Reliance Communications (RCom), which successfully won the licence to offer Third Generation (3G) mobile telephony services in India, has said that the 3G services on its network could be offered by the end of this year or early 2011.
Addressing the media at a conference to announce RCom's exclusive partnership with Universal Music in preparation for the 3G launch, Mahesh Prasad, President, Marketing-Wireless Business, Reliance Communications, said, “We expect the spectrum allocation to take place around September and if that happens, we could roll out our 3G services by as early as end of the year.”
“Our GSM services were rolled out last year and as a greenfield project, most of the equipment was 3G-enabled. However, there is still a lot of equipment that has to come in for the 3G roll-out which I believe will be an aggressive one.”
RCom got the licence to offer 3G services in 13 key circles, including Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.
The company on Wednesday announced the signing of an exclusive strategic partnership with Universal Music to offer music-related services and content across the GSM, CDMA 3G and Wireless Broadband platforms.
The agreement has a commitment of substantial investments by both companies to be made to offer all-round music experience to customers across all platforms, including voice, WAP, IVR, Blog and through On-Ground events.
“Our exclusive partnership with Universal Music is among the tie-ups crafted for our customers as part of RCom's 3G launch. The partnership with Universal will be leveraged to launch ‘Simply Music' initiative,” said Mr. Prasad.
Simply Music comprises two packs — the Gold Pack for a monthly subscription of Rs. 25 offering three full length tracks, three ringtones, four caller tunes and 30 minutes mobile radio web streaming. The Platinum pack for Rs. 99 a month comprises 10 full length tracks, 10 ringtones, 10 caller tunes and 100 minutes of mobile Radio web streaming.
Under the agreement, Universal will offer its entire catalogue of international and Indian music to RCom comprising more than three lakh international and Indian songs.
