Telecom Way forward to being global

Research Guide: Research Student:

Mr. Somesh Khandelwal Mr. Jaydeepsinh solanki

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Telecom the Booming sector

A project

Submitted in the fulfillment of the

Requirement for the certification in program in

Business skill (PBS)

DEVELOPED BY:

Jaydeepsinh Solanki

NIS ACADEMY

Vadodara

A division of NIS SPARTA LTD,

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group Company

Website: www.thenisacademy.com

Certificate

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This is to certify that the reported here has been carried out

independently by Mr.Jaydeepsinh solanki under the guidance of

Mr. Somesh Khandelwal as a fulfillment of master’s degree in

business skill, and is her original and bonafide work.

Mr. Somesh Khandelwal Mr. Somesh Khandelwal

(Director) (Trainer)

Telecom The booming sector

BATCH CODE: MBA-1B

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NAME OF COORDINATOR: Somesh Khandelwal

NAME OF STUDENT: Jaydeepsinh Solanki

DATE OF SUBMISSION: 5th March 2011

)

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Acknowledgement

It’s a great pleasure for me to make a project on Telecom-the

booming sector.

First of all I would like to thank NIS Academy for giving me a

chance to work on this project. I express my deepest sense of gratitude

towards my project coordinator Mr. Somesh Khandelwal Nair who has

helped me a lot throughout this project. I learnt many new things from her

and I am thankful to her for her kind support.

I am also thankful to my Location Head Mr. Somesh Khandelwal

for his vital encouragement and support, Mr. Deepak Vaishnav Head of

Administration department for inspiration and help he extended, Ms

Meenakshi Nair and Ms Kamakshi Pandya for their understanding and

assistance

I would also like to thanks Mr. Harjeet Singh Marketing Manager,

Bharti Airtel, Mr. Shrijith Nair, Vodafone and also telecom companies like

Airtel, Vodafone, Idea, Reliance, and Tata Indicom.

Finally, yet importantly I would like to express my heartfelt thanks

to my beloved parents for their blessings, my friends and classmates for

their help and wishes for successful completion of this project.

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Content

Page no.

1. Abstract.......................................................................................................................07

2. Global Telecom Scenario...........................................................................................09

3. Indian Telecom Scenario...........................................................................................15

4. Vadodara Telecom Scenario.....................................................................................21

5. Number Portability....................................................................................................23

6. Per Second Billing......................................................................................................30

7. New Players in the Telecom Industry......................................................................34

8. 3G/4G Spectrum........................................................................................................44

9. Other Telecom Services............................................................................................54

10. Research Methodology..............................................................................................61

Objective.........................................................................................................61

Data Collection................................................................................................61

Sampling..........................................................................................................61

Limitations to the Study...................................................................................62

11. Data Analysis & Interpretation ...............................................................................62

12. Findings......................................................................................................................70

13. Suggestions.................................................................................................................71

14. Conclusion..................................................................................................................72

15. References..................................................................................................................73

16. Appendices.................................................................................................................74

Interview Questions....................................................................................74

Questionnaire..............................................................................................74

Permission Letter........................................................................................76

17. Brochures, Catalogues, templates of different retail outlets..................................76

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Abstract

The research is based on the quality of services that are being

offered by various mobile service providers and the level of satisfaction that

the customers experience. The government launched the mobile phone

services and opened it for the private operators nearly 10 years back. With

this move of the government many big and small companies ventured into

the business. But as we move on today, nearly after 5 years only half of the

companies are surviving in the industry. The number was also increased

which was a thousand subscribers in 2005 to less than a million in 2010.

Today mobile service providers serve nearly 60 million customers

adding 2.5 million subscribers per month. But the rate of addition of new

subscribers is equalized or balance with the number churn rate of the

companies.

According to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) Mobile

telephony service providers have failed to meet the set customer satisfaction

benchmarks. An attempt to meet churn rate problem companies are

constantly trying to come up with new ideas and plans to retain their

original customer and attract new customer. Customer satisfaction has

become an important factor that influences a customer while selecting a

mobile service operator. Overall satisfaction, network availability, billing

problems and customer care services, usage, selection criteria are some of

the key areas which we aimed to measure in our research.

Objective of the study are:

Assessment of quality of service provided by landline and cellular mobile

service providers.

Customer satisfaction surveys for assessing the customer perceptions of the

service.

Sample universe of the research includes all the existing and potential

users of different mobile services in Vadodara.

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In the survey we tried to find out the attributes that customer keeps in

mind while selecting a mobile operator in the order their importance like

connectivity, advertisement, rate plan offered, brand value, customer care

services.

The study also finds out the frequency of problems related to services

provided by mobile operators like call drop down, call from wrong number,

connectivity problem during peak hours, call barred without intimation. An

attempt was made to find out the level of satisfaction that customer

experiences from various services provided by mobile operators like value

added services, time allotted for bill payment, roaming facility, customer

care services.

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Global Telecom Scenario

The global telecommunications (telecom services) industry was estimated

USD1.71 trillion in 2010. An overwhelming 77% of this sum came from the

Telecommunications services (USD1.32tr). Revenues from fixed-line services stood at

USD449 billion, mobile services were USD572 billion, and telecom related services such as

data communications, telex accounted for the rest in the services section.

In future, the telecom value chain is bound to undergo a significant change, with a move

towards convergence of information, telecommunications and entertainment and pacing up

the usage of 3G mobile services. The industry will see many M&A and 3G implementations

in the future, but it is the customer who would have the final say and, decide the future trend

of the industry.

The Global Telecommunications Industry Insight -2006 provides an in depth coverage of the

telecom industry (excluding telecom services and equipment) as a whole. The survey in

essence covers the macro issues and gives a broad overview of the industry from the global

perspective. It consists of ten chapters that include industry overview, growth drivers, major

issues and challenges the industry has been facing in the recent times, application of

technology, major markets associated with the sector, the major players driving the industry,

regulatory aspects, mergers and acquisitions, critical success factors

And the industry’s future outlook.

This report is relevant to all those related to the industry and to those who are keen on having

a firsthand overview. The review helps the reader gain a broad understanding of the

telecommunications industry consorting to the scope defined earlier. Business Management

students will be benefited by the overview that will help them in their academic pursuits and

assignments. This report is useful as an important business directional guide for professionals

in Telecom industry as well as a key learning aid for other business professionals.

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Rank OperatorSubscribers

in millionData Date

1 China 650 Jan-10

2 India 392 Mar-10

3 US 278.99 Dec-10

4 Russia 189.61 Feb-10

6 Indonesia 154.757 Dec-10

5 Brazil 153.7 Mar-10

8 Japan 112.05 Mar-10

7 Germany 106 Sep-10

9 Italy 92.8 Oct-10

10 Pakistan  91.44 Mar-10

 

Top 3G Countries

Rank Country  Subscribers 

in million

1 Japan 107.49

2 USA 64.21

3 Hongkong 19.02

4 Italy 18.01

5 UK 13.10

6 Spain 12.64

7 Germany 11.73

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Top 10 GSM mobile Operators (All Country)

Rank Mobile OperatorSubscribers in

million

1 China Mobile  477.16

2 Vodafone 280

3 Telenor  159

4 China Unicom 137.69

5 TeliaSonera 137.00

6 T-Mobile 128.30

7 France Telecom (Orange) 117.60

8 MTS 96.17

9 Bharti Airtel  93.92

10 MTN Group 90.70

Top 10 GSM Mobile Operators (One Country)

Rank Mobile OperatorSubscribers

in million

1 China Mobile 477.16

2 China Unicom 137.69

3 Bharti Airtel 96.74

4 AT&T  78.21

5 Vodafone 71.54

6 Telkomsel 65.30

7 MTS 64.83

8 America Movile 56.371

9 BSNL 52.14

10 Beeline 48.77

Top 10 CDMA Mobile Operators (One Country)

Rank Operator Subscribers in million

1 Verizon 86.6

2 Reliance Com 72.67

3 Sprint Nextel 50.54

4 NTT   DOCOMO 49.04

5 China Telecom 42.40

6 China Unicom 41.73

7 Tata Teleservice 35.12

8 AU 30.84

9 SK Telecom 23.22

10 Softbank Mobile 18.6536

World telecom industry is an uprising industry, proceeding towards a goal of achieving two

third of the world's telecom connections. Over the past few years information and

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communications technology has changed in a dramatic manner and as a result of that world

telecom industry is going to be a booming industry. Substantial economic growth and

mounting population enable the rapid growth of this industry.

Research works associated with world telecommunication industry

A number of research works are being carried out all over the world to improve the quality

and speed of transmission. Research works are also done on the basis of the users' needs. The

objective of the research work is to provide quality and affordable service to the consumers.

Market potentiality of world telecommunication industry

The world telecommunications market is expected to rise at an 11 percent compound annual

growth rate at the end of year 2010. The leading telecom companies like AT&T, Vodafone,

Verizon, SBC Communications, Bell South, and Qwest Communications are trying to take

the advantage of this growth. These companies are working on telecommunication fields like

broadband technologies, EDGE(Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) technologies,

LAN-WAN inter networking, optical networking, voice over Internet protocol, wireless data

service etc.

Market potentiality of world telecommunication industry

The world telecommunications market is expected to rise at an 11 percent compound annual

growth rate at the end of year 2010. The leading telecom companies like AT&T, Vodafone,

Verizon, SBC Communications, Bell South, and Qwest Communications are trying to take

the advantage of this growth. These companies are working on telecommunication fields like

broadband technologies, EDGE(Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution) technologies,

LAN-WAN inter networking, optical networking, voice over Internet protocol, wireless data

service etc.

Economical aspect of telecommunication industry

World telecom industry is taking a crucial part of world economy. The total revenue earned

from this industry is 3 percent of the gross world products and is aiming at attaining more

revenues. One statistical report reveals that approximately 16.9% of the world population has

access to the Internet.

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Present market scenario of world telecom industry

Over the last couple of years, world telecommunication industry has been consolidating by

allowing private organizations the opportunities to run their businesses with this industry.

The Government monopolies are now being privatized and consequently competition is

developing. Among all, the domestic and small business markets are the hardest.

U.S. telecom industry is the most prosperous telecommunication industry in the world,

which covers a wide range of areas and services like telephone, television, Internet, radio and

so many. U.S. telecom industry primarily deals with the services of transmitting message

through mediums like cables, satellites etc.

U.S. telecommunication industry designed to achieve the target of creating more than

212,000 jobs in its telecommunication industry. Besides creating new job opportunities, some

other objectives of U.S. telecommunication industry include adding customer value by

providing them innovative services like VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), creating an

overall of $58 billion capital investment opportunities and generating $113 billion new

revenues in its telecom industry.

Economic perspective of U.S. telecom industry- Telecommunication industry is the key

force of American economy. U.S. telecommunication industry extends its activities in almost

every sector, from education to health care or banking and finance. U.S. telecom industry

enables an overall of 75% U.S. labor productivity gains.

Telecom industry analysis uncovers the fact that this industry has a huge business

potentiality and is going to be a booming industry. Telecom industry analysis also reveals

that this industry will provide an immense employment opportunity in the coming years.

Telecom industry trends

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Throughout the world, telecom industries are being controlled by private   companies  instead

of government monopolies. Traditional telecom technologies are also being replaced by

modern wireless technologies, specifically in case of mobile services. One of the major

objectives of telecom industry is to enhance the quality and speed of Internet technology.

These days, telecom industry is more concerned with texts and images (Internet

technologies), rather than voice (telephone   service ). Most of the research works are going on

Internet accessibility, specifically on data applications and broadband services. The other

major division of telecom industry is mobile network sector, where lots of innovative

research works are going on. Previously the traditional telephone calls used to earn the

maximum revenues, but these days mobile   service  is going to replace traditional telephone

services.

Statistical report

Phoenix Center research revealed that in the coming years, there will be a healthy

competition among the providers of telecommunication services. At the same time, the price

will be lower and quality will be higher. The new telecommunications technologies will

replace the traditional telecom services. Statistical data also reveals that

the t elecommunications   industr y  is going to be a dynamic and booming industry in the near

future. The telecom industry comprises of complex network of services like telephones,

mobile phones and internet services.

Telecom industry analysis from the experts point of view

Telecom industry is a vast and diversified industry and needs a huge capital to invest. That is

why the competitors of this industry should be such that they can meet that demand. From the

investor's point of view, it can be said that they should be well aware of cash flow in this

industry.

Indian Telecom Scenario

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Telecom Industry in India

The telecom industry is one of the fastest growing industries in India. India has nearly 200

million telephone lines making it the third largest network in the world after China and USA.

With a growth rate of 45%, Indian telecom industry has the highest growth rate in the world. 

History of Indian Telecommunications started in 1851 when the first operational land lines

were laid by the government near Calcutta (seat of British power). Telephone services were

introduced in India in 1881. In 1883 telephone services were merged with the postal system.

Indian Radio Telegraph Company (IRT) was formed in 1923. After independence in 1947, all

the foreign telecommunication companies were nationalized to form the Posts, Telephone and

Telegraph (PTT), a monopoly run by the government's Ministry of Communications.

Telecom sector was considered as a strategic service and the government considered it best to

bring under state's control. 

The first wind of reforms in telecommunications sector began to flow in 1980s when the

private sector was allowed in telecommunications equipment manufacturing. In 1985,

Department of Telecommunications (DOT) was established. It was an exclusive provider of

domestic and long-distance service that would be its own regulator (separate from the postal

system). In 1986, two wholly government-owned companies were created: the Videsh

Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) for international telecommunications and Mahanagar

Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) for service in metropolitan areas.

In 1990s, telecommunications sector benefited from the general opening up of the economy.

Also, examples of telecom revolution in many other countries, which resulted in better

quality of service and lower tariffs, led Indian policy makers to initiate a change process

finally resulting in opening up of telecom services sector for the private sector. National

Telecom Policy (NTP) 1994 was the first attempt to give a comprehensive roadmap for the

Indian telecommunications sector. In 1997, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)

was created. TRAI was formed to act as a regulator to facilitate the growth of the telecom

sector. New National Telecom Policy was adopted in 1999 and cellular services were also

launched in the same year. 

Telecommunication sector in India can be divided into two segments: Fixed Service Provider

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(FSPs), and Cellular Services. Fixed line services consist of basic services, national or

domestic long distance and international long distance services. The state operators (BSNL

and MTNL), account for almost 90 per cent of revenues from basic services. Private sector

services are presently available in selective urban areas, and collectively account for less than

5 per cent of subscriptions. However, private services focus on the business/corporate sector,

and offer reliable, high- end services, such as leased lines, ISDN, closed user group and

videoconferencing. 

Cellular services can be further divided into two categories: Global System for Mobile

Communications (GSM) and Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). The GSM sector is

dominated by Airtel, Vodafone-Hutch, and Idea Cellular, while the CDMA sector is

dominated by Reliance and Tata Indicom. Opening up of international and domestic long

distance telephony services are the major growth drivers for cellular industry. Cellular

operators get substantial revenue from these services, and compensate them for reduction in

tariffs on airtime, which along with rental was the main source of revenue. The reduction in

tariffs for airtime, national long distance, international long distance, and handset prices has

driven demand.

Telephone penetration in India (Total working lines)

Source: Indian Department of Telecommunication

1968 March 1998 March 2005 July 2008 Nov 2010

800,000 18.6 million 98.37 million 333.84 million 650 million

Indian Telecom: A Tale of Stupendous 

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The past decade has seen an exponential growth in the Indian Telecom Sector. In the year

2000, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) Act was amended and in 2001 Telecom

Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) started its functioning. In 2002, Bharat

Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) entered into GSM cellular operation and made incoming

calls free for the first time and since then there is no looking back. Currently, the call rates in

India are one of the lowest; to the extent where some operators are even offering Per-Second-

Billing.

Despite the financial slowdown, the industry continued its high growth rate. In 2009 the

Indian Telecom sector contributed 5.65 to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and

attracted a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of over $2 billion. India is Third in the world in

terms of the number of Telecom subscribers. The Indian telecom industry had an awesome

run in 2009, adding some 170 million phone connections to take the subscriber base to nearly

550 million.

In addition to this, India has the second largest wireless network in the world, next only to

China. There were 442 million wireless subscribers as of July 2009, with a Compounded

Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 65% during the last five years.

The government initiatives like announcement of 3G policy and WiMax rollout are bold steps

in serving mass communications. Sharing of the basic telecom infrastructure among the

major telecom players such as Airtel and Vodafone has also resulted in a pan India reach.

The Telecom Scenario can be broadly dissected into four categories:

1) Rural India: Bridging the Telecom Divide.

The emergence of Rural Market in India provides an extensive market place for mobile

industry. The adoption of 3G and Broadband Wireless Association (BWA) is likely to

galvanize competition and expand network coverage into the hinterlands of the country. With

in a short span of 3 years the rural tele-density has jumped from 4.5% to 19%.

Communications Minister A. Raja believes that the continued participation of private sector

will help us achieve the target of 40 percent rural tele-density well before the set timeline of

2014.

2) India as hub for Telecom Equipments Manufacturing and Exports.

In order to make the latest technology available in the market, focus is on commercialization

of telecom innovation and technology. This can contribute towards inclusive growth by

making low cost handsets available that support affordable access in rural areas.

The production of telecom equipments as of March 2009 was INR 518 billion with a CAGR

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of 29% during the last five years. At the same time INR 81 billion of telecom equipments

were exported with a CAGR of 100% during the last five years.

3) VAS, Mobile Banking and M-commerce

Value Added Services (VAS) has an immense potential to grow with services like Mobile

banking and Mobile -commerce. Content development, pricing and innovative strategies are

the key factors for driving the VAS demand.

4) Exploring New Frontiers

With growing competitive pressure on all fronts and the inevitable need to keep pace with

emerging technologies globally, telecom operators are re-examining their traditional business

models and are making substantial investments in upcoming technologies. These include 3G

Band Allocation, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) and Future

Generation Networks.

[India] Total Telecom Subscriber Count reaches 671.69 Million (Jun 2010)

As per the latest TRAI report, India’s total telecom subscriber strength as of 30th June 2010

stands at 671.69 Million. This article lists down key highlights of the report.

At the end of May 2010, India had 653.92 Million telecom subscribers. With the latest

numbers, telecom subscriptions in India registered a growth of 2.72% on a month-on-month

comparison.

Some more key points from the latest report.

1.) In the wireless segment, Bharti Airtel added most subscriptions registering 16.69% of the

total share of additions.

2.) Wire line subscriber base declined from 36.39 Million in May-2010 to 36.18 Million at

the end of June-2010.

3.) Total Broadband subscriber base has increased from 9.24 million in May-2010 to 9.45

million in June-2010, there by showing a growth of 2.27%. In India, users with internet speed

greater than or equal to 256 Kbps are termed to have “broadband” connection.

Graph below shows Service Provider wise Market Share as on 30-6-2010.

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1. [India] Telecom Subscriber Count at 688.38 Million on 31st July 2010

2. [India] 16.31 Million Telecom Subscribers added in May 2010 (Total Count at 653.92

Million

3. India’s Telecom Subscriber Count Crosses 700 Million [August 2010 Telecom]

4. [India] Total Telecom Subscriber Count at the end of March was 621 Million

5. [India’s] Telecom Subscriber Count for October 2010 at 742.12 Million

Bharti Airtel added maximum number of subscribers in July followed by Reliance

and Vodafone. Below is also a quick graph from the report which states the market share of

service providers in Wireless category.

New Delhi, Jan 25: India added 22.88 million mobile phone subscribers in November, taking

the total number of cellular users to 729.57 million till Nov 30, 2010, official data revealed

Tuesday.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), the wireless phone user

base grew 3.24 percent to 729.57 million in November last year, from 706.69 million in the

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previous month.

With this the total telephone subscriber base in the country, wireless and wire line, touched

764.76 million. The total telephone density reached 64.34 percent.

The growth in India's wireless phone category was led by Vodafone Essar with an addition of

3.13 million users, 13.66 percent of the net addition in November 2010, taking its user base to

121.16 million.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel followed next with an addition of over 3.1 million subscribers

accounting for 13.55 percent of the net addition during the month under review taking its

total number of subscribers to 149.4 million 

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communication stood at the third spot with an addition of 3

million subscribers taking its total subscriber base to 122.4 million. State-owned Bharat

Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 2.99 million subscribers taking its total number of

subscribers to 83.73 million.

Other telecom players such as Idea Cellular performed remarkably with the addition of 2.8

million users closely followed by Uninor which added 2.45 million users taking their total

subscriber base to 78.83 million and 16.19 million respectively.

According to the data, the broadband subscriber base grew 1.80 percent from 10.52 million in

October 2010 to 10.71 million in November 2010.

However, the wire line segment declined further from 35.43 million in October 2010 to 35.19

million at the end of November 2010.

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Vadodara Telecom Scenario

Gujarat has approximately 37,138,891 telephone users out of that Vadodara has

approximately 13, 79,571 users.

From a little over 2,000 in 1997 to over four crore in 2010. That is how Vadodara has

progressed in number of mobile connections in the past 13 years. Now, the state boasts of

13, 79,571 mobile connections.

The October 2010 subscription data report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India

(Trai), which was released last week, says the mobile subscription in Gujarat stands at

4, 01,58,662.

These connections have been provided by 10 operators. 

Considering that Gujarat's estimated population is about six crore, the current number of

cellular connections gives one the impression that about 66.6% of people (or 6.66 out of

every 10 people) have mobile connections.

But industry sources say there are many who possess more than one connection, so it is not

necessarily true that 66.6% of people hold mobile connections.

In May 1997, there were only 4,100 mobile connections in Gujarat. At that time there were

only two operators and the incoming charge was Rs8 per minute. It took 11 years for the

number of mobile connections to reach one crore in May 2007.

However, the number of subscriptions increased remarkably in short spans thereafter.

Then it took another 18 months for that figure to double. And by the end of January 2010,

that is, in only about 14 months, Gujarat recorded a total of three crore mobile phone

connections. And soon, in next nine months, one crore connections were added and the

number of connections now is over four crore.

Five years back, Gujarat was on the top in the number of connections among 22 circles in

India but today it stands seventh.

By end of October 2010, Tamil Nadu had 6.36 crore mobile connections followed by Uttar

Pradesh (East) with 5.46 crore, Andhra Pradesh (5.40 crore), Maharashtra & Goa excluding

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Mumbai (5.23 crore), Bihar (4.63 crore) and Karnataka (4.38 crore). The number of mobile

connections in India is now 70.66 crore, of which Gujarat contributes 5.67%.

In last one year, five new telecom companies - Videocon, Uninor, Aircel, Etisalat (GSM

service) and Shyam Sistema (CDMA service) - have launched their services in Gujarat.

Besides, two existing CDMA players _ Tata and Reliance _ have also started their GSM

operations in the state.

Of the total four crore mobile connections, the new players have a share of around 50 lakh

connections. Industry sources say since there is a rise in multi-SIM users in Gujarat, there is a

huge potential for mobile penetration in rural areas.

"It is pure SIM card penetration in which more than one SIM card is sold to a person. At

present, in rural areas of Gujarat the actual mobile penetration is less than 40% so there is a

huge potential there," said COO ofBharti Airtel (Gujarat Circle) Shivan Bhargava.

Of the total mobile subscription of 4,01, 58,662 in Gujarat, about 3.80 crore are believed to

be prepaid connections. "Around 95% of the total mobile connections are prepaid. With more

telecom players entering the market, the prepaid connection sales have gone up.

Simultaneously, there is also a rise in multi-SIM holders in which people want to try out the

cheapest tariff services," said senior vice president (operations) Idea Cellular, Arul Bright.

He said in September and October which are months of festive season, many numbers were

added and that pushed the mobile subscriptions to over four crore.

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Number Portability

What is mobile number portability (MNP)?  Mobile number portability (MNP) is the

process of transferring (porting) your mobile phone number from one mobile phone network

provider to another. You may want to do this if you wish to sign up to a new mobile phone

provider and keep your original mobile phone number, thus saving you the inconvenience of

updating your contacts with your new telephone number. Mobile number porting is becoming

increasingly popular worldwide due to the savings that can be made by switching mobile

phone providers in order to get a better mobile phone tariff...

The long-awaited mobile number portability finally became reality on Wednesday,

empowering consumers to change providers conveniently. 

What is mobile number portability: 

Allows subscriber to opt for service provider of his choice but retain his mobile number. The

number gets ported to the new provider. 

Does it allow a technology switch? 

Subscriber can stay with same technology, GSM/CDMA. Also change to CDMA or vice

versa. Both post-paid & prepaid subscribers can use it. 

How long will it take to port a number? 

Seven working days. Fifteen days in J&K, North-east. 

How expensive? 

Will cost Rs19, to be collected by new service provider. 

Can you retain your number in another city? 

No. You can't change circles. 

How frequently can you switch service providers? 

A subscriber must be with a provider for at least three months. 

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To switch, send the following text PORT mobile number to 1900. 

You'll get an eight-digit alphanumeric code and expiry date for it. This is the unique porting

code. 

Approach service provider you have opted for with unique code. Carry address & ID proof/

photograph/ application form with unique code & mobile number. Complete this process

within the expiry date that came with unique code. 

Operator will take request to mobile portability clearing house. Clearing house will get your

number deactivated from existing provider and activate new one. 

You'll then get text from new provider mentioning date & time when phone will go through a

no-service period. 

This is when switching of service providers will happen. Phone will be out of use for couple

of hours — between 12pm and 5am.

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) allows the mobile phone users to select any network

without changing their numbers. Indian mobile service providers will implement this facility

from December31, 2009 in metro cities and by March 2010 onwards, in other parts of the

country. MNP is firstly available in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, and ‘Circle A ‘service

areas at first and rest of the country by March. Department of Telecom (DOT) earlier selected

two companies Telcordia Technologies and Syniverse Technologies to aid them in rolling out

MNP services

Mobile Number Portability (MNP) would make severe competition among mobile service

providers in India. They will be compelled to lower the call and SMS rates. Coverage, call

quality, customer service and all other areas will see improvements as this the only way to

retain customers. The postpaid customers get more advantage from the MNP. They have

lesser tendency than the prepaid users to change their numbers, and therefore they will move

to a better service provider if required.

We expect Mobile Number Portability to change the face of Indian Telecom sector.

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To switch,

1. Send the following SMS to 1900 – PORT <Your Mobile Number> – eg. PORT

9123456789

2. You will get an SMS with your unique porting code. This is a unique number that will be

maintained along with your mobile number with a third party called MNP Service Provider

(Selected companies for this service in India- Syniverse Technologies and Telcordia). The

unique code has an expiry time. You need to apply to the new preferred operator with that

code within the stipulated time.

3. The new operator will communicate with existing operator and ask for permission. If

approved the new operator will set a time for porting and communicate this to MNP provider

and existing operator.

4. On the set date and time, the current operator will disconnect the number and pass the

message to MNP provider.

5. The new operator will now claim that number and MNP would maintain a central database

with the new details.

Presently BSNL and Tata Docomo announced their attractive MNP offers with freebies.

Wherein subscribers can switch to BSNL at FREE of cost while Tata Docomo charged Rs. 19

for number portability service.

MNP Interconnection Telecom Solutions has been awarded a license by the Department of

Telecommunications to implement a mobile number portability Mobile number portability

(MNP) is expected to bring in more competition in the telecom sector, 20 Jan 2011 Pan India

MNP (Mobile Number Portability) will be rolled out Mobile number portability (MNP)

enables mobile telephone users to retain their. India, 2011.01.20, 7, INR 19, Customers can

port between prepay and post

Porting Procedure for Subscriber

1. Contact the new mobile Service Provider to whom you want to port your mobile no.

2. Read the eligibility and other conditions carefully.

3. Obtain Customer acquisition From (CAF) & Porting Form.

4. If eligible, Obtain ‘Unique Porting Code‘by sending an SMS from the mobile number

you want to port to the number ‘1900’ with text ‘PORT’  followed by space followed

by your 10 digit mobile number you want to port.

5. Fill up the CAF and Porting Form.

26

6. Submit the duly filled Porting Form and CAF along with requisite documentary proof

of the mobile service provider.

7. If you are a post paid subscriber, submit a paid copy of the last bill issued along with

the Porting Form and CAF.

8. Obtain new SIM card from the new service provider.

9. Subscriber can withdraw the porting request within 24 hrs of applying.

.

Impact of mobile number portability

NEW DELHI: Nearly a month after the nationwide rollout of mobile number portability

services, Vodafone Essar has emerged as the biggest gainer, notching up 1.9 lakh new

subscribers, whereas state-owned BSNL lost more customers than it attracted from other

service providers. 

Since the launch of MNP services, nearly 20 lakh mobile subscribers have switched service

providers using the facility. 

MNP allows users to change service providers while retaining their phone numbers. 

27

"A total of 19, 79,600 numbers of subscribers have ported their numbers so far using the

MNP facility," according to official figures provided in the Rajya Sabha by the Department

of Telecom (Dot). 

According to latest available figures, Vodafone Essar gained as many as 1.9 lakh customers,

followed by Idea Cellular, with a net gain of 1.5 lakh subscribers. 

The figures denote the difference between the number of customers porting in and porting

out. 

The country's largest operator, Bharti Airtel remained at number three with a net gain of

about 1.48 lakh subscribers till date. 

However, most operators stick by the theory that MNP will not be a game-changer for the

industry. 

CDMA operators are facing a huge exodus of subscribers, with RCOM, Tata Teleservices

and BSNL losing subscribers to old and established GSM service providers. 

In the case of R.Com (CDMA), as many as 1.34 lakh subscribers ported out, while 5,717

ported in. Similarly, TTSL (CDMA) lost over 1.04 subscribers while attracting only 8,298

subscribers to its fold. 

All that a customer needs to do for changing his telecom operator is pay a maximum of Rs

19. He/she will get a new service provider within seven working days as per the guidelines of

the sectoral regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. 

Among the new operators, Uninor and Sistema Shyam attracted more subscribers than they

lost, but others were hit by the facility as they lost more subscribers, the data revealed. 

To combat this, these operators had lowered tariffs along with doling out freebies. Regional

operators have also upped the ante, as they feared losing customers. 

28

MNP services were first launched in Haryana in November last year and according to

industry estimates, less than one per cent of subscribers opted for changing their operators. 

Both pre-paid and post-paid consumers can use the MNP service. 

It's been a month since mobile number portability (MNP) kicked in, and as expected, older

GSM operators like Vodafone Essar, Airtel and Idea Cellular continue to lure the bulk of

subscribers to their network. 

Latest numbers indicate Vodafone Essar gained as many as 1.7 lakh customers while Idea

Cellular ranked second with a net gain of 1.5 lakh. The figures denote the difference between

the number of customers porting in and porting out. The country's largest operator, Bharti

Airtel, on the other hand gained 1.35 lakh subscribers of February 20. However, most

operators stick by the theory that MNP will not be a game-changer for the industry. 

"The revenue impact of new customers who have come on to Vodafone is yet to be

ascertained as we need to study a few billing cycles of the post-paid customers to figure how

much these new customers are spending," said Samresh Parida, strategy director- Vodafone

Essar. A large proportion of subscriber movement in India is seen in the prepaid segment,

which accounts for a monthly churn rate of 4-5 %. "Early analysis also indicates that among

MNP portins, we are getting a disproportionate share of high value customers from other

operators," said Atul Bindal, president- mobile services, Bharti Airtel. The mobile operator,

besides advertising around the MNP, also introduced several freebies such as giving away

pizza vouchers and offering discount on monthly bills to retain customers. 

Idea Cellular said it had benefitted from its high-decibel advertising campaign. "We had a

strong rural footprint but with the launch of MNP, we also wanted to grab the opportunity to

strengthen our presence in the big cities and metros and this brand campaign helped us get

noticed," said Himanshu Kapania, deputy MD, Idea Cellular.

Customer Service: A Sore Point with Indian Telecom Operators

A little more than one-fifth of Airtel consumers and around one-third of Vodafone consumers

cite poor customer service as a motive behind their decision to opt for mobile number

portability. A significant number of subscribers also cite various promotional messages sent

29

by the operator as a put-off. That consumer can opt for mobile number portability because of

this came as a surprise to us. Perhaps, sending promotional messages for value added services

and activating these services without consumer’s consent has rubbed up the wrong way. It is

not that poor customer orientation alone is the main reason; customer service is just one

among several gray areas, as you would have noticed in the image above. It is also pertinent

to point out that customer service is a generic problem stretching across operators. None of

operators truly comes out to be customer centric. And, this is why every operator is gaining

some and losing some subscribers.

30

Per Second Billing

The past month has seen some hectic activity in the Indian Telecom Sector. It’s amazing how

a little competition always keeps everyone on their feet. Each business enterprise looking at

the market as if through the eyes of a hawk for the next big business opportunity .Each

company trying to seduce the prospective customer with its products. India, the future to be

world’s largest mobile telephony market is now going through a massive upheaval. Market

leaders no longer have it easy and with the introduction of the per second billing model, the

competition has only gotten more cut throat.

Up until now we’ve seen various hashes and rehashes of the tariffs under the prepaid and post

pay systems. Plan after plan requiring you to remember how much you’d have to pay if you

spoke for a minute. How much to a phone using a rival’s network, how much for STD, how

much for ISD, etc.

All that has changed with the entry of Tata Docomo in the Indian market.Docomo got the ball

rolling by offering the per second model charging 1 paisa per second.

The competition and I mean everybody, absolutely everybody; Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance,

BSNL, Idea Cellular, Aircel and the smaller operators too have now begun offering the

pay/second model.

The activity in the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) offices with regard to this

matter has taken place at lightning speed.

The recommendation has been passed approving the model and immediately the companies

have launched the scheme to attract customers. Tata Docomo has barely had the time to blink

at the success of their initial few weeks in the Indian markets!

31

So how does pay per second affect you? Well for one, it makes all calls cheaper. Say

you talk for 50 seconds; you end up paying just for those 50 seconds. Not the entire

Rupee. Also long distance calls become cheaper in this tariff option. You have to buy a

voucher/recharge for a certain amount to migrate to per second billing. It’s different for

all mobile operators.

It positioned Tata DOCOMO as a refreshingly different and innovative brand and generated

sales momentum that has made it the fastest growing telecom service providers in the India.

The Per Second Billing Impact on Indian telecom industry.

.

Market is flooded with `Per Second Billing` offering from almost all telecoms these days.

The scheme has become so popular among the new and existing subscribers due to attractive

price of 1 paisa per second. Thanks to Tata Docomo, a brainchild of Tata Tele Services, this

was the first to come out with Per Second Billing scheme.

Tata Docomo has not only successfully managed to grab a bigger share in new subscribers

addition but has also beaten biggies like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications who

have been forced to follow the same route to maintain their market positions.

With this increase in competition, the dynamics of telecom industry, which was earlier

controlled by top few companies, is now changing thus leading to price war among players.

The competition is good from subscribers' point of view. But is telecom industry ready for

this changing environment that has left the stocks to have blood bath on D-Street?

32

The result:

The result is already visible. Bharti Airtel which all the while led in the subscriber additions

space slipped down to No 2 position having 16.78% of the new subscribers added, according

to the September 2009 figures released by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

The place has been taken over by Tata which mopped up more than quarter (26.74%) of all

the wireless subscribers that were added in September 2009. The third and the fourth position

were taken over by Reliance (13.38%) and Vodafone (13.16%) respectively.

The consumer effect 

Indian mobile tariffs, which are amongst the cheapest in the world, are set to probably fall

further. Trai Chairman JS Sarma who is visiting the ITU World Telecom event here in

Geneva has told us that it is likely that it will be made mandatory for all network service

providers in India to offer per second billing. Per second billing essentially means the fact

that currently mobile calls in India are charged on a per minute basis. So, if you make a call

for 10 seconds, you pay the rate per minute, you make a call for 59 seconds, you still pay it.

One operator, Tata Indicom has recently gone ahead and actually started per second billing.

33

Some other operators have also reacted. The fact is that the Trai soon proposes to issue a

consultation paper, the way it takes decisions and within three to four months a final decision

will be taken on this matter.

JS Sarma, Chairman, Trai, said, “We are looking at the possibility of making service

providers offer to consumers per second pulse as a mandatory option to be provided.

Hopefully, in a month or a month-and-a-half we might like to come out with a consultation

paper.”

 

The fact remains that in the market network service providers are already going ahead, Tatas

have announced this. Reliance Communications has reacted and possibly all of this is going

to lead to further affordability whether it is actually affordable for subscribers or whether

there will be some more twists and hidden charges in these packages, we don’t know about

that. But clearly Indian mobile tariffs, which are already the cheapest in the world, are set to

perhaps go further down once the TRAI makes up its mind on this important regulatory

change.

The stock effect Most of the brokerage firms are underweighting the sector and have recommended a sell

rating on the telecom stocks. Enam Securities has maintained an underweight rating on

telecom sector. It says that tariff cuts will intensify the pressures on the sector in near-term. It

also feels that the new entrants will intensify the competition. Earning outlook is deteriorating

and Q2, FY10 and FY11 earnings will disappoint. Enam is revising the EPS numbers

downwards.

However, by then, so strong was the word of mouth and understanding of pay-per-use with

the consumers that the incumbent operators had no choice but to offer the per second billing

to consumers to stem their falling market share.

By October 2009, just one month after the campaign all telecom operators were forced to

launch the per second pulse. The Indian consumer was the ultimate winners with their mobile

bills coming down substantially across the board, saving all users around $2.4 billion a

month.

New Players in the Telecom Industry

34

The stupendous growth of the telecommunication companies in India over the last fifteen

years can be attributed to the liberal government of India, economic policy. The economic

renaissance affected in the early 1990s brought around a paradigm shift on the overall

business scenario of India. The telecommunication companies in India went through a

huge make-over during the implementation of the open-market policy of India.

 

The erstwhile closed market policy was replaced by a more liberal form of economic

policy. A whole new form of Indian Telecommunication Policy was drafted to

compliment the change effected in the economic policy of India. The amendment affected

the new telecommunication policy of India made huge changes with respect to

investments and entry of Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and Foreign Institution

Investors (FII) respectively, into the virgin Indian telecommunication market. This

resulted entry of private, domestic and foreign telecommunication companies in India.

The economic contribution made by these newly formed telecommunication companies

of India is really mentioned worthy and this industry witnessed highest growth after the

Indian Information Technology industry. The robust growth of Indian economy after the

economic liberalization in the 1990s induced massive change in the telecom policy and

new draft was framed and implemented by the 'Telecom Regulatory Authority of India'

(TRAI) and 'Department of Telecommunication' (DOT), under the Ministry of

Telecommunication government of India. The main aim of these telecommunication

companies in India is to provide basic telephony services to each and every Indian. 

Following are the new players in Telecom Industry in India

35

TATA Docomo, usually referred to as Docomo (not to be confused with NTT Docomo), is a

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) owned cellular service provider on the GSM platform-

arising out of the Tata Group's strategic joint venture with Japanese telecom giant NTT

Docomo in November 2008. Tata Teleservices received a pan-India license to

operate GSM telecom services, under the brand "TATA Docomo". Tata Docomo launched

GSM services on 24 June 2009. It first launched in South India and currently operates in 18

of 23 telecom circles.[1] Tata Teleservices is the country's fourth largest operator in terms of

wireless subscribers (including both CDMA and GSM), after Bharti Airtel, Reliance

Communications and Vodafone.

Tata DOCOMO offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone in 18 circles. It has

become very popular with its one second pulse especially in semi-urban and rural areas. They

are launching their service from the south of India to central, east and north.

Tata DOCOMO had about 42.34 million users at the end of December 2010.[3]

On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO became the first private sector telecom company to

launch 3G services in India.

3G

On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Tata Docomo paid   5864.29 cores

for spectrum in 9 circles. The circles it will provide 3G in

are Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya

Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai), Punjab,Rajasthan and Uttar

Pradesh (east) & Uttarakhand [4]

Apalya Technologies has been selected by Tata Docomo as their exclusive partners for

providing mobile TV services on 3G platform across India. Apalya's technology will be used

to provide high quality mobile TV services on Tata Docomo's 3G platform enabling

subscribers to view television channels at a higher resolution and speed.[5]

On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO became the first private sector telecom company

(third overall) to launch 3G services in India. The company will be investing USD 500

million in network roll out nationally.

36

On January 9, 2011, it was reported by an industry source that Docomo and Aircel agreed to

jointly roll out 3G networks in the areas where they both have spectrum. This would be one

of the first deals of network sharing in the Indian market. Nokia Siemens Networks is

carrying out a pilot for Tata Docomo and Aircel in the state of Punjab.

In the spectrum auction held last year, Aircel won 3G spectrum in 13 of India's 22 circles

(service areas), while Tata was awarded 3G licenses in nine circles. This deal would give

both companies 3G coverage in 19 telecom circles of India. The will not have coverage on 3

circles - Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Mumbai. The companies have three circles in common

- Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.[6]

Tata Docomo's HSPA+ 3G networks, set up with the assistance of NTT Docomo, supports

high-speed internet access with speeds of up to 21.1 Mbps. The network also supports high

definition voice for superior quality voice calls.

Tata Docomo, the GSM wing of Tata Teleservices has introduced an offer wherein all local

and std calls made to Tata Network (Tata Docomo, Tata Indicom and Virgin CDMA/GSM)

are charged at 1 paisa/6 seconds with a special recharge of Rs. 24 valid for 30 days. This is a

very good offer considering the price it comes for and the benefit it gives as no operator is

offering such tariff for STD On-net calls. The benefit is applicable only in home network and

not while roaming.

Tata Docomo is known for its aggressive marketing techniques and for delivering

something new to the subscribers. This time Tata Docomo has reason to celebrate as they

have crossed the 1 Million fans mark on Facebook in a short span of 18 months, thus being

the first telecom brand in India to achieve this milestone. Tata DOCOMO is one of the first

Indian brands to take the Social Media Marketing route and successfully made an impact on

popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Orkut and YouTube. To celebrate this

achievement, Tata Docomo has brought a new offer valid from 11th January 2011 at 00.00

hrs to 13th January 2011 at 23.59 hrs wherein subscribers will get Doubletalk time on every

top up recharge starting from Rs. 10 to Rs. 1000.

37

Aircel is a mobile phone service provider in India. It offers

both prepaid and postpaid GSMcellular phone coverage throughout India. Aircel is a joint

venture between Maxis Communications of Malaysia and Apollo Hospital Enterprise Ltd of

India. UTSB has a 74% stake in Aircel and the remaining 26% is with Apollo Hospitals. It is

India’s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider with a subscriber base of over 46.51

million, as of September 30, 2010. It has a market share of 9.65% among the GSM operators

in the country. As on date, Aircel is present in all 23 telecom circles (including Andhra

Pradesh, Assam, Bihar & Jharkhand, Chennai, Delhi & NCR, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal

Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, Mumbai, North

East, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Rest of Maharashtra & Goa, Rest of Tamil Nadu, Rest of

West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West) as per the company plans to become a

pan-India operator by 2010. Aircel is undisputed market leader in Tamil Nadu, Chennai,

Assam and North-East Circles, especially in TN State it is undisputed market leader since its

launch. Additionally, Aircel has also obtained permission from Department of

Telecommunications (DoT) to provide International Long Distance (ILD) and National Long

Distance (NLD) telephony services. It also has the largest service in Tamil Nadu.

3G & BWA

Recently on 3G spectrum auction by Government of India, Aircel wins 13 circles out of 23

Circles in par with Airtel and Reliance as large bidder. Aircel also wins BWA (broadband

wireless access) Spectrum in 8 Circles at auction. Aircel’s expenditure towards 3G and BWA

comes to a total of  9,936 crore. While it bid  6,498 crore for 3G spectrum, it would pay

another  3,436 crore towards BWA. Aircel wins 3G spectrums in A.P., Karnataka, Tamil

Nadu, Kolkata, Kerala, Punjab, U.P (E), West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, North East, and

Jammu & Kashmir. On outcome of auction Aircel emerged as only operator to cover and

provide 3G services in whole South India and whole North-East and East part of India. In

BWA auction, Aircel wins Tamil Nadu, A.P., West Bengal, Bihar, Assam, Orissa, North-

East, and Jammu & Kashmir. On outcome of auction Aircel emerged as 2nd largest winner.

38

Aircel Business Solutions (ABS), part of Aircel, is an ISO 9000 certified company. ABS is a

registered member of WiMax forum – both in the Indian and International Chapters. ABS’

product range includes enterprise solutions such as Multiprotocol Label Switching Virtual

Private Networks (MPLS VPNs), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Managed Video

Services on wireless platform including WiMax.

Aircel placed an actual dinghy lifeboat to a downtown billboard. A rope with a sign reading,

“In case of emergency, cut rope”, held up the branded raft. July 15, 2009 the monsoon arrived

with flooded streets and so did Aircel customer service. The dinghy was cut down and

pedestrians were safely transported. What Aircel calls “Corporate Social Responsibility – A

Solution”? The company was able to generate positive publicity and show consumers that

they care.

Beautification of Anna Flyover has been taken up Aircel for a period of three years; the

contract has been awarded by TNRIDC and executed by Chennai based outdoor advertising

agency Abra Media Networks. This project boasts of first of its kind lighting solution for the

entire stretch of the bridge and many other landscapes to enhance the look of the whole

bridge. As far as the utility is concerned, they are building a dedicated toilet for the police

guarding the Anna Flyover and the US Embassy. Once this flyover is beautified, Aircel plans

to maintain it for 3 years. Aircel tied up with Tamil Nadu Public Works Department for

beautification and maintaining of Gandhi Mandpam, Guindy in opposite of Anna University.

Aircel has won many awards for its services. Aircel was honored at the World Brand

Congress 2009 with three awards, Brand Leadership in Telecom, and Marketing Campaign &

Marketing Professional of the Year. Aircel was honored by CMAI INFOCOM National

Telecom Award 2009 for, ‘Excellence in Marketing of New Telecom Service’. Aircel had

been selected as the best regional operator in 2008 by Tele.net. Aircel was rated as the top

mid-size utility company in Business World’s ‘List of Best Mid-Size Companies’ in 2007.

Aircel got the highest rating for overall customer satisfaction and network quality in 2006

by Voice and Data.

Aircel is famous for innovative Pocket Internet cards for Free GPRS service for

1day/3days/7days/30days. Aircel become first to introduce Online service to subscribe and

manage Dialer tunes. It is first in country to introduce SMS bank/Phone

Book/Reminder/Talking SMS.

39

History

The company Unitech Wireless was until 2009 a subsidiary of Unitech Group, holding a

wireless services license for all 22 Indian telecom circles since 2008. In early 2009, Unitech

Group and Telenor agreed on a majority take-over by Telenor of Unitech's wireless business,

including Unitech Wireless' national-wide mobile license. By March, May and November,

Telenor acquired a 33%, 49% and 60% stake in Unitech Wireless, respectively. In

September, the mobile operation changed its name to Uninor. On October 19 the Indian

Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) announced that it has approved Telenor's

acquisition of up to 74% in Unitech Wireless, and the shareholder's agreement sets a

67.25% Telenor ownership in Uninor.

Uninor's strategy

Uninor is India's eighth nation-wide mobile operator, in a competitive landscape of 13 nation-

wide or regional mobile operators. The company is targeting an 8 % pan-Indian market share,

and the opening of one million retail points and breaking even on EBITDA within three

years.[4] It will provide mobile communication and Value Added Service.

In order to reduce time-to-market, Uninor will outsource infrastructure and back-end services

to partner organizations with established core competencies.[5] The operational model is low-

cost with a gradual network-build up, infrastructure sharing, GSM equipment at competitive

cost, full-scale IT-outsourcing and a long term cost and capex efficiency.

Uninor Dynamic Pricing

The operator comes with a new plan called Dynamic Pricing aka Badalta Plan. This was the

first time in India to launch this type of offer and became a competitor for existing operators.

As the name it self reflects, it’s pricing on LOCAL & STD calls changes time to time.

Initially the customer is in a basic plan of 50p/min. Then, as per the Dynamic Pricing (DP)

plan, you will get a Discount on the calls in different areas of the same city. i.e.; if your city

have 10 Uninor Towers, if you are covered in 1st Tower, you will get one discount plan, the

person in the 2nd tower will get a different discount plan like this all towers.

The discount ranges from 5% to 60% on the call charges. The Discount value varies Time to

Time based on network traffic.

40

This Discount info is displayed on your Mobile Screen. Where you actually get tower

location info, Cell Info.So you have to ON your Cell Info in your mobile settings.

So, when you get a "60% OFF on DP" on your screen it means:

You will be charged 60% less of 50p i.e.; 20p/min (60% * 0.50=0.30 => 0.50-0.30=0.20) at

that time.

Keeping its promise of being closest to the customer, Uninor, the GSM   mobile  service brand

of Unitech Wireless and the joint venture company of India’s second largest real estate major

Unitech Limited and the world’s largest mobile   services   provider  Telenor Group of Norway,

today announced the launch of the first Uninor (company owned-company operated) store in

Moradabad. This store is centrally located on Main Rampur Road to maximize its reach to the

customers across Moradabad. With this new store, Uninor now has three company owned-

company operated stores across UP West, the first two being in Agra and Meerut

respectively.

Uninor, GSM mobile service operator and telecom venture of the realty major Unitech Group

and Norway’s telecom operator Telenor, has started to attract subscribers by giving some

exciting offers.

Uninor has announced extra talk time for its prepaid subscribers on first recharge in all

circles. Users can get up to 10%, 15% and 16.66% bonus talk time on selected first recharges.

Uninor Prepaid subscribers of all 8 circles now can able to enjoy Extra talk time on selected

top ups. Customers will get talk time of Rs. 175 with RC150, Rs. 115 on RC100 and Rs. 55

with RC50.

Unitech Wireless, a telecom venture of the realty major Unitech Group and Norway’s

telecom operator Telenor, has launched its GSM mobile service in 7 telecom circle

simultaneously in the circles with the tagline of “Ab Mera Number Hain .The Seven telecom

circles are Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar

Pradesh West and Bihar (including Jharkhand).Uninor Life Time prepaid card will

cost Rs. 49 with talk time of Rs. 5 and it is available across the 7 circle from today.

The operator introduced two tariff plans. ‘Talkmore@29 paisa’ would allow users to make

calls at 29 paisa a minute and STD calls at 49 paisa a minute with a daily rental of Rs. 2.

41

MTS mobile is one of the new comers to Indian mobile market. They will have to put up a

tough fight with compete with mobile market giants like Airtel, BSNL, etc. MTS mobile tries

to reach their target audience through their attractive talk time packages. There are lots of

criticisms against this new comer. MTS has announced daring 1 million free minutes of talk

time between MTS to MTS. This launching offer is sure to attract customers.

MTS has already been in the mobile market for many years and they are one of the most

popular service providers in Russia. Through their vast experience, they come up

with tariff plans and mobile communication solutions that are customized to specific markets.

Before entering any market, they make a complete research of the market on the usage

pattern of the target market.

MTS has come up with many interesting tariff plans for its Indian customers. The very fact

that you can get 1 million free minutes with other MTS users has attracted lovers and college

students as they can have cheaper mobile phone solution for their needs. Coverage of MTS is

nothing to be boasted about as yet. Their network is yet to expand further to provide complete

coverage like Airtel.

They have also launched a number of full talk time recharge packages. We will not know for

how long these full talk time vouchers will be available. This can be part of their launching

offer. If you are within the city limits, you will be able to enjoy cheap mobile solutions. The

quality of their customer service is questionable.

They have three basic plans SME, SME roaming and the Mass. The Mass comes with Rs. 49

but with no talk time. It comes with life time validity. However it will be valid only up to

2028. For a local number you will be charged 1p for 4 seconds if you are calling another

MTS number. This is cheaper by 4 times with the popular one second billing. If you are

calling other mobile service providers you will be charged 1p for 2 seconds.

42

Think Hatke

We are India's first national youth-focused mobile service, with presence across 45,000

outlets reaching over 3, 20,000 cities, towns and villages across India. 

Ranked as the No. 1 for customer satisfaction within the first year of its launch with an

overall score of over 95%, we continued to offer you best service and value. We have Also

been adjudged the 'Booziest Brands of 2009' i.e. the most searched for brands by surfers, in a

survey carried out by a leading online portal in India. 

Everything we do, we do a little 'Hatke'. We plan different, whether it's 'paying for incoming'

or great value deals and cool phones. All to make you happy because that's what makes us

happy. So, think different. Think Hatke.

Virgin Mobile India Limited is a cellular telephone service provider company which is a joint

venture between Tata Teleservices and Richard Branson's Virgin Group. Currently, the

company uses Tata's CDMA network to offer its services under the brand name Virgin

Mobile, and it has also started GSM services in some states.

Virgin Mobile GSM Starter Kit costs Rs. 49 which includes Virgin GSM SIM card with zero

talk time and lifetime validity. Default tariff or Basic on the Starter kit is Local Re 1 per

minute, STD Rs 1.50 per minute. To avail cheaper per minute you have to recharge with

some denominations. First Recharge Coupons (FRC) is available of Rs 10, Rs 25, Rs 40, Rs

50 and Rs 100. All first recharges give full talk time, net of service tax and admin fee of Rs 2.

After the FRC is pumped in your Virgin GSM account, you will be moved to Per Minute Plan

for 365 days. But you have to pay Rs 1.50 as daily rental on Per Minute Plan.

Virgin GSM also introduces Per Second Plan. To get it, you have to recharge with Rs. 12

(includes talk time of Rs. 10.88). This per second plan will be valid for 365 days. And there is

NO daily rental on per second plan.

43

Videocon group, the popular consumer electronic company in India announced their GSM

mobile service in Tamilnadu area. Videocon GSM service was earlier under the brand

datacom solution. The re-branded provider, Videocon mobile communications will

commence its GSM services from March 27. Videocon has PAN India license for setting up

GSM services. The service will be available in Kerala, Punjab, Haryana, Tamilnadu and other

telecom circles in India. Videocon is the 13th mobile service provider in India after Tata

Docomo and Uninor. They announced attractive traffic plans for calls and value added

services.

Videocon will launch future ready 2.75 G network with EDGE facility. They will also

participate in upcoming 3G auctions, for license in 20 areas. As per Vinodh Dhood, the

chairman and managing director of the Videocon group, company expects 3 rd positions in

the Indian telecom sector by 3 years. They will invest a sum of around 140000 cores in three

years for setting up infrastructure, and there by reaching 100 million customers base.

Videocon mobile connection rates:

Videocon GSM connections with Life long validity can be activated by paying 49RS, which

also includes 5 RS talk time. The connection is available in all parts of Tamilnadu through

Videocon retail outlets and other shops.

Videocon mobile tariff plan and recharge voucher offers.

The standard plan charges are RS 1/min for local and RS1.5/min for STD calls to home/other

networks. The SMS charges in this plan are RS 1/1.5 /5 for local/national and international

SMS. Videocon has introduced first time recharge vouchers for enabling per second tariff

plans and unlimited calls in a newly purchased SIM card.

44

3G/4G Spectrum

3G Spectrum:

When you read about radio spectrum this means a range of radio frequencies. The

bandwidth of a radio signal is defined as being the difference between the upper and lower

frequencies of the signal. For example, in the case of a voice signal having a minimum

frequency of 300 hertz (Hz) and a maximum frequency of 3,300 Hz, the bandwidth is 3,000

Hz (3 KHz).

The amount of bandwidth needed for 3G services could be MHz Compare this with the

bandwidth of 30-200 KHz used for current 2G communication and you can see that there is

as much as a 500-fold increase in the amount of bandwidth required. Now you can appreciate

why radio spectrum has become such a precious and scarce resource in the information age -

everybody from television broadcasters to the military wants spectrum, and it is in short

supply. Michael Powell, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission

(FCC), has suggested that spectrum demand “is. The telecoms operators have had to buy 3G

spectrum from governments around the world, and those governments - realizing that they

own a precious, valuable resource - have sought to sell that spectrum at the highest possible

price.

Radio spectrum is often organized (and sold) as paired spectrum - a bit of spectrum in a

lower frequency band, and a bit of spectrum in an upper frequency band (see the section

on Technology for an explanation of paired spectrum). Paired spectrum is often specified in a

form like "2x15MHz" meaning 15MHz in a lower band and 15MHz in an upper band. This

technique of two users talking to each other on two separate frequencies is called Frequency

Division Duplex, or FDD (see the section on3G Technology for an explanation of FDD). W-

CDMA is an FDD technique (i.e., it requires paired spectrum) whereas TD-CDMA is a TDD

technique (i.e., it can use unpaired spectrum).

45

3G in India: Spectrum Allocated To Telecom Operators, License Fee Increased

3G spectrum was allocated to telecom operators by India’s Department of

Telecommunications (Dot) today, Business Standard reports quoting unnamed DoT sources.

The allocation appears to have been done according to plan, and Dow Jones

Newswires reports that Tata Teleservices as has confirmed receiving the spectrum in nine

circles. Allocations of spectrum were due today, following the end of the3G auction on May

19th, wherein three slots of spectrum per circle were allocated across 7 telecom operators.

Dot modified the terms for the Universal Access Service License (UASL) and Cellular

Mobile Telephony Service (CMTS) license today to allow these telecom operators to use 3G

spectrums for 20 years from 1st September 2010 onwards, or until the end of the term of their

existing license, whichever is earlier.

Of the telecom operators, Aircel, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications won spectrum

in 13 circles, Idea Cellular in eleven, Tata Teleservices and Vodafone in nine, and S Tel in

three circles.

License Fee

Following the amendment to licensing agreements for these telecom operators today, the DoT

also amended license fee being charged. Contrary to what is being reported in some

publications, this is not unexpected. These spectrum charges had been indicated in the initial

Notice Inviting Applications (for 3G auction):

Roll out obligations

- Metro Circles: 90% of metro service area will need to be covered within five years of the

effective date

46

- Category A, B C service area: 50% of district headquarters (DHQ) will be covered by 3G

spectrum, of which at least 15% should be rural Short distance charging (SDC) areas within 5

years. Rural SDC areas are such that 50% of their population lives in rural areas. The

operator shall be permitted to cover any other town in the district in lieu of the DHQ. The

choice of expansion and towns beyond 50% shall lie with the operator.

In case the telecom operator does not meet the rollout obligations in 5 years they can get a

one year extension by paying an additional 2.5% of the successful bid amount. Beyond that,

if rollout obligations are not met, the spectrum will be withdrawn.

Other important conditions

- No Merger of Spectrum In Case of M&A: If two or more licensees holding 3G spectrum

merge they’ll be allowed to retain only one 3G spectrum block I that area and surrender the

remaining 3G spectrum blocks

- Return of Spectrum: licensee may surrender 3G spectrum by giving a 60 calendar day

notice and 30 day notice to each customer. All fees payable until date of surrender of 3G

spectrum need to be paid.

The 3G spectrum auction in India began on 9 April 2010. The winners were awarded

spectrum in September, and Tata Docomo is the first private operator to launch 3G services

in India. The Government of India set a target of 35000 Crore INR. But at the end of the

auction the government could raise 50,968.37 Crore INR. The country was divided into 22

telecom regions for the auction.

Controversy

The telecom minister of the Government of India A. Raja of the DMK was alleged of

irregularities in the earlier sale of 2G Spectrum auction. The Telecom Regulatory Authority

of India claimed that by not holding 2G auction A. Raja had lost crore of Rupees for the

exchequer. A lot of political parties in India like the CPM and AIADMK had pressed for the

resignation of Mr. Raja before the auction. The Central Bureau of Investigation has been

brought in to investigate the charges.

Vodafone, Bharti win costly India 3G spectrum

47

Vodafone and Bharti paid a combined $5.1 billion for 3G mobile licenses in India, ending an

epic auction that yields a bonanza for a deficit-strapped government but puts winners under

pressure.

Reliance Communications also won the right to provide third-generation services in an

auction that lasted 34 days and will generate $14.6 billion for the government, authorities said

on Wednesday, nearly twice what it had expected.

"Its good news for the government, no doubt," said Arun Kejriwal, strategist at Kris Research

in Mumbai.

"For the operators it's a large sum of money that has to be paid out. We have to see how these

services are priced and received by the subscribers and how it will impact their profitability,"

he said.

India is the world's fastest growing mobile phone market with some 500 million subscribers.

India's three biggest carriers -- Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications -- each

won key licenses to offer 3G services in Delhi and Mumbai.

Nine private operators participated in the auction for three sets of licenses, which ended with

no single carrier winning high-speed 3G spectrum in all 22 circles up for bidding.

Seven different carriers, including Idea Cellular and unlisted Tata Teleservices, ended up

winning spectrum. Japan's NTT Docomo owns 26 percent of Tata Teleservices.

A fourth license will be sold separately and has been reserved for state operators.

India is a late adapter of 3G and is the biggest economy not to offer such premium services

on a wide scale, although the state-run telecoms firms have 3G services in some zones.

Vodafone Essar, the UK giant's India unit, will pay about $2.5 billion for its India 3G mobile

spectrum, according to government data, and said it planned to launch a service by year-end.

Bharti, one-third owned by SingTel, is paying about $2.6 billion but India's top carrier said it

fell short of its objective of securing a pan-India footprint due to high prices.

"We would like to point out that the auction format and severe spectrum shortage along with

ensuing policy uncertainty, drove the prices beyond reasonable levels," the company said in a

statement.

48

The auction will help the government plug a fiscal deficit that last year reached a 16-year

high, and may enable it to cut back on borrowing, bringing relief to satiated bond investors.

"The 3G auction results demonstrate that the government borrowing will sail through

smoothly," said Paresh Nayar, head of foreign exchange and money markets at First Rand

Bank in Mumbai.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the auction proceeds will give "elbow room" to the

government.

4G spectrum

In telecommunications, 4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a

successor to 3G and 2G families of standards. Speed requirements for 4G service set the peak

download speed at 100 Mbit/s for high mobility communication (such as from trains and

cars) and 1 Gbit/s for low mobility communication (such as pedestrians and stationary users).[1]

A 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based mobile

broadband solution to laptop computer wireless modems, smart phones, and other mobile

devices. Facilities such as ultra-broadband Internet access, IP telephony, gaming services,

and streamed multimedia may be provided to users.

Pre-4G technologies such as mobile WiMax and first-release 3G Long term evolution (LTE)

have been on the market since 2006[2] and 2009[3][4][5] respectively, and are often branded as

4G. The current versions of these technologies did not fulfill the original ITU-R requirements

of data rates approximately up to 1 Gbit/s for 4G systems. Marketing materials use 4G as a

description for Mobile-WiMax and LTE in their current forms.

IMT-Advanced compliant versions of the above two standards are under development and

called “LTE Advanced” and “Wireless MAN-Advanced” respectively. ITU has decided that

“LTE Advanced” and “Wireless MAN-Advanced” should be accorded the official

designation of IMT-Advanced. On December 6, 2010, ITU announced that current versions

of LTE, WiMax and other evolved 3G technologies that do not fulfill "IMT-Advanced"

requirements could be considered "4G", provided they represent forerunners to IMT-

Advanced and "a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with

respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed." [6]

49

In all suggestions for 4G, the CDMA spread spectrum radio technology used in 3G systems

and IS-95 is abandoned and replaced by OFDMAand other frequency-domain

equalization schemes.[citation needed] This is combined with MIMO (Multiple In Multiple Out),

e.g., multiple antennas, dynamic channel allocation and channel-dependent scheduling.

Objective Approach

4G is being developed to accommodate the quality of service (QoS) and rate requirements set

by further development of existing 3G applications like mobile

broadband access, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), video chat, mobile TV, but also

new services like HDTV. 4G may allow roaming with wireless local area networks, and may

interact with digital video broadcasting systems.

In the literature, the assumed or expected 4G requirements have changed during the years

before IMT-Advanced was specified by the ITU-R. These are examples of objectives stated

in various sources:

A nominal data rate of 100 Mbit/s while the client physically moves at high speeds

relative to the station, and 1 Gbit/s while client and station are in relatively fixed positions

as defined by the ITU-R[19]

A data rate of at least 100 Mbit/s between any two points in the world[19]

Smooth handoff across heterogeneous networks[20]

Seamless connectivity and global roaming across multiple networks[21]

High quality of service for next generation multimedia support (real time audio, high

speed data, HDTV video content, mobile TV, etc.)[21]

Interoperability with existing wireless standards[22]

An all IP, packet switched network[21]

IP-based femtocells (home nodes connected to fixed Internet broadband

infrastructure)

50

Advanced antenna systems

His performance of radio communications depends on an antenna system,

termed smart or intelligent antenna. Recently, multiple antenna technologies are emerging to

achieve the goal of 4G systems such as high rate, high reliability, and long range

communications. In the early 1990s, to cater for the growing data rate needs of data

communication, many transmission schemes were proposed. One technology, spatial

multiplexing, gained importance for its bandwidth conservation and power efficiency. Spatial

multiplexing involves deploying multiple antennas at the transmitter and at the receiver.

Independent streams can then be transmitted simultaneously from all the antennas. This

technology, called MIMO (as a branch of intelligent antenna), multiplies the base data rate by

(the smaller of) the number of transmit antennas or the number of receive antennas. Apart

from this, the reliability in transmitting high speed data in the fading channel can be

improved by using more antennas at the transmitter or at the receiver. This is

called transmit or receive diversity. Both transmit/receive diversity and transmit spatial

multiplexing are categorized into the space-time coding techniques, which does not

necessarily require the channel knowledge at the transmitter. The other category is closed-

loop multiple antenna technologies, which require channel knowledge at the transmitter.

4G in India

India is a country where voice is given more importance than data communication over a

cellular network. Although, this situation is changing now, but mobile broadband is limited to

selected pockets in the country. On the other hand, service   providers  are more interested in

owning bandwidth to release them under high costs which is not always affordable to people.

At a recent 4G auction, (which seems useless currently in itself has India is still not living in

a 3G world) Infotel, a mobile broadband provider bought the largest share of 4G spectrum

and won the bid for all 22 regions this bid was being placed. One factor that makes Infotel so

much better than its competitor is that it has nationwide wireless   broadband  operations,

possibly the largest; making it the de-facto ruler in this sector.

51

Others in this race, Aircel, Tikona Digital and Bharti, each got eight, four and four licenses

respectively. Seeing this state, Mukesh Ambani who currently holds the Reliance Industries,

is now proposing to buy Infotel for $1 billion and also agrees to pay the licensing fees. This

desperate move will make Reliance Communication and Reliance Industries tough

competitors in the mobile business once again.

What is expected of Reliance Industries now is that it understands the current #fail scenario

and need of wireless broadband in India and tries to make it better.

4G is a leader in developing and deploying Identity Management solutions for the Indian

market.

4G offers the technology to achieve unparalleled security and speed for large-scale

identification and verification applications.

As an early market entrant, 4G has invested significantly in the Indian market and has

achieved substantial market penetration in India across multiple sectors.

4G has developed a portfolio of applications built around 4G’s modular Identity Management

platform that interoperates with multiple biometric devices, biometric algorithms, and

demographic search engines.

The simple, but powerful architecture has allowed 4G to cultivate a diverse clientele that span

across Governments, PSUs and Corporate across India.

At his inauguration, U.S. President Obama stressed the need for bold and swift action in

laying foundations for growth. Appreciating the role of technology in improving effective

services and efficient delivery, he acknowledges the demands of a new age with

infrastructure and digital line investments required. More recently, global leaders at WEF

Davos have also highlighted the importance of innovation in forthcoming solutions.

Regardless the difficulty of circumstances or direness of situation, opportunity arises out of

crisis. More than ever, relationship-building and technology innovation are crucial. The 4th

generation (4G) mobile technology is becoming the emerging solution to drive the new

52

growth of the industry, and help foster state-of-the-art technology, novel partnership

arrangements or transformational business models. Our 4G events, the world's leading

platforms of the 4G industry, are steadfast in supporting the industry and confident in the

ability to uncover and advance the opportunities.

4G in India

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance is testing 4G in India, Getting 80 Mbps Download Speed

After the acquisition of Infotel Broadband Ltd by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance (RIL), the

rumor was there in market that Mukesh’s Reliance will come up with the speediest Internet

connection in India. As Indian market is still waiting for proper implementation of 3G

network by major players, Reliance has started testing 4G connections. As per some initial

reports, RIL team at Navi Mumbai started trials of 4G connection and got download speed of

80 Mbps and upload speed of 20 Mbps. It is way ahead than current 3G connection of 3.1

Mbps or 7.2 Mbps. Tata Indicom (Docomo) and Reliance Communication (Anil Ambani’s )

also started giving 21 Mbps download speed on supported devices. Reliance is using Ericsson

equipment to test this 4G network. As the above testing results are in ideal scenario, that may

drop to 40 to 50 Mbps depending on the system load and distance from the nearest tower etc.

S wireless Internet is at boom in India and other parts of world but still we are way behind

most of the western countries. We are still waiting for the proper coverage of 3G network

when Smartphone makers started selling 4G phones in countries like US and UK. But finally

we are getting good news on Wireless Internet connectivity, as Reliance is expected come up

with good plans in future for such fast Internet connections.

Reliance is currently having 22 of 44 licenses of broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum

which were auctioned in June 2010. As they need to start the implementation in less than a

year, so we can expect to get the service by March – May 2011.

NEW DELHI -- India's telecommunications regulator said Friday it will send its proposals

to the government by June on fourth-generation, or 4G, mobile technology that will allow

users to watch high-definition video and download content on mobile devices at a much

faster pace.

53

"We have floated a pre-consultation paper on 4G," J.S. Sarma, chairman of the Telecom

Regulatory Authority of India, told reporters on the sidelines of a conference. "At TRAI,

we are readying ourselves for it," he said.

The regulator is likely to come up with a consultation paper on 4G in a month's time, Mr.

Sarma said, adding that he expects operators to start offering 4G services next year.

The 4G technology, while in its infancy, holds the promise of Internet speeds at least five

times faster than typical third-generation networks now common in Europe and the U.S.

The regulator's comments come at a time when India's telecom operators are yet to start

full-fledged 3G mobile services across the country after receiving spectrum in a hotly

contested auction last year. The auction saw telecom and Internet services providers

together paying nearly $23 billion to the Indian government for bandwidth to offer 3G

telephony and broadband wireless Internet services.

Separately, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said the ministry may

look at extending the timeline for digitising television distribution networks across the

country by a year.

The TRAI, which also regulates the broadcasting sector, had in a report submitted to the

government last year suggested a Dec. 31, 2013, deadline for digitization of networks.

But the regulator is now suggesting that the deadline be postponed to June 2014.

India has about 106 million cable and satellite television homes, of which about 26 million

are connected through direct-to-home satellite television distribution companies. The

remainder is connected mostly through analog cable systems, which often give room to

disputes between broadcasters and cable TV companies on the number of users.

The government's digitization move will boost its tax collections, ramp up subscription

revenue for broadcasters and also provide customers a greater choice of channels.

54

Other Telecom Service

Value Added Service

A. Introduction

Mobile phones today have moved beyond their fundamental role of communications

and have graduated to become an extension of the persona of the user. We are

witnessing an era when users buy mobile phones not just to be in touch, but to express

themselves, their attitude, feelings& interests.

Customers continuously want more from their phone. They use their cellular phones to

play games, read news headlines, surf the Internet, keep a tab on astrology, and listen to

music, make others listen to their music, or check their bank balance.

Thus, there exists a vast world beyond voice that needs to be explored and tapped and

the entire cellular industry is heading towards it to provide innovative options to their

customers. Spoilt by choice, the mobile phone subscribers are beginning to choose their

operators on the basis of the value added services they offer. The increased importance

of VAS has also made content developers burn the midnight oil to come up with better

and newer concepts and services.

55

To understand that where this industry is at present and where it is headed, IAMAI and

IMRB International have jointly prepared the Mobile VAS Report to focus back stage

and uncover the trends in the cellular industry, current market status, value chain,

competition, market dynamics & expected roadblocks.

This is the first publicly available study on Mobile VAS in India and the insights

provided herein can be used by both the mobile operators and the content providers to

better address the needs of their customers. A timely and strategic action would help

nurture the mobile VAS market in India.

All VAS share the same characteristics:

1. Not a form of basic service but rather adds value total service offering

2. Stands alone in terms of profitability and/or stimulates incremental demand for core

service(s)

3. Can sometimes stand alone operationally

4. Does not cannibalize basic service unless clearly favorable

5. Can be an add-on to basic service, and as such, may be sold at a premium price

6. May provide operational and/or administrative synergy between or among other

services – not merely for diversification

Every VAS will demonstrate one or more of the above characteristics. Furthermore, a value-

added service will never stand in stark contrast to any of the above characteristics.

VAS also has a certain time dimension associated with them. Subjectively speaking, a value-

added service today becomes a basic service when it becomes sufficiently common place and

widely deployed to no longer provide substantive differentiation on a relative basis.

Relationship to other Services

56

There are two types of VAS. The first service types are those value-added services that stand

alone from an operational perspective. These types of services need not be coupled with other

services, but they can be. Many non-voice services fall into this category. They are often

provided as an optional service along with voice services, but they could be offered and used

by themselves without the voice service. For example, SMS could be offered and used as a

service without voice calling.

The second, and arguably more numerous and important type of VAS, are those services that

do not stand-alone. Instead, this category adds value to existing services. While it seems

implicit in the definition of value-added, this is an important principle that makes value-

added services stand apart from other services.

Value-added Services Examples

There are many services that could be considered "value-added". For discussion purposes, we

will a few of these services below.

Push-to-Talk

Push-to-Talk (PTT) is a VAS because it:

Drives additional revenue to the wireless carrier, but doe not cannibalize existing

revenues

Provides differentiated service offerings

May be packaged with various other VAS such as MIM to provide even greater value

Call Management Services

This type of service can not stand alone as a service. Instead, it adds value to a core service

by allowing the subscriber to manage incoming and/or outgoing calls. For example, value-

added service interactions occur when the subscriber receives a call. Many call management

services allow the subscriber to establish when, where, and under what circumstances they

57

may be reached by calling parties. This provides value to the core service - voice

communications - by way of increased control and flexibility.

Depending on the specific commercial situation, this value-added service could be offered as

either a premium service (at a premium price) or be bundled with other the core service

offering. The benefit of bundling would be to provide a differentiated core service and/or to

increase the use of the core service.

Location Sensitive Billing

This is another example of a service that can not stand-alone. Instead, location sensitive

billing (LSB) adds value to the core service by location enabling the core service. Location

sensitive billing can be used in conjunction with post-paid, prepaid, and/or VPN based

mobile communications services to establish zones for which differentiated billing treatment

may be applied. For example, a "home zone", "work zone", and "premium price zone" could

be established to allow an operator to offer differentiated service to its customers.

This is viewed as a value-added service to both the customer and the mobile operator. The

customer benefits from LSB through his ability to use the mobile phone at preferred rates

based on location. The wireless carrier benefits from incremental revenues derived from

additional usage and from premium charge zones where there is already high demand and

perhaps overly taxed system capacity. While the issue of potential cannibalization of existing

service arises, customer behavior and studies indicate a net benefit derived from overall

increased usage and revenues.

Taken together, call management services and LSB also depict characteristic number six,

operational synergy. Call management services add value in terms of providing the user

options depending on location. For example, the user may want to receive certain calls at the

home zone, but not at work, and perhaps receive only urgent calls when traveling or on

vacation. LSB provides the additional synergistic benefit of location based billing when the

user is in those various locations.

Mobile Data Services

This is an example of a value-added service that does stand-alone. Mobile data services are

considered value-added because they depict many of the characteristics discussed earlier.

58

Does not cannibalize existing services

Can be offered at a premium price

Provides differentiation

Can provide synergy with basic service

Largely due to the current state of mobile communications evolution, many non-voice

services can be considered to be value-added. However, the extent to which additional value-

added services can be layered on top of mobile data services will determine the limit of their

value. For example, many non-voice services will have even greater value through

personalization. Two of the most significant ways to personalize wireless services are

through location enabling them and making them personal profile driven.

Mobile data services are utilized to obtain information, content, and to perform transactions.

All of these activities are more meaningful if they are tailored to the individual. Location

based services add value by way of putting the data into a location context for the user.

Personal profiles further enhance the value through Personalization.

The mobile value-added services market in India

Mobile value-added services (VAS) include messaging and premium content like music,

video, TV, entertainment and information services.

The mobile VAS market is estimated to be over Rs 5,400 crore by end-2010.

It is expected to grow to over Rs 12,000 crore by end-2015.

Innovative content, improved customers service, affordability of handsets, and the operator’s

focus on increasing awareness are some of the key factors that will drive the VAS market.

The restricted use of enterprise VAS will act as an obstacle in the growth of the segment.

Caller tunes or Dialer Tunes or Hello Tunes are the most popular VAS service in the

World.

59

Bharti and Nuance Introduce ‘One Number, One Voice’  

Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries

across Asia and Africa, and Nuance Communications today announced the launch of an

innovative voice service titled ‘One Number, One Voice’ – which will allow airtel mobile

customers across India to access major voice based services offered by the company (like

Hello Tunes, Airtel Radio, News, Sports, Jokes etc) by dialing a single number – 54321. 

Powered by Nuance Recognizer 9.0, the world's leading automated speech recognition

technology, ‘One Number, One Voice’ is now available for Airtel customers across Madhya

Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chennai, Kerala, Chandigarh and Uttar Pradesh (East & West). The

service currently supports English, Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam and will be rolled out in

other languages subsequently. 

Commenting on the launch of the new service, Mr. Shireesh Joshi, Chief Marketing Officer-

Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel said, “At Bharti Airtel, we are constantly looking for ways of

delivering the best user experience for our 150 million plus customers across the country and

accounting for their diverse preferences in language and relative comfort in interacting by

voice or text. 

Our ‘One Number, One Voice’ service provides our customers with the dual benefit of a

single number of access for VAS services and the ease of voice recognition with multiple

language options – giving him a simple and improved service experience.” He added,

“Today, as we join hands with Nuance Communications for the launch of our ‘One Number,

One Voice’ service – we look forward to leveraging their expertise towards delivering an

improved ‘search and discover content’ experience for airtel mobile customers across India.” 

The ‘One Number, One Voice’ initiative covers all major voice services on airtel like Hello

Tunes, airtel Radio, News, Sports, Devotional, Astrology and Jokes. Customers need to

simply dial 54321 and speak to access the desired content, thus making search and discovery

of content much simpler and easier. ‘One Number, One Voice’ is available at a charge of

Rs.2 per minute.

“We’re experiencing an unprecedented demand for voice services, as they provide consumers

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with a fast and intuitive way to access a broad range of content,” said Michael Thompson,

Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mobile Division, Nuance Communications.

“Bharti Aircel’s One Number, One Voice service is an incredibly innovative initiative that

brings the power of voice to millions of consumers across India, providing access to exciting

content-driven voice services through a single number and simple voice commands.” 

Bharti airtel and Nuance had jointly undertaken an extensive pilot project in the Kerala circle

for over a year to comprehensively test and refine the service. The menu for the ‘One

Number, One Voice’ service has been designed basis the inputs of a comprehensive customer

research exercise on the usability aspects of value added service (VAS) voice applications,

making navigation more intuitive and simpler. This the first application to incorporate the

user interface guidelines and framework developed for airtel by Nuance, which incorporates

Nuance’s global best practices and rigorous customer testing. The service is intuitive enough

to distinguish between regular callers and first-time callers, offering a customized caller

experience wherein novice callers get more hand-holding whereas frequent callers are offered

short-cuts. 

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Research Methodology On

Number Portability

Objective

1. What customer thinks about number portability?

2. The impact of Number Portability on Indian market?

3. To know acceptability of Number Portability system on customer?

4. To find out pros and cons of Number Portability system for mobile users?

5. To find out pro and cons of Number Portability system for Cellular Service

providers.

Data Collection

1. Primary Data: were collected by survey method. Questionnaires administered by

respondent personally.

2. Secondary Data: were collected from internet.

Sampling

1. Sample Size: A sample of 135 respondents was taken for the study. Among 25

them were cellular service providers and 110 were the customer of service

providers.

2. Sampling Method: Non-probability/Convenience sampling method was used for

the study.

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Limitation of the study

1. As Number Portability System is yet to be launched, scope was study was limited to

the perception of samples.

2. Mobile users are not yet fully aware about Number Portability so administering

questionnaire was a difficult.

3. Providers were also not aware about Number portability, so their views were differing

to each provider.

4. Lack of resources like time, mode of transportation to Survey team.

Data Analysis & Interpretation

Customer Perspective:

Q.1 Which cellular service do you use? [To know who the dominant player in Vadodara market is]

Service Provider Users

Airtel 20

Reliance 5

Vodafone 30

Idea 25

BSNL 7

TATA Docomo 9

Aircel 4

Uninor 1

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Total 110

Out of 60 customer Vodafone with 14 customer was found dominating players in Vadodara.

Q.2. Are you satisfied with the services of your current service provider?

Objective: To know whether the customers are satisfied with current service provider or not.

Q.2 Satisfied with current service provider?

YES 82

NO 28

Out of all 110 respondents, 82 (75%) respondents are satisfied and 28 (25%) respondents

were not satisfied with the services of current service provider.

Q.3. Would you like to change your service provider, if given a chance to change it without

changing your mobile number? (Mobile Number Portability System)

Objective: To check the willingness of customers to accept Mobile Number portability.

Prefer to Change Response

Yes 78[71%]

No 32[29%]

Out of 110 respondents 78 respondents would like to change their service provider if given a

chance to which provider with same mobile number.

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Satisfied Not Satisfied TOTAL

Willing to Change 54 24 78

Not willing to Change 28 4 32

TOTAL 82 28 110

From above table and chart, it was found that out of total 82 customers who were satisfied

with the services of current provider, 54 customers are willing to change their service

provider. Out of 28 customers who were not satisfied with the services of current services

provider, 24 customers were willing to change their services provider.

Conclusion

Large number of customers was satisfied with the services but even then they were willing to

change their service provider in search of better prospects. So If Mobile Number Portability

system comes into action, there is a chance that people will accept it.

Q.4 (A) Why will you change your service provider?

Objective: To know the reasons that will influence them for switching the service provider

RESON FOR CHANGE NO. OF CUSTOMER

Flexibility to change service provider 19[25%]

Low switching cost 08[10%]

Low tariffs of other provider 26[33%]

More Value added service by other provider 18[33%]

Worst service of Current provider 07[9%]

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Total 78[100%]

Out of 78 customers who were willing to change;

A. 26 (33%) customer are willing to change in search of low tariffs of other service

providers,

B. 19 (25%) customer want to change because of flexibility to change service provider

without changing mobile number,

C. 18 (23%) customer want to change because of more value added services provided by

other services provider,

D. 8 (10%) and 7 (9%) were willing to change because of low switching cost and worst

services of current services provider.

Q.4 (B) if you do not like to change the service provider, please specify the reason.

Objective: To know the reason, why people will not change their service provider in spite of

option to keep their mobile number the same.

REASON NO. OF CUSTOMERS

Happy with current

provider

30

Corporate Plan, So can Not

change

2

Out of 32 customers who were not willing to change;

A. 30 (94%) customers are not willing to change because they are happy with their

current cellular service provider.

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B. 2 (6%) customers are not willing to change because they have corporate plan

provided by their organizations, so even if they are willing to change, they cannot

change.

Q.5. What do you think the advantages you will have if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action? (Open Ended)

Objective: To know what will be the advantages for customer, if Mobile Number Portability

System comes into action

REASON NO. OF RESPONSE

Low Tariffs 44

Flexibility 33

Good Network 17

More VAS 21

TOTAL 115

1. Low tariffs:

44 responses said that if NPS comes into action, they will get services at low tariffs.

2. Flexibility

33 responses said that there will be flexibility in changing the services provider without

changing mobile number. They will also get flexibility to switch the service provider if

customer is not happy with the services of current provider.

3. Good network

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17 responses said that they will get good network because all cellular service providers

will serve them better to sustain in competitive market.

4. More value added services (VAS).

21 responses came about More VAS, i.e. customer will get more value added services at

cheaper rates.

Q.6. what do you think, the problems you will face if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action?

Objective: To know what will be the problems for customer, if Mobile Number

Portability System comes into action

RESPONSE NO. OF

RESPONSE

No Problem 77

Difficulty to identify the caller’s service provider 18

Network Problem 13

Time for switching 2

When respondents were asked about the problems they might face with introduction of

Mobile Number Portability System,

A. 77 respondents responded that they will not face any problem if MNPS comes in to

action,

B. 18 respondents said that they will face difficulty to identify the caller’s service provider.

C. 13 said that they will face network problem because churning of customers will increase

and will cause network conjunctions.

D. 2 respondents were not happy with the idea of time taken to switch between providers as

it takes 72 hours (as per current suggestion of TRAI) to switch from one provider to

another.

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SERVICE PROVIDER PERSPECTIVE

Q.1. what do you think, the advantages you will have if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action?

Objective: To know the advantages for services provider, if mobile Number Portability

System comes into action.

ADVANTAGES No. of Responses

Increase Customer 14

Don’t have to issue new Numbers 1

No advantage 9

Increase Revenue 1

From above table and graph, it can be seen that, 14 services providers said that they will

increase customer. 9 service providers said that they will not have any advantage if MNPS

comes in to action. 1 respondent said that they will not have to issue new mobile numbers so

they could control their expenses and 1 said that introduction of MNPS will increase the

revenue of the company.

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Q.2. what do you think, the problems you will face if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action?

Objective: To know what will be the problems for cellular services providers, if Mobile

Number Portability System comes into action.

PROBLEMS NO. OF RESPONSES

Have to give Promotional Schemes 1

Upgrade network 4

Difficult to identify customer 3

Lose customer 12

Increase competition 4

Database Maintenance 1

Sale of new card decreases 2

Difficult to retain customer 2

Financial Loss 3

High Investment 1

Customer will rule market 2

Decrease customer loyalty 2

No Problem 1

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When services provider were asked about the problems of MNPS, 12 responses went to lose

customer. Services provider have to upgrade their network and competition will increase was

some of the major problems services providers will face after MNPS comes into action. Also

sale of new SIM card will affect was also a point made by 2 services provider. If MNPS will

come in to the action, customer will have complete control over market. They will rule the

market. One big problem will be of identifying the customer as his/her number will not

change and service provider will change. So tapping customer’s service provider will be a

challenge for service providers.

FindingsVodafone was found the most dominating player in Vadodara market, followed by Idea and

Airtel.

A. 78 respondents out of 110 would like to change their service provider with same mobile

number, in spite of being satisfied with current service provider. So if Mobile Number

Portability comes into action, people may certainly accept the system.

B. Out of 78 customers who were willing to change;

C. 26 (33%) customer are willing to change in search of low tariffs of other service

providers,

D. 19 (25%) customer want to change because of flexibility to change service provider

without changing mobile number,

E. 18 (23%) customer want to change because of more value added services provided by

other services provider and 8 (10%) and 7 (9%) were willing to change due to low

switching cost and worst services of current service provider.

F. If Mobile Number Portability comes into action, customers will have benefits like:

Services at low tariffs

G. They will be flexible to change services provider without changing the number.

H. All services provider will try to give better services to customer in order to gain market

share. This rise in competition will result in intensive price war among the cellular

services providers and will benefit to customers.

I. Cut throat competition will enable services providers to offer better Value Added

Services at cheaper prices.

J. Major problem for customers will be to identify counterpart’s service provider.

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K. Network problems will also arise because there will be huge churning rate. Customer will

keep on switching networks which will result in Network related problems.

L. According to Services provider, they will gain customers due to MNPS if they provide

quality services and customer satisfaction to Users.

M. On the other services provider also says that if they fail to provide better services, they

will lose their market share.

N. Customer loyalty and retention ration will affect. Services provider will also have to

update their networks in fight their rivals.

Suggestion

1. TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) should take into consideration, the

pros and cons to services providers before launching Number portability System in

India

2. TRAI should try and make out some benefits for the services provider so that they

mutually accept the System.

3. To remain untouched by the effects of Number Portability system, service provider

should put their all efforts on making customers, brand loyal and concentrate more on

customer retention than on making new customers.

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CONCLUSION

1. In Vadodara market, Airtel is the top player. Idea is on Second followed by Reliance.

2. Customers at Vadodara are willing to switch Service provider if they are given an option to

switch with same mobile number.

3. Mobile Number Portability System will change the scenario of the telecom Industry.

Earlier the only way a service provider was able to hold their customer was by the mobile

number. But now if MNPS comes in to action customer will have freedom to switch with

same number so customer will rule the market.

4. In this battle between customers and service providers, service provider will have to

surrender against customers.

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REFERENCES

Books

Mobile Communication by Jochen Sehiller-Second Edition

Report

Trai Report 2009-2010

Telecom Sector Annual Report 2009-2010

Website

www.trai.gov.in

www.wikipedia.com

www.google.com

www.dot.gov.in

74

Appendices

Questionnaire [Customer]

Topic: Number Portability

Dear sir/Madam,

I request to spare sometime to consider the following questionnaire. The intention of this

project is purely academic; all information provided by you will be kept strictly confidential.

Be as truthful as you can.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Q.1 which cellular service do you use?

Airtel

Vodafone

Idea

TATA Docomo

Reliance

BSNL

Aircel

Uninor

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Q.2 Are you satisfied with the services of your current service provider?

Yes

No

Q.3 would you like to change your service provider, if given a chance to change it without

changing your mobile number?

Yes

No

(A) If yes, why you change your service provider?

Flexibility to change service provider

Low switching cost

Low tariffs of other provider

More Value added service by other provider

Worst service of Current provider

Other, please specify

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

(B) If No, please specify the reason?

_____________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________

Q.4 what do you think, the advantages you will have if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Q.5 what do you think, the problems you will face if Mobile Number Portability System

comes in to action?

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

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__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

Permission Letter

To whom so it may concern

This is a very humble request to leading Telecom Service Provider to allow

and help our student to prepare their project. The project details and

requirements are available with the students.

This project preparation is purely for academics purpose and do not have any

commercial aspects. This is a part of MBA program undertaken by the student

at our academy.

Thanks and Regards

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Meenakshi Nair | Trainer | NIS Academy