Saturday, Dec 28, 2002
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By Our Staff Correspondent
Speaking at a pre-launch press conference here today, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Infocomm said, "To begin with, Reliance Infocomm will network 673 towns and cities by March 2003 and will eventually connect all the 6.40 lakh villages and 2,000 towns and cities to each other and the world in a seamless way. This gigantic effort is analogous to building virtually the entire railway system in India.'' The overall estimated project cost for Reliance Infocomm including all services and connections is Rs. 25,000 crores. "We have already committed Rs. 11,000 crores and have in fact, raised Rs. 15,000 crores — Rs. 6,000 crores by way of equity and Rs. 9,000 crores by way of debt,'' said Mr. Ambani. Regarding the break even for the project, Mr. Ambani said, "we aim to give a fair return to investors. In the first year of operations, we planned to make profits and are on track to achieve that. We plan to capture 20-25 per cent of the market by end-2004.'' While Reliance Industries holds 45 per cent of the equity of Reliance Infocomm, a further 45 per cent is held by the promoters (the Ambani family) and 10 per cent is with employees and trusts. Mr. Ambani said, Qualcomm, the telecom multinational could invest up to $200 million in Reliance Infocomm. "The position would be mutually reviewed by Reliance and Qualcomm in six months,'' Mr. Ambani said. Reliance Infocomm is ready to start services in three concrete phases. The first phase, commencing today, is with Reliance IndiaMobile service through a nationwide wireless network that will reach out to 90 per cent of India's population. Second, in mid-2003, with an enterprise netway revolution by providing 100 MBPS Ethernet links to every desktop and device to half a million enterprise buildings and eventually ten million buildings. Third, in end-2003, with a consumer convergence revolution by providing high speed Ethernet links to 80 million homes initially and eventually to every home. Reliance IndiaMobile service will be available only on CDMA 2000 1X handsets specially imported by Reliance. The Java enabled multi-media ready phones have features like three-way conferencing, call forwarding, and other services. Mr. Ambani said all handsets were being imported and Reliance would consider venturing into handset manufacturing only after 2003. For the current requirement, the company would be able to source between one million to eight million handsets from LG, Kyocera and Samsung. Mr. Ambani said, "Reliance Infocomm will challenge conventional cost structures in the telecommunications industry. Historically, telecommunication services have been the privilege of a small section of society. We will break this mould and offer services at incredible prices.''
Three schemes on offer
There are three schemes on offer with the Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer (DAP) offering the best value proposition. The DAP is a value proposition that includes one free digital mobile phone, unlimited free incoming calls, 15 second pulse rate, all state long distance calls and long distance calls to any Reliance phone in the country. The tariff package under DAP is Rs. 3,500 which includes Rs. 3,000 as membership, Rs. 400 for 400 minutes outgoing calls, Rs. 100 for club privileges and an optional Rs. 100 if finance is required. The scheme allows for exchange of current mobile handset and a suite of data applications. Within the plan, the cost of a STD call is 40 paise a minute and that of a short call of up to 15 seconds is 10 paise. The `Standard' plan from Reliance IndiaMobile is a monthly payment plan while the `Regular' scheme is an upfront payment plan covering only talktime. The Dhirubhai Ambani Entrepreneur Programme (DAEP) and the Dhirubhai Ambani Developer Programme (DADP) were also announced. Under DAEP, the company is creating a chain of 11,000 retail sale points and in the process of creating a team of one lakh Dhirubhai Ambani Entrepreneurs to provide service at the doorstep. This number would subsequently go up to two lakh individuals.
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