The Hindu : Cell companies join hands against WLL

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 02, 2003

Business

Business

Cell companies join hands against WLL

NEW DELHI JAN. 1 . Joining hands to counter limited mobility services, cellular operators will announce tomorrow a major initiative that may include special tariff incentives and value additions for cellular customers to prevent them from moving away to WLL. "There will be an announcement by cellular operators in Delhi which is aimed at ensuring that the interim period of judicial review of the WLL services, which is now on, is not used by l

imited mobility operators to lure cellular customers,'' sources in the cellular industry said.

Major cellular players such as AirTel, Idea Cellular, Hutch, BPL and Spice among others are expected to make joint announcement on this tomorrow. Industry sources said the announcement would be in the form of special incentives, value additions and on the tariff front.

"This will ensure that fixed operators may not resort to unfair churn of subscribers during the interim period,'' they pointed out. When contacted the Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), T. V. Ramachandran, refused to comment on the issue.

The move seems to be necessitated by the launch of limited mobility services by various basic operators, the latest being that by the Relaince Group.

The sources said WLL service providers were attempting to use the interim period to lure cellular customers and said "subscribers may move away because of tariff advantages which is also there only because of the licence.'' They said the tomorrow's announcement would only be the beginning of checking subscriber churn.

The proposed move by cellular operators comes in the wake of launch of limited mobility services by Reliance recently with three schemes, including a three year unique Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer Offer at Rs. 3,000, across 673 towns and cities in the country. The service, based on the code division multiple access (CDMA) platform, would provide messaging, Internet, videoconferencing, music download and movie download services. Reliance would commence demonstrations of the service on January 15 and bookings by February.

The Tatas had also launched WLL-mobility services in Delhi recently as part of which it is offering a `Friends 599' package, where the company would not charge any monthly rental on a monthly commitment of Rs. 599 and would offer 400 free local calls.

PTI

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