut down services in most of the circles where they operate as we came to know from our sources. This is the 3rd operator after STel and Cheers Mobile who went to close operations.

In 2008 Videocon got license and 2G GSM spectrum for 21 circles, and in Punjab they operate as brand sharing agreement between QTL and Videocon. Videocon is commercially available in selected circles like Tamilnadu, Mumbai & Maharastra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Kerala. While 18 circles out of 22 are listed on Videocon’s website to show their minimal presence to meet roll out oligations.

As per our sources, Videocon will shut down their services all circles except those circles having more than 5 lakh customers. The operating circles of Videocon Mobile will be Tamilnadu incl.Chennai, Punjab & Haryana and M.P & Mumbai. Currently M.P has largest Videocon customer base.

Renjith M a TelecomTalk reader and a Videocon customer from kerala cited that recharge is disabled in Kerala for 3 days and most of the FRC (First Recharge Coupon) are withdrawn.

As per our sources now few Selected FRC will be available for the customers in the above mentioned operating circles.

Read More

Nokia Offers Free Premium Apps & Games on Selected Mobile Phones

Nokia India today announced a range of premium applications and games on select Nokia smart devices for its consumers free of cost!

Nokia Consumers who purchase Nokia C5-05, Nokia C5-03, Nokia 500, Nokia 603 andNokia 701 can download apps and games worth Rs. 3850. The offer can be availed by existing users of these devices as well as new buyers.

The free premium apps and games also include exciting labels from EA Sports for sports enthusiasts. These include FIFA ‘12, EA Cricket ’11, Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’11, Tekken, Medal of Honor and Need for Speed.

Other popular games include Monopoly, FIFA ‘11, Flight Control, Zuma’s Revenge and Hard Rock collection. Besides gaming, Nokia is offering a host of utility apps for Nokia C5-05 and Nokia C5-03 users. Thes include useful apps such as SMS scheduler, SMS spam manager, Call recorder, Contacts Hider and Message Hider.

To get Free Apps on all above these devices, SMS Nokiaapps Handset Model Number (without any space) to 55555.

Read More

Airtel, Loop Mobile and Idea Cellular Summoned on MNP Port-Out Rejection Complaints

India’s three leading mobile service providersBharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Loop Mobileand their top officials were summoned today by a Delhi court for allegedly violating the TRAI regulations on Mobile Number Portability (MNP).

After the lot of complaints of false practice by these leading operators regarding Mobile Number Portability (MNP), Indian telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has approached a Delhi Court, with a complaint against mobile operators for rejecting MNP  port out requests from its subscribers and violating the MNP regulations.

The top executives from telecom sector who were issued summonses with a direction to appear before Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Vinod Yadav on May 25 are Airtel’s CEO Sanjay Kapoor, its Director (Legal and Regulatory Affairs) Jyoti Pawar and Vice-President (Head and Regulatory Affairs, Mobile Services) Ashwani Rana.

The executives summoned from the Idea Cellular  included its Managing Director Himanshu Kapania and its Chief Corporate Affairs Officers Rajat Mukarji.

While the Mumbai’s leading operator Loop Mobiles (India) Ltd officials, who have been summoned by the court are its Managing Director Sandip Basu and Chief Regulatory Officer Harish Kapoor.

Earlier the TRAI has filed separate complaints against each mobile service providers and their top officials for allegedly violating its norms by rejecting mobile number portability (MNP) requests of their subscribers in various circles like Mumbai, Maharashtra & Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Gujarat and some others.

TRAI also said that it has received lot of complaints whereas the majority of Mobile Number porting requests have been rejected by these mobile service providers on the ground ofcontractual obligations and outstanding payment dues (less than Rs. 10) as the reason, even though the rejection clause in the Mobile Number Portability Regulations doesn’t allow operators to reject port-out requests on these grounds.

Read More

Tata Docomo Introduces Pure Rent Free GSM Postpay Plan Offering STD Calls at 5paise per 6 seconds

Tata Docomo, the unified telecom brand of Tata Teleservices Limited (TTL), introduced a pure Rent Free Postpaid Plans where customer can enjoy all the benefits at ZERO rental with no commitment. Earlier there was a minimum commitment and now the commitment has been removed.

Customers from Karnataka has to furnish any previous postpaid mobile bill of last 3 months with a bill value of greater than or equal to Rs. 500.

The Rent Free plans will be available for both new and existing GSM postpay customers in Karnataka. To subscribe to the plan the customer just needs to produce his last generated mobile bill with bill value greater than or equal to Rs. 500.

The Rent Free Plan offering tariff rates to the customers where the call rates will be 1 paisa for 2 second for all local calls and 5 paise/6 seconds for all STD calls.

All Local and National SMS will be charged at 50 paise per SMS and ISD SMS at Rs. 5 per SMS. Standard charges will be applicable on all ISD and Roaming Calls.

Customer can also opt for below mentioned addon pack based on the usage .

SMS Packs

1500 SMS@ Rs. 49 Pack

600 SMS @ Rs. 29 Pack

New Unlimited SMS @ Rs. 89 Pack

GSM GPRS 10GB@199 Pack

GSM GPRS 15GB@299 Pack

GSM GPRS 2GB@50 Pack

GSM GPRS 6GB@99 Pack

Zero (Pure Rent Free Plan)
Local All calls	1ps/2secs (30ps/min)
STD All calls	5ps/6secs (50ps/min)
SMS	Local & Nation 50p  per SMS, ISD Rs5

To Buy New postpaid connection Karnataka customer can call on 1800-266-00-00 (Toll-Free) or SMS “rentfree” 56161 chargeable at Rs. 3per SMS

Read More

India Adds 8.77 Million GSM Subscribers in February 2012 – IDEA Leads

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) today released India’s ‘GSM Subscriber Figures for February 2012.

IDEA Cellular tops in the new subscriber additions, added a total of 2.5 million new GSM subscribers followed by Uninor that lost  licences in the SC’s 2G judgment, added the 2nd largest number of subscribers with 2.3 million in February. Idea Cellular now has more than 110 million GSM customers with a 16.8% market share.

According to the data released by COAI total 8.77 million new GSM subscribers added with 1.35% increase from previous month taking the all-India GSM cellular subscriber base to 656.86 million at the end of February 2012.

Videocon added 0.34 million new subscribers, posted the second highest growth rate of 5.97% in February. The user base of Videocon stood at 6.19 million.

Among the leading GSM Mobile Service Operators, Vodafone Essar added 838,000  new customers, boosting its subscriber base 149 million. Bharti Airtel notched up 1.8 million new subscribers during the month, taking its total base to 178.78 million.

State run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) ‘s new subscribers data is not reported yet.  AIRCEL increased its base by over 0.79 million customers to take its subscriber base to 63.25 million. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) added 38757 new users during the month, boosting its total base to 5.53 million at the end of Feb ’2011.

Please note : COAI GSM Subscriber base does not include the Reliance Communications (Rcom) and Tata Docomo’s GSM subscriber Base (same not submitted to COAI). While Pure CDMA operator MTS India said that it has added 0.23 million new customers in the month of Feb 2012, taking its total customer base to 15.43 million.

Read More

Airtel 4G Due On First Half of April, 2012

If you are disappointed to know Airtel did not launch 4G on March 20, be excited as it is coming fast. As per our sources Airtel may launch LTE-TDD based wireless broadband services in the first half of April, 2012 in Kolkata.

Last week the rumor of Airtel’s 4G launch in Kolkata hit internet and a lot of people, if not everyone had gone crazy to hear it.

Airtel had won spectrum for high-speed wireless broadband service in four telecom circles namely Kolkata, Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka and paid Rs. 3,314.36 crore in 2010. The company was allocated 20 Mhz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 Ghz frequency band.

There is a rumour that ZTE may be the equipment partner for Airtel in Kolkata, while tower deal will be done with Indus Towers along with Bharti Infratel. Indus is largest tower company over the globe.

As 2.3 GHz spectrum band will have poor indoor coverage, it is expected Airtel will deploy small cells (femto cells) at places to provide better coverage. It is expected that at this initial stage of LTE roll out the coverage will be scarce and will be available at some pockets of the city. We expect that Airtel may use microwave and fiber optic based backhaul provider to support this ultra high speed wireless services.

At this stage industry leader Airtel is expected to come up with some dongles and some tablets to offer bundled data plans on 4G. This band of LTE spectrum (2.3GHz) is a new band if compared to western countries, as a result Indian private BWA service providers have to make some wise decision to roll out yet to mature LTE services. Many analysis say that in 5 years, LTE will have 20 miillion customers in India.

If we check the history, Kolkata was the first city to have mobile services (2G) in 1995, and today 2G is widely accepted. Can we see the same success with 4G if started with Kolkata?

Now we ask you can 4G be a superhit in India or will a be a flop show whats your take do share your views via comments.

Read More