Assorted articles and Information

It’s time for unlocked iPhone sellers in India to close shop as cell operator Vodafone is officially bringing the much awaited iPhone to the country in September this year. The price of iPhone in India will be around 28k. Apple’s touchscreen phone, which is a mini computer of sorts, had created a wave when it was released in the United States last year.

Steve Jobs hinted last month that iPhone launch in India would happen sometime in 2008 and that Apple may not restrict the iPhone distribution deal to just one operator like they do in the US where AT&T is the exclusive distributor.

According to sources, Apple could make iPhone accessible though other telecom carriers in India like Reliance or Airtel. Earlier reports suggested that iPhone in India could debut at Reliance Retail - that obviously didn’t happen but the Vodafone - Apple deal suddenly makes lot of sense. It is not known whether Apple would link up its prestigious phone with one service provider as it has done in the US.

Bharti Airtel has hit the 60 million mobile subscriber mark at the end of March, making it one of the world’s largest mobile companies. Its mobile subscribers are now double the entire population of India’s fixed line subscribers. The only difference is that while Bharti took roughly 14 years to build this market, building the country’s fixed line base took over 100 years. But far from resting on its laurels, Bharti is quietly reinventing itself and its brand proposition to ride the next wave of growth and reach new benchmarks.

Manoj Kohli, president & CEO of Bharti Airtel, said “By 2010, we intend to touch a subscriber base of 125 million and also be recognized as a global benchmark in productivity and efficiency in the telecom sector. We are transitioning from a mobile brand to an integrated telecom brand and our advertising will strongly reflect this shift,” said Kohli. According to Kohli, the transformation strategy for the next two to three years is already in place and rests on three main platforms: Market share gain, efficiency and productivity and people development. According to him, 20 leaders in the past 6 months have got higher positions.

The mobile giant is now targeting volume growth from a 700-million strong rural population and revenue growth from data and value-added services, while attempting to get leaner, still more agile and productive by leveraging huge economies of scale as it doubles its market. Airtel is already reported to be the second largest advertiser in India after Hindustan Unilever and well ahead of Colgate Palmolive and Reckitt Benckiser and its impressive topline growth could threaten HUL’s domination in media in times to come.

Airtel, which has already linked 3.2 lakh villages, is maintaining its rollout momentum of 20,000 to 30,000 new villages every quarter. It is also relentlessly beefing up its 8 lakh distribution/retail reach. In the non-voice segment, Bharti Airtel intends to strengthen its five business areas: broadband (8 Mbps), carriers (long distance), corporate & enterprise; small & medium enterprises (SME), and media (IPTV and DTH). With Bharti chairman, Sunil Mittal back at the Bharti headquarters full time once his one-year stint as the CII president ends in April, the company certainly seems wired for growth.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular, the three big telecom operators on 3rd April, 2008 has been issued `notice of enquiry` against them for allegedly forming a cartel to distort competition by the anti-monopoly watchdog MRTPC. Admitting a report of MRTPC`s investigative unit DGIR, a Bench of the quasi-judicial body, headed by Justice O P Dwivedi, issued `notice of enquiry` and started judicial inquiry against these operators for cartelising and increasing prices of telecom services simultaneously. The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission Bench also directed the three companies to file their reply before it within four weeks.

In the investigation report, director general of investigations and registrations has said that the three GSM operators, have simultaneously increased the price. The report stated that despite having different cost factors, structures and profits, they all fixed the tariff of their local call at Rs 1.20 a minute. The report further said that though the rental and tariff charges of calls and SMS fall under the forbearance category under the Telecommunications Tariff (23rd amendment) and GSM operators are free to fix any tariff for their services.

Airtel, Vodafone and Idea had in August 2007 raised tariffs for STD, local calls, SMS and value-added services. While Vodafone raised STD call charges to Rs 2.65 from Rs 2.40 for pre-paid users, Bharti increased STD tariffs for pre-paid and post-paid customers in Delhi region to Rs 2.65 and Rs 2.40 a minute respectively from Rs 2 earlier. On August 13, 2007, the three companies increased local charges within their own network to Rs 1.20 per minute for prepaid customers from Rs 1 a minute. These three companies control around 65 per cent of the GSM-based mobile services market and raised local call charges by 20 per cent and STD charges by 20-32 per cent.

Moreover, they also refrained from publicising the tariff hike and brought out customary notices by way of small advertisements tucked inside newspaper pages. MRTPC was suspecting formation of cartelisation in the sector and the three big telecom firms were distorting competition in the market. The commission has listed the matter for July 31 for next hearing.

Chandramouli Janakiraman, a former associate VP and head of the Internet products group at Infosys, has start up IT company in Silicon Valley in his own venture. Mouli Raman, now co-owns OnMobile, India’s largest VAS (value added services) and data solutions provider for mobile and media companies. Raman along with his partner Arvind Rao, now CEO of OnMobile, decided to start a company.

OnMobile was was incubated by Infosys in 2000, and was the first to enter the business in India in this segment. OnMobile got its first order from mobile services provider Orange in Mumbai (which was later re-christened Hutch and then Vodafone). The first product that we sold was caller tunes. After VAS was a hit with Orange, Airtel soon followed. “Our second breakthrough was Airtel. And after we received this order we were confident that it was the turnaround of our company “, Raman said.

The company soon developed technology for many VAS products like caller tunes, cricket updates, mobile ticketing, commodity exchange updates, astrology updates and several others. The total VAS market in India is pegged to be around Rs 3,000 crore, of which a third comes from OnMobile’s technology, claims Raman. OnMobile has brands like Nokia, Siemens, Ericsson and Huawei as clients for its ring tones services, while the company has also provided media portals and interactive TV programming for Star, ESPN, MTV, Channel V and Yahoo.

The company recently also acquired a French data products company Voxmobili. This has further strengthened the product portfolio with additions of products like Phone Backup & Mobile Paparazzi. These are presently deployed with a number of international customers like Orange, Cingular-AT&T, France Telecom, T-Mobile, Wanadoo, and Turkcell. The company, headquartered in Bangalore, has its R&D centre here as well, along with offices in Singapore, Paris and Jakarta. Presently the company employs over 1,000 people over the world and clocks Rs 130 crore in annual turnover. Raman said that presently there is no global VAS provider and they are aiming to become the first global player in VAS, within a couple of years.

India’s private telecom operator Tata Communications Ltd on 13th Feb,2008 announced an investment proposal of over two billion dollars in the next three years to fund its global expansion plans. The Tata group owned telecom company, which launched a new brand integrating the former VSNL and Teleglobe brands, would leverage its Tata Global Network (TGN) in emerging markets in Asia and Africa to deliver a globally managed communications solutions.

The company said that Tata Communications is in the process of completing additional submarine cables systems connecting emerging markets in Asia, Middle East and Africa to Europe to meet the demands of consumer broadband and enterprise customers over the next five to eight years.

The company said it plans to increase its broadband penetration, and expansion into emerging markets, with a specific focus on the Internet Protocal (IP) network, MPLS, ethernet and value added managed services. The Tata Communications brand integrated the former VSNL, VSNL international, Teleglobe, Tata Indicom Enterprise Business Unit (TIEBU) and Cipris brands worldwide.

Tata Communications will invest around $1 billion in the submarine cable and WiMax businesses and another $1 billion for network expansion. The company is a part of a consortium that is laying a submarine cable system between India and France - India-Western Europe-Middle East (I-ME-WE) - and would invest around $45 million in the project. The consortium comprises 10 companies, of which the Indian partner is Bharti Airtel

Tata Communications had earlier announced a $250 million investment in TGN-Eurasia, another $200 million in TGN-Intra Asia and over $50 million in Seacom undersea cables. The remaining $500 million would be invested for WiMax operations, which were launched in Bangalore. The company is planning to launch the services in other cities, starting with Chennai, Delhi and Hyderabad. Another $1 billion would be invested in multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) and ethernet network rollouts across the world. This will ensure a scalable and secure network, through which the company will provide advanced services.

Tata Communications expects to post compounded annual organic sales growth of 15 per cent for the next four years. The company was also targeting a margin of at least 20 per cent on earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation on a consolidated basis for the next four years. Tata Communications shares gained 4.64 per cent to close at Rs 468.70 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.