As we know that Videocon Mobile Services a part of $4 billion Videocon Group, has made a bold decision to make roaming free on pan india basis by making incoming calls free. To avail this benefit, customers have to make a special recharge.

Earlier if the customers was on roaming then for local call the rate will be Re 1 per minute, std call the rate will be Rs 1.5 per minute, Local & STD roaming SMS charges will be Rs 3.45, 10paise per 10kb is the data consumption.  

2.06 million is the current subscriber base by February month as per COAI & offering services in seven circles.

One Nation, One Rate Policy has to be already followed by Aircel in January 2013 for Voice, SMS and Data as a one rate in home circles & roaming.

“We aim at being a country free of any physical or geographical boundaries, and in pursuance of the visionary recommendations as underlined in the National Telecom Policy 2012, we reiterate our commitment towards ‘One Nation – Free Roaming’. To extend the benefits of freedom of movement across our network, we have introduced this offering where our subscribers roaming across Videocon Network will stand to benefit from free incoming calls. There are no strings attached to the proposition, no STVs/recharges required,” as per Director & CEO Videocon Mobile Services, Arvind Bali.

New special tariff plan is available for Delhi/NCR at Rs 39 & 30 days validity& already available in different denomination for different circle.

655.59 million is  the 2G mobile subscriber base &  1.97 million is the figure by which user base has fall & 8 millions users get decreased by the Uninor operator as per data released by the industrial body COAI.

657.56 million is the subcriber figure released in the last month i.e. Jan’2013.

 Again after closing down operations in several circles like Mumbai our new operator named as Uninor which is currently operating in six circles & have currently subscriber base of 31.77 million after losing 8.34 million subcribers.

 As per statement released by Uninor “The loss of subscription in February also reflects the scale Uninor was able to build within three years in the circles it was compelled to close down.”

Currently 1.2 lakh new subscribers has been added by Uninor in their recent operating circles.

Besides Aircel having 60.87 million subscriber figure after losing 0.69 million users, Videocon having 2.06 million subscriber base after letting off 0.19 million users, state-owned BSNL-MTNL having 4.91 million user base after losing 0.20 million.

 Vodafone has surprisingly added 2.18 million new users & puuting their user base to 149.88 million, Bharti Airtel also following the same path by including 2.42 million pushing the base to 186.62 million, Idea Cellular also added 2.85 million users & taking their base to 119.25 million.

Videocon is planning to roll out 4G(LTE) services in India by joining hands with Nokia Siemens Networks(NSN).

As per 4G auction data which held in last year November month where Videocon bagged 4G licenses in seven circles like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh (East and West), Bihar and Jharkhand.

But there is some issue i.e. Videocon will use the same 2G 1800 MHz band for deploying its 4G network. So, company has decided to roll out only 4G data services while the voice services in this network will not be available as because the required handset is not available in the market, so company will provide respective frequency band dongle.

“4G Network is capable of providing comprehensive Internet Protocol-based telecom solutions that allows voice, data and streamed multimedia services in a seamless manner at much higher data speed than the existing generation network including 2G and 3G” as per CEO & Director of Videocon Mobile Services Arvind Bali.

 Videocom will face direct challenge from some major telco operators like Reliance Infocom & Bharti Airtel. As per recent data collected Airtel has launched the 4G network in some selected circles like Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata. Since setting up such ultra fast mobile broadband network requires quite a large investment & quite an amount of time.

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Videocon one of the premier groups in telecom industries was earlier running its GSM services in 18 circles and won back 6 of its 17 circles (excluding Punjab) in the recent spectrum auction & again told to its entire customer to port from all 16 circles which includes Mumbai circle to port from its own network to other network using MNP.

As per Hon’ble Supreme Court’s order, Videocon services will not be available from Jan 19, 2013 (00.00 hour). Please use your available balance and port out than”. as told by Videocon.

Currently Videocon operates in some circles like UP East, UP West and Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Punjab (with Hfcl Infotel Ltd), Haryana, Mumbai, Gujarat, Kerala, and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh. But in circles like Tamil Nadu, Mumbai & Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab and Kerala, Videocon is running services commercially.

Recently Videocon has won 1800 MHz auction in 6 circles like Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradedsh , UP – East, UP – West. But it failed to obtain spectrum for some circles like Mumbai . But in Punjab Videocon will continue its GSM service under mutual agreement with HITL (Hfcl Infotel Ltd).

Trai on 17 th Dec 2012 prescribed a 15 day guidelines  to the all mobile service providers who’s licences had quashed by SC, to inform their subscribers about the closer of mobile service in the respective circles and also send text messages or provide this information in writing to all their customers in those circles where they failed to retain spectrum and renew their licenses.

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TRAI has recently ordered a notice against those operators who has failed to win spectrum in some circles & also the operators need to inform the mobile users within 10 days.

The operators who are facing this terrible situation are Uninor, SSTL, Videocon, and TTSL. Recently, Uninor on Monday inform its mobile customers regarding closing its operations in Kolkata & West-Bengal.

In a statement TRAI has told to operators to file a compliance report within 15 days regarding closing down its operations.

Likewise 2 well known operators i.e. Uninor & MTS has to inform its subscriber within days before discontinuation of its services.

But Tata Teleservices has informed to TRAI regarding its closing in operation in circles like Assam, North-East, Jammu & Kashmir within January 18^th 2013.

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Videocon Group one of the premier brand in India in terms of consumer electronics goods manufacturer. Recently Videocon Mobile Services wants to launch wireless broadband services or LTE in the seven circles likely in Punjab & Haryana. Videocon initially aims to invest Rs 800 crores on this new project.

Already Videocon Mobile Group has launched the 2G network services over 2 years in Punjab circle & holding around 2 million consumers in state by introducing 100% network coverage & cutting edge technology & also accompanied by 25,000 channel partners. The other circles where 4G LTE services to be launched are Madhya Pradesh,Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh (West), Uttar Pradesh (East), Gujarat, Bihar and Jharkhand.

Arvind Bali, Director and CEO, Videocon Mobile Services “LTE offers high spectrum efficiency as compared with other available technologies & also capable of delivering high speeds on internet access to the user and would have cost advantages.

As per MR Bali Videocon Mobile Services has re-won spectrum in 6 major circles which cover 45 percent of country’s population & also stated about the ongoing operations in Punjab & in the recent auction the spectrum is paired & liberalized to roll out the highly spectrum efficient FDD-LTE technology services.

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Recently the Telco watch dog of India TRAI has issued a strict guidelines for all tel-co operators to maintain high quality standards in their wireless services.

Already TRAI has recommended all Wireless Service Providers to set up a test consisting of servers & test probes in those geographical locations where the providers possess licenses as per Wireless Data Services Regulations, 2012.

TRAI has recommended Wireless Service Providers to maintain following benchmarks like: activation or provision of data services, download/upload data transmission successful attempts from a test server, as per tariff plans maintain download speed from the test server, average Throughput for Packet data from a test server for all tariff plans, latency for data services from a test server, PDP Context Activation Success Rate and data Drop rate.

Lastly, the Wireless Service Providers must mention all the tariff plans & the kinds of data services available as per circles in their websites.

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Videocon one of the new comers in tel-co sector started operations in 2008 had obtained pan-India 2G spectrum & recently pulled out from the bid of CDMA spectrum. But earlier the company has already applied for GSM & CDMA spectrum.

So in this CDMA bid only TTSL (Tata Teleservices) is the operator left to acquire the CDMA spectrum. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Videocon and Telenor are the some of the well known companies in telecom industry to participate in GSM spectrum auction.

videocon

Already another operator MTS the Russian based company has decided not to participate in the bid for new spectrum & also challenged the Supreme Court decisions over cancellation of licenses.

Videocon Industries submitted the Rs 220 crore earnest money deposit to apply for 10 circles in the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) spectrum auctions; it has withdrawn its application. Some reports also link to a clue about the possibility of strengthening of Sistema’s case against the government following withdrawal by Videocon.

Author: Biswajit Biswas (Technical Writer)

in.linkedin.com/pub/biswajit-biswas/17/2a6/3b5

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In a recent meeting held the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) under the leadership of P Chidambaram allow the existing operators like Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNL and MTNL to retain the 2.5 MHz band spectrum in the more efficient 900 MHz band.

Already in an earlier meeting under the supervision of Telecom Commission re-framing of all spectrum in the 900 MHz band must take place.

As per our tel-co minister Mr. Kapil Sibal announced in a meeting that the operators need to pay market regulated price when 900 MHz spectrum go for auction in the upcoming year.

Again as per instruction give by telecom panel to the TRAI to retain up to 2.5 MHz spectrum & also re-look over this matter.

Trai had suggested the reserve price for spectrum in the 900 MHz band, at over Rs 36,000 crore and Rs 14,000 crore for the 1,800 MHz band. This was vehemently opposed by the telecom firms.

Author: Biswajit Biswas (Technical Writer)

in.linkedin.com/pub/biswajit-biswas/17/2a6/3b5

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Operators persist to express their apprehension over the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) guidelines on Auction of Spectrum.

Operators inscribe to Sibal over TRAI’s recommendation on the Auction of Spectrum

As per news reports, the top executives of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Uninor, Videocon and Idea Cellular have written to Kapil Sibal, Minister of Communications and IT in this circumstance.

It is alleged that the correspondence states that the guidelines are “retrograde” and requirements the Minister to refuse the same.

The communication also asks the Minister to authorize the auctioning of variety in the 1800 MHz band and the conserve price be compressed by 80 per cent. The operators also allegedly stated that the suggested price of spectrum may guide to a 25-30 per cent amplify in call tariffs and that the recommended preserve price for the other bands was quite elevated and idealistic.

Another point of argument was TRAI’s submission to reallocate spectrum in the 900 MHz band, on grounds that the regulator had not observe the various aspects of this proposal before framing its suggestion. Also, they said that this step may direct to drop in the excellence of services and an enlarge in the price of given that these services.

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