News Digest: MyFM, RCOM, Shaadi, IRCTC, TringMe, Nokia, SBI, IRDA, FrontLine, Tejas, Swan, TechM

From http://www.medianama.com/2009/08/223-news-digest-db-groups-myfm-rcom-shaadicom-irctc-tringme-nokia-sbi-irda-frontline-tejas/ on August 25, 2009

By Preethi J

MyFM To Raise 15.2M

Synergy Media Entertainment Ltd, DB Group’s FM radio division, will raise Rs. 1.52 crore through preferential allotment of fully paid up equity shares. It has received approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB). Synergy runs 94.3 MyFM in 17 cities.

Related: Dainik Bhaskar IPO Filing: Digital Kiosks; IndiaInfo.com; I Media Corp

RCOM Launches Antakshari

Reliance Mobile launched a new VAS – Antakshari –  on its R-World platform which will allow the subscriber to play antakshari with anyone. Charges are Rs.30 per month with 30 minutes free usage. This service is being launched on both GSM and CDMA networks. (TelecomIndia Online)

IRCTC’s Online Sales Boom

Around 34% of the 880,000 tickets sold daily by the Indian Railways are booked online, ticket sale data between April and July 2009 by the IRCTC reveals. This is not all – online booking of the tickets is also popular amongst low income groups. An thumping 63% of online tickets were booked by them. (Business Standard)

Our Take: IRCTC continues to be the poster boy of Indian e-commerce. We only wish it were more efficient – instead of spending hours standing in a queue, we now spend hours on the website – logging back in due to jittery timeouts and searching for train names and numbers.

Related: IRCTC Does $102 Million In Online Transactions In August; Payment Trends; HDFC, ICICI, Cash Cards Significant

TringMe

This Bangalore based 2007 startup has a platform that helps developers create voice-enabled widgets for the Internet. Tringme hosts some 22 million call minutes per month and expects this to soar to 40 million in the next 3-4 months. One of its clients is Indiamart. (Moneycontrol)

Our Take: Such a platform could spark off more apps and options in the VoIP domain – so far ruled by Skype and Fring. Ofcourse there is still the regulatory hurdle to cross before VoIP usage picks up.

Strike At Nokia’s Manufacturing Plant in TN

Nokia employees at its handset manufacturing factory in Sriperumbudur have demanded a wage increase of €21 for all employees. (Evertiq)

M-Banking Adoption
State Bank of India has added 20,000 mobile-banking customers in 2 months, taking the total to 33,000. M-banking is rising in popularity for small value transactions. (PTI)

All Mobile Banking posts

Shaadi.com Stats

The site has 300m page views a month. 6,000 new profiles are added every day. (Guardian)

Insurance Inst Opts For Online Exams

Complaints of malpractices has led the Insurance Institute of India to make entrance exams for insurance agents online. The institute will be aided in setting up the online examinations by NSEiT, a subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority. (ET)

HomeShop18 To Raise Funding

The retail TV channel and online site is in discussion with prospective financial and strategic partners to raise money in the next year. It has outlined three priorities – be visible in every television household; to invest in customer experience; and, to reward loyal customers. Network18 owns 65% of HomeShop18. (VCCircle)

PE Firm Frontline Strategy Picks Up Stake In Tejas

The amount and stake are not known, and the stake was picked up by Frontline through a secondary transaction. Tejas has been backed by Battery Ventures, Cascade Capital Management, Mayfield Fund, Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs and Sandstone Private Investments. (VCCircle)

Change In Regulations Deferred: DoT

International telcos in India have been dealt a poor hand by the Indian government. The Department of Telecom (DoT) has postponed plans to remove the double taxation they currently have to comply with for offering long distance calls. They pay license fees twice to the government – for bandwidth which they purchase off domestic operators and again when they resell it to enterprises and their customers. (ET)

Etilsalat Awards IT Contract To Tech Mahindra

Following the move by other telcos to outsource their IT operations, Etisalat DB, which runs new telco Swan Telecom (renamed to Etisalat DB Telecom India), may award the majority of its Rs 150 million outsourcing project to Tech Mahindra. (ET)

Other telco-IT company relationships are: Unitech Wireless – Wipro ; Idea Cellular – IBM ; Bharti Airtel – IBM; Aircel – Wipro

Nuance To Launch Free-Flow Voice Based Song Search In India

From http://www.medianama.com/2009/08/223-nuance-to-launch-free-flow-voice-based-song-search-in-india/ on August 24, 2009

By Nikhil Pahwa

NASDAQ listed Speech and Imaging solutions company Nuance Communications is launching a voice recognition service with two operators in India, reports Mint. The service will be used to power song search.

Sumit Goswami, Head of Marketing (India/Asean regions) at Nuance told MediaNama that the service being launched is free-flow voice-based search. In case of a free-flow search, the product returns a result based on  an entire sentence spoken instead of a specific keyword. Voice is first converted into text, a database is queried, and a result is provided to the user. In our opinion, all voice based search will eventually have to be free-flow, and voice to text is especially important in India, given the dominance of voice based services, and the fact that text based services will have a limited role in rural India. Even for voice based services, the dialects will be difficult to understand, and the dictionary powering the voice-to-text service will learn with more usage.

At present, the product, Nuance Recognizer does voice-to-text search for 11 languages – Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi and Indian English; two other languages are still under development. The product can be deployed for both song search and directory search, though it has been deployed previously in India for speech recognition for contact centres in the BFSI segment.

Nuance is going live directly with the telecom operators. Nuance expects the service to be live October or November 2009 – latest by the first quarter of 2010. The deployment will cover 70 percent of all the circles that those operators cover, Goswami said. Nuance powers a few languages for OnMobile Global as well, though OnMobile competes with the company for deployments after its acquisition of Telisma.

Goswami said that Nuance currently deploys products on a licensing model: For example, a contact center may have a requirement of 10,000 ports, and Nuance is paid per port. Why not a revenue share model, which Indian telecom operators seem to prefer? “We will have to change the model to a revenue share model for India, but that is not being done in the current case,” Goswami said.

Other companies in the voice-to-text space in India include Capital18 funded Ubona, mScriber, Google (their Blackberry app returns search results on the basis of a voice based query) and OnMobile owned Telisma. EnglishSeekho is also being powered by a voice to text technology.

NTT DoCoMo laments limited value-add in India

Thomas K Thomas on August 22, 2009 on the Hindu Business Line at http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/08/22/stories/2009082250660400.htm

Tokyo, Aug. 21 Indian operators should give a higher percentage of revenue share to application developers in order to promote value-added services (VAS), according to Japanese mobile player NTT DoCoMo.

In Japan, for example, NTT DoCoMo gives away as much as 90 per cent of the revenues earned from VAS to the application developers. In comparison, most Indian mobile players keep 60-70 per cent of the income earned from applications.

“It will take a while for them to understand that giving a higher share to VAS players works to the operators’ advantage in the long run. But we will have to persuade them to take a lower share so we can get an ecosystem that supports good data services,” Mr Toshinari Kuneida, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director of Global Business Division, NTT DoCoMo, told Business Line.

Mr Kuneida said that NTT DoCoMo will talk to its Indian partner, Tata Teleservices, to change the VAS business model in India.

VAS contribution

In India, value added services contribute only 5-10 per cent to an operator’s revenues. In contrast, operators such as NTT DoCoMo get over 40 per cent of their average revenue per user from interesting data services. That is because while there is not much innovation happening in the Indian VAS segment, Japanese operators are giving services useful to the subscriber’s everyday life.

For example, NTT DoCoMo has launched a healthcare service that gives consumer details about his physical condition including how much he has walked in a day, his body mass index and how much he needs to cut down on food. The service is linked to a medical doctor’s device in the backend that receives data about the subscriber’s health and comes back with an advice. All this over the mobile phone.

In India, VAS are all SMS-based services with little innovation. Most VAS players do not find it feasible to invest in developing high-end applications since the operators are not willing to give more than 30 per cent of the revenue earned from that service.

But with Indian operators on the verge of launching 3G technologies, they will have to encourage application development if they have to start earning higher revenues from data services. Due to the cutting-edge applications being developed in Japan, players such as NTT DoCoMo are seeing 80 per cent of the total traffic coming from data services in that country.

Reliance Mobile to launch ‘Wolverine’ game- Hindustan Times

Reliance Mobile to launch ‘Wolverine’ game- Hindustan Times on June 18, 2009

Shared via AddThis

The Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Mobile will launch a game on Friday based on Hollywood movie “Wolverine” on its R-World value-added services platform, the company announced on Thursday.

Wolverine is a fictional super hero, who appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The new movie will be released in Indian theatres on Friday.

The role playing game developed by the Indian arm of Electronic Arts (EA), the US-based developer of video games, will enable players to get into the shoes of the protagonist Wolverine and avenge the death of his girlfriend.

Nokia Siemens Adds GPRS To Idea Service Areas

via Nokia Siemens Adds GPRS To Idea Service Areas From http://www.efytimes.com, June 18, 2009

Thursday, June 18, 2009: Indian mobile operator Idea Cellular is upgrading its network in 22 telecom service areas to tap into the lucrative value added data services market. By March 2010, Idea subscribers will be able to enjoy multimedia messaging, e-mail, Web browsing, online music and other mobile services. The services will be enabled by Nokia Siemens Networks’ GPRS (general packet radio service) technology and Unified Charging Solution (UCS evolve).

Nokia Siemens Networks will add GPRS capability to 10 Idea telecom service areas, while the existing GPRS capability in 12 other areas will be expanded.

According to Anil Tandan, chief technology officer, Idea Cellular, “The value added services market in India holds tremendous potential. The greater opportunity lies in data services and in expanding our capabilities and service portfolio in this area. The right technology foundation is fundamental to our success, and it needs to include not just a method of delivering services, but of monetizing them effectively. Nokia Siemens Networks has strong credentials in this field and has played an important role in the development of our technology strategy for data services.”

As part of the project, Nokia Siemens Networks has also designed and will implement a charging solution that will enable Idea to use a single system across these locations for real-time charging of the new services for both pre-paid and post-paid subscribers.

Added Michael Kuehner, country head, Nokia Siemens Networks, “Customer lifecycle management entails building a flexible ecosystem of multiple partners that can develop innovative applications and content quickly, and at the right price points. The volumes and complexity are high, which makes billing and charging of these services difficult. As its technology partner, we are confident that our solution will not only help Idea Cellular build new revenue streams but also deliver greater quality of service.”

The Idea service areas where Nokia Siemens Networks will add GPRS capability are Mumbai, Orissa, Tamil Nadu including Chennai, Kolkata and West Bengal, J&K, Karnataka, Punjab, Assam and North East.

Nokia Siemens Networks will upgrade Idea’s existing GPRS capacity in the service areas of Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Haryana, Kerala, Bihar, Maharashtra and Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Related stories at

• http://www.financialexpress.com/news/nokiasiemens-networks-to-enhance-idea-networks/478441/

Revenue, not user base, to set telecom pecking order

17 Jun 2009, 0305 hrs IST, Rashmi Pratap, ET Bureau

MUMBAI: Subscriber numbers in India’s wireless story are losing their relevance today as far as determining the industry position of a service provider is concerned. t will be revenues and not subscriber numbers that could decide the pecking order in the world’s fastest-growing telecom market.

This is reflected in the latest revenue figures released by the industry regulator, Trai. Going by this, the top three operators in India are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL).

Airtel’s adjusted gross revenue (AGR) from wireless and wireline operations was Rs 7,998 crore for the March quarter. Vodafone Essar, which offers only mobile services, had revenues of Rs 4,456 crore during January-March 2009 on a subscriber base of 68.7 million. Reliance Communications (RCOM), which has the second largest customer base, reported an AGR of only Rs 2,998 crore on 72.6 million users during the quarter, making it the fourth largest in terms of revenues.

The revenues for the state-owned BSNL stood at Rs 3,943 crore making it the third largest. BSNL offers mobile services on GSM apart from fixed line services. Besides showing the revenue capabilities of an operator, AGR is significant, as it is the basis on which service providers pay licence fee and spectrum charges. Operators pay a revenue share licence fee to the government ranging from 6% to 10% of their AGR. Increasingly, operators are targeting revenue growth instead of a larger user base.

According to Bharti Airtel’s vision statement, the company’s aim is 20% increase in revenue margin per subscriber in the next few years.

Analysts contend that with more and more low-end users signing up for services, it is becoming difficult for operators to maintain margins and improve ARPUs (average revenue per user per month). In such a scenario, those who continue to grow revenues along with subscriber base will be the clear winners.

“As the new subscriber base is primarily drawn from tier III towns and rural markets, the incremental subscriber addition is not leading to a commensurate revenue upside for telcos. The catchphrase to evaluate a telco’s performance will be quality of subscribers rather than the number of new subscribers,” Acsendia Consulting principal analyst, Alok Shende told ET.

A smaller player like Idea Cellular, which operates in 13 circles, had AGR of Rs 2,389 crore on a subscriber base of 39 million. This is just about Rs 600 crore less than RCOM on a base which is almost half of that company.

KPMG director (telecom) Romal Shetty said, “Initially, everyone was going after subscriber numbers. Now, they are looking at quality of subscribers. This explains the emphasis on value added services (VAS), which bring in higher revenues.” He pointed out that low-end pre-paid users are now bringing in monthly revenues of as low as Rs 70 per month.

Tata Teleservices reported revenues of Rs 1,889 crore during the quarter placing it at sixth followed by state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). Aircel, a relatively new entrant, is at the eight position, which had AGR of Rs 721 crore during the quarter.

Mundu IM Launched For Android Phones!

EFY News Network, Wednesday, June 17, 2009:

Mundu IM, an instant messenger that integrates MSN, GTalk and others into one, will be available as a download through the Android phone.

Geodesic has launched Mundu IM — an instant messenger that integrates MSN, GTalk and others into one — for Android mobile phones. The application will be available as a download through the phone from http://mundu.com/products/mundu-im.

Speaking on entering the Android market, K S Vivek, AVP, Geodesic Ltd, said, “Android being supported by a large number of handset vendors and the backing of Google has huge potential for growth. We believe we can be an early mover and take advantage of the potential growth in this platform.”

“We are excited to provide Mundu and Android users with an easy, innovative way to connect live with their friends. After our success with the other platforms, we now bring Mundu IM to the Android users for creating a seamless communication experience,” added Vivek.

via Mundu IM Launched For Android Phones!.

Now Yahoo goes mobile in Asia-Pacific

From http://www.ciol.com on June 16, 2009

SINGAPORE: Internet giant Yahoo! Tuesday expanded its mobile platform in the Asia-Pacific region region in a bid to attract users who prefer to access the web from their phones instead of computers.

Yahoo! Mobile is now available in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan as well as Argentina, Brazil, Italy, Mexico and Spain, company officials announced at the CommunicAsia 2009 trade fair in Singapore.

Featuring customisable home pages and localised content, Yahoo! Mobile can now be accessed on over 400 mobile devices, a company statement said.

“With products like the new Yahoo! Mobile, we’re invigorating the mobile industry and creating consumer demand for compelling Internet services across a variety of mobile platforms,” David Ko, senior vice-president of Yahoo! Mobile, told a news conference.

Matthias Kunze, managing director for Yahoo! Mobile Asia-Pacific, said that in Asia, “it’s more likely that new users of the net will be on the mobile phone instead of the PC.”

Yahoo! Mobile is now available in 17 countries across Europe, Asia and the Americas, and additional localised versions are expected to be launched over the next several months, the company said.

It was earlier rolled out in the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, France, India, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Wireless Expertise Launched!

From http://www.efytimes.com on June 16, 2009

Tuesday, June 16, 2009:  Wireless Expertise has launched, with a focus on the rapid development and delivery of mobile value added services and applications to a wider global market. Founded with the intention of bridging the market gap and speeding up the delivery of mobile services, Wireless Expertise’s offering will include international consultancy, service design and development solutions to help brands overcome barriers to reach out to their customers via the mobile channel, said the company.

According to Anuj Khanna, founder and chief executive officer, Wireless Expertise, “Brands are hindered in delivering wireless services by poor user metrics, segmentation, development skills and product marketing expertise. Diverse handset operating systems and standards add to this conundrum.”

“Wireless Expertise has been founded to solve the problems of wireless service development, application design and systems integration. We aim to expedite the deployment of mobile services by bringing together cohesive solutions for our customers, and adding key competencies from the entire spectrum of the telecommunications, internet and IT solutions value chain,” said Anuj.

“Wireless Expertise will deliver end-to-end solutions working with growth partners to offer a ‘one-stop-shop’. We are proud to be part of a company which has risen from the ashes of a recession and is focused on taking the wireless applications industry to the next level,” Anuj concluded.

The company provides strategic business consultancy, marketing research, product development, project management and system integration services. Wireless Expertise has signed its first contracts for European based wireless application services, to help with an imminent market launch.

Wireless Expertise is headquartered in the UK and has expansion plans to cover North America, Middle East, Asia and Africa in the next 18 months. The company is also working on secure mobile banking, money transfer and payment projects which are in deployment phase across Africa, Middle East and Europe.

Nokia intros phones for farmers

From www.ciol.com on June 15, 2009, source PTI

MUMBAI, INDIA: Leading mobile phone maker Nokia has launched cellphones, which will help farmers get instant information on farm prices in ‘mandis’.The company claimed that the new phone could display information in two languages and offer graphically rich user interface.

The company will be selling the devices first in Maharashtra and later to other states as also to select countries in Asia and Africa, officials said today.

The new devices costing about Rs 2,000 will also help users access education and entertainment services. Agriculture service will contain information on seeds, fertilisers, pesticides, market prices and weather.

The content will be available for Rs 30 to Rs 60 per month depending upon the information availed.

Nokia India Managing Director D Shivakumar said the company has tied up with Idea Cellular to offer the service and is talking to other mobile operators as well.

(Please see also story on Nokia Life Tools)

VeriSign Reports Rapid Growth In Mobile Messaging Traffic

From www.efytimes.com on June 15, 2009

Monday, June 15, 2009:  Mobile messaging volumes continue to shatter records, according to the latest quarterly index of mobile messaging statistics compiled by the messaging and mobile media division of VeriSign, Inc. In Q1 2009, VeriSign’s combined mobile messaging networks enabled an average of approximately 932 million messages per day globally. This is an 18.5 per cent increase from the previous quarter and a 96 per cent rise over Q1 2008. In total, VeriSign delivered 82.3 billion P2P1 and over 1.6 billion A2P messages in Q1 2009.

“Growth in mobile messaging volumes remains a consistent bright spot in the mobile wireless environment,” said Basavaraj Nagaraj, senior manager, product management, messaging and mobile media division, VeriSign. “As consumers and enterprises increasingly rely on mobile messaging to stay connected anytime, anywhere, the mobile industry relies on VeriSign to ensure that those messages reach their intended destination. We are making the investments necessary to deliver the reach, reliability and scalability needed for 2009.”

Across Asia Pacific, VeriSign saw an approximate 30 per cent increase in the total number of international mobile messages sent and received over its network in Q1 2009 from Q4 2008. The company also saw rapid growth in the volume of mobile messaging traffic in this region, especially in South Asia where the number of mobile messages delivered by VeriSign jumped almost tenfold that quarter.

This underscores mobile messaging as an increasing means for people to communicate across borders, especially in South and Southeast Asia where there is a large migrant worker population, says VeriSign. To this end, VeriSign announced that it has been chosen by PT Indosat Tbk in Indonesia and Warid Telecom International Ltd in Bangladesh to provide international messaging to more destinations.

“The growth of mobile messaging in Asia Pacific this quarter has once again proven its popularity among mobile subscribers and highlights how SMS/MMS messaging has become an integral part of their lives,” Nagaraj added. “We are extremely delighted to be a part of this growth and will continue to help our customers to reach their goals.”

The VeriSign Inter-Carrier MMS and PictureMail platforms also continue to experience rigorous growth in MMS traffic. Compared to the first quarter of 2008, MMS and PictureMail volumes jumped 130 per cent and 84 per cent respectively. In total, VeriSign delivered more than 1.1 billion MMS messages in Q1 2009.

The quarter also produced a healthy rise in mobile media/mobile content messaging volumes through VeriSign’s Mobile Delivery Gateway (MDG). Driven in part by the addition of new mobile content providers and an increase in mobile content provider market activity, VeriSign reported a 27 per cent increase in Premium SMS transactions year over year. VeriSign’s MDG platform also reached a monthly all-time high in retail sales, which translated to a 35 per cent rise from the previous quarter. The MDG platform has achieved its sixth straight month of 100 per cent availability.

With more enterprises turning to the mobile channel to better serve customers, VeriSign’s Mobile Enterprise Services (VMES) responded to the growing interest in A2P enterprise applications as evident by an 88 per cent year-over-year growth rate of messages delivered through its network while financial services in particular drove a 63 per cent increase in messaging traffic from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009.

Europe’s BLYK set to enter India

From www.cellstrat.com on June 13, 2009

First world’s biggest, America’s AdMob entered and now Europe’s fully ad supported MVNO, BLYK is all set to launch in India. Operators and mobile advertising companies around the world are trying aggressively for launching their operations in India as per their expansion plans. Market is huge (as per our CellStrat Annual India Mobile Media Survey) as 53% of the top executives in Indian companies feel that mobile yet to become a mass media channel for advertising, mobile TV etc. as is clear from the graph below:

Mobile Media Usage Prediction Amongst Executives

Text-based ads are already being used and preferred by 50% respondents well across Indian executive spectrum, while banner-based ads are preferred only by 24% respondents due to inadequate band width. Both text and banner ads are still a very young area calling for a lot of improvement still. However, we are increasingly seeing creativity with mobile texts (with SMS 2.0 coming in), banners and sponsorships.

Video pre-roll and post-roll, and ad-funded content are starting to emerge. Volume is limited both in terms of current audience and advertising, but this is increasing and will continue to do so rapidly over the next few years. 3G will play a huge role in the same.

Bothese companies AdMob and BLYK will be successful if we go with the statistics from the CellStrat Annual India Mobile Media Survey report as 59% executives believe that mobile advertising works while 24% are not sure if it actually does as quiet a few of these don’t use any mobile analytics to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. Thus, with world reknowned companies entering India, future of mobile media is bright.

Please see also https://telcobizpedia.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/dnd-disturbance-now-on-demand/

Nokia Life Tools Launched In India!

From www.efytimes.com on June 12, 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009:  After a successful pilot in Maharashtra, Nokia has commercially launched Nokia Life Tools service in India. The service will be rolled out first in Maharashtra in association with the Maharashtra State Agricultural Marketing Board (MSAMB). Designed specifically for the emerging markets, Nokia Life Tools is a range of agriculture, education and entertainment services addressing the information gaps of target consumers.

The Nokia Life Tools Agriculture service offers consumers a choice of 2 plans. The basic plan, available across India at Rs 30/month, provides daily weather updates and relevant agriculture-related news, advice and tips. The premium plan, at Rs 60/month, will be available in 10 states, including Maharashtra, and provides the closest market prices for three crops chosen by the subscriber, as well as weather, news, advice and tips.

Nokia is collaborating with Reuters Market Light (RML), which was the exclusive provider for agriculture services in the successful pilot.http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/06/16/stories/2009061651990400.htm

The Nokia Life Tools Education service, available throughout India, offers three components: Learn English, with basic, intermediate and advanced levels; Exam preparation, which offers students tips and advice for ICSE, CBSE and state board-level exams mapped to the relevant curriculum; and general knowledge. Each of the education services will be offered at Rs 30/month.

The Nokia Life Tools Entertainment service at launch will include astrology, news, jokes, cricket and ringtones, offered at existing market prices.

Nokia signed an MOU with the MSAMB, under which MSAMB will provide expertise in the areas of commodity prices from their network of 291 local mandis (marketyards). MSAMB will also have the opportunity to deliver news, alerts on schemes and other information directly to grassroots consumers.

Speaking at the occasion, Ashok Chavan, chief minister, Maharashtra, said, “We are happy that Maharashtra is the first state in India to go live with the Nokia Life Tools services in association with the state marketing board. Empowering our people with the right tools and facilities is a top priority for the state government. I would like to congratulate Nokia for developing a unique and innovative service that has tremendous potential to improve lives and the livelihood of farmers and sub-urban consumers in Maharashtra.”

Harshavardhan Patil, minister, co-operation, marketing, cultural affairs and parliamentary affairs, commented, “It has been the Maharashtra state government’s endeavour to provide vital agri information tools for a progressive and an empowered farmer community. Nokia Life Tools is tailormade to positively impact farmers across the state. This MOU further strengthens MSAMB’s mandate to get the information directly to the farmers.”

“Nokia Life Tools was a result of the entire ecosystem coming together and is ideally placed to usher in an information revolution impacting the daily lives of people,” added D Shivakumar, managing director, Nokia India.

The complete Nokia Life Tools solution will be available on the newly launched Nokia 2323 classic and Nokia 2330 classic devices, and will be later expanded to other Nokia devices.

Nokia Life Tools service will be expanded to select countries across Asia and Africa later in 2009 and beyond.

Related stories at

BSNL to invest Rs 15,000 cr in FY10

Virendra Singh Rawat / Lucknow June 11, 2009, 0:56 IST on The Business Standard

Public sector telecom giant Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) will invest Rs 15,000 crore this fiscal to upgrade its infrastructure and roll out new value-added services.

“Our capital expenditure in different verticals this year would be around Rs 15,000 crore,” BSNL CMD Kuldeep Goyal told Business Standard.

BSNL will use the investment for mobile expansion and for services like 3G, broadband, wireless broadband, IPTV, WiMAX, mobile commerce (m-commerce), value-added landline, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and others.

“Our aim is to add 35 million telephone lines by the end of this fiscal across the country and to commission fresh 3G network,” he added.

BSNL had launched 3G services on February 2 and, at present, it is available in 70 towns. “We plan to provide 3G services in 700 cities by the end of calendar 2009,” Goyal said.

He added that, for achieving the targeted mobile growth, more spectrum was needed by operators.

“The availability of spectrum for mobile phone operators in general is less than other countries. However, this has not affected the quality of services being offered,” he claimed.

“We will offer wireless broadband through WiMAX technology in 1,000 blocks of the country out of the total 6,000 blocks. The state-run telecom operator will roll out franchisee-based WiMAX service in the country, starting with Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.

“We have floated tenders for offering similar a WiMAX service in other states as well,” he said. “We are also working on improving our quality of service and have engaged AC Nielson to test the quality of our mobile service,” Goyal added.

Airtel in pact with Comviva for managing VAS biz

From The Financial Express on June 10, 2009

New Delhi: Leading telecommunication player Bharti Airtel said it has entered into a managed services deal with Comviva, a provider of value added services for mobile operators.

As part of this three-year deal, Comviva (earlier known as Bharti Telesoft) would manage around over 2,000 of Airtel’s VAS nodes across the country from various partners, to meet defined service level agreements, a company statement said.

“With Comviva managing our full suite of value added services, we anticipate enhancements in the service experience we deliver to our customers,” Bharti Airtel President Mobile Services Atul Bindal said in the statement.

Comviva CEO Manoranjan Mohapatra said, in addition to managing Airtel’s 2000 VAS nodes from a range of partners – we will also manage the complexities associated with the emergence of multiple technologies, different standards and a myriad of content to help grow Airtel’s VAS business, Shares of the company today surged as much as 1.50 per cent in morning trade and witnessed an intra-day high of Rs 825. The stock was later trading at Rs 823.20, up 1.28 per cent on the BSE.

Related stories at

• http://www.ciol.com/technology/mobility/news-reports/airtel-signs-managed-services-deal-with-comviva/11609120839/0/
• http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/06/12/stories/2009061251830400.htm
• http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Bharti-Airtel-in-pact-with-Comviva-for-managing-VAS-biz/articleshow/4639263.cms

“Our business is a bit broader than just providing network or pipes”, says Sunil Joshi

From India Telecom News on June 10, 2009

Sunil Joshi, President, Tata Communications Enterprise Business, Emerging Markets says: “Our business is not a single line of business. We have multiple lines of business to de-risk ourselves in how we engage. We have a voice business which, by virtue of that, we are the world’s largest wholesaler of voice. “

“And about 24 billion minutes of voice run on our backbone. Now what that gives us is steady cash flow to run and operate our business and invest in other areas of growth. Our global data and mobility services business is the next largest business, which is a growth business for us. That has grown 29% year-on-year. ”

The voice business grew 12% year-on-year. This is the last 12 months, the fiscal year ending 31st of March, 2009. Our EBITDA in the last year has grown 53% year-on-year.

So there are two things. You are right about the cost pressures because the deregulation drives prices down. And our legacy organisation was such that they enjoyed the benefit of a really regulated market. But in a competitive world, it does have impact to the prices, which does end up going to the consumer or the business that leverages that service. Then it’s for us to optimise our infrastructure, whether, it’s our IT, our engineering, our procurement. And we’re spending a lot of time in making sure that our costs are managed, while the price points are also seeing pressure to come down in the marketplace. This is within India, specifically.

We also have some growth engines, what we call start-ups, if you like. So our investment in NeoTel in South Africa, we have increased our stake last year from 26% to 56% in NeoTel. NeoTel is the second largest telecommunications company in South Africa. And that’s part of our emerging market strategy. A lot of our enterprise customers are looking at the African continent to now look at also growth, while they’re looking at Asia and some of the other economies.

So to back that up, we are also investing in what we call the [Seacon] cable. Seacon cable is expected to come up in the next month or so. And that will enable connectivity from Mumbai, right across the east coast of Africa, to South Africa. We’ve also announced an investment in [WACS], which is the West Africa Cable System. And that will take the connectivity of South Africa on the west coast of Africa into Europe, thereby connecting what is the other new emerging geography. And you’ll find that that enables us to connect enterprises and carrier customers and continue to drive our revenue [through].

The few other small organisations, like the broadband unit that we have, [TCISL], which is predominantly focused on retail broadband and the growth. And we have about 315,000 subscribers on the retail broadband [shop] and growing. We have investments in other small organisations, an in-house subsidiary called [TCTSL]. It’s Transformation Services Limited. So what that does is, it supports telecommunications organisations and outsources that with the [BSS] infrastructure.

So our business is a bit broader than just providing network or pipes. And with that infrastructure providing value-added services and managed services, it allows us to continue to move up the value chain for our customers. Sorry about the long answer to that.

RComm, Kribhco JV eyes rural cell market

From Hindustan Times on June 9, 2009

Kribhco and Reliance Communications Ltd (RComm) on Tuesday formed a joint venture — KRIBHCO Reliance Kisan Limited (KRKL) — to distribute RComm’s services through its network of more than 25,000 cooperatives throughout the country.

KRIBHCO will hold 60 per cent equity in the joint venture company with the balance 40 per cent held by Reliance ADAG group.

“The JV will market telecom products of RComm — both GSM and CDMA,” said SP Shukla, president, wireless, Reliance Communications.

“Later, KRKL will also distribute products and services of other business enterprises of Reliance ADAG including Reliance Capital, Reliance Entertainment and BIG TV DTH,” he said.

This is the second such marketing tie up to reach out to the rural area. Earlier, Bharti airtel did a similar tie up with IFFCO.

Related stories at

• http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/rcom-kribhco-to-form-jv/360632/
• http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2009/06/11/stories/2009061150960400.htm
• http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/RCOM-ties-up-with-Krishak-Bharati-to-capture-rural-India/articleshow/4640234.cms

Motomusic Set To Close On July 15!

From www.efytimes.com on June 8, 2009

Monday, June 08, 2009:  Motorola is closing its Motomusic music-download service in India. Motorola had launched the Motomusic service in June 2008. Managed by Soundbuzz, Motomusic offers consumers a selection of digital music content that includes 350,000 songs and ringtones (across the Web and WAP), music video clips and wallpapers. Bharti Airtel was the first telecom company to offer Motomusic in the country.

The company enabled the Motomusic service on Motorokr E8 and Rokr U9, and also the music edition versions of Rokr E6, Rokr Z6, Razr V8, SLVR L9, Moto Q9h and the W230.

Motorola’s Motomusic service in China would not be impacted by the company’s decision.

The Economic Times quoted Motorola as saying, “We are streamlining our portfolio and will be introducing Android-based smartphones that will allow us to give consumers and customers access to a broad ecosystem of experiences. This means Motomusic and Soundbuzz are no longer core to our market strategy.”

“The last day of operation for the store is 15 July 2009. From midnight of 15 July, the store will not be available for purchases or redemptions and your account and previous purchases will not be accessible,” it added.

Further excerpt from The Financial Express on June 7, 2009

Last year, the handset maker had launched its portal Motomusic store in India offering more than 3,50,000 tracks and other multimedia contents like wallpapers and videos for download.

Motomusic India has put up a notice asking users to download all the songs purchased, back them up and redeem any vouchers and prepaid coupons before July 15.

“The last day of operation for the store is July 15, 2009. From midnight of July 15, the store will not be available for purchases or redemptions and your account and previous purchases will not be accessible,” it added.

Zook partners with Idea Cellular

From www.ciol.com on June 8, 2009

BANGALORE, INDIA: Bangalore-based Ziva Software has announced that its mobile fetch engine Zook will power Idea Cellular’s, a telecom services provider, newly launched personalized ‘Stock Search and Subscription Service’. Idea will initially launch this service in Punjab.
 
Ajay Sethi, CEO, Ziva Software, said: “Under the ‘Stock Search and Subscription Service’, Idea will provide the subscribers with updated stock market SMS alerts on their mobile, enabling them to  keep an eye on their portfolio while on the move. Unlike other broadcast services, one can choose to be alerted on specific stocks. This is a pure value service, just providing information and there are no tips, speculations or hints. A diligent investor can make the right decisions using the alerts.”
 
“Available at a nominal monthly amount of Rs. 30, Idea Punjab subscribers need to only SMS ACT to 51234 to get alerts on all business news, customized stock information, NSE & BSE conclusive information and the day’s top gainers and losers. With customized stocks, the user can choose to receive periodic information of up to three stocks of their choice at no additional cost.” added Ajay Sethi.

Indians more willing to try nextgen mobile services: KPMG

4 Jun 2009, 1434 hrs IST, PTI on www.economictimes.com

NEW DELHI: Indians are more willing to experiment with value-added services, including chatting, video gaming and watching live TV on mobile phones, as compared to their global counterparts, KPMG says.

Asian consumers, including those in India, seem the most willing to use their mobile phones for purchasing music, video games, and watching live TV, followed by the Middle East and Africa and Latin America, global consulting firm KPMG’s ‘Consumers and Convergence III’ global survey found.

However, the developed-market consumers of Europe and North America are apparently less willing.

The survey revealed that there exists a huge potential for mobile chat services, video gaming on mobile and watching live TV on mobile in India.

Globally, 18 per cent of respondents were very likely to use a mobile chat service in the next 6-12 months as against 34 per cent in India, showing growing demand for such services.

The survey revealed as much as 95 per cent Indian consumers were satisfied with their music-download experience on mobile phones as against 66 per cent respondents globally.

“While mobile additions exceed 10 million a month, average revenue per user’s (ARPU) continue to drop. Telecom players recognize rise in VAS revenues will be a key aspect of future growth and profitability,” KPMG India Head of information, communication & entertainment Rajesh Jain said.

About 86 per cent respondents in the country and in China indicated likelihood of watching live TV on mobile phones in the next 12 months, the survey added.

Players in value chain are innovating and focusing on the increasing market size for their products and services, Jain added.

KPMG surveyed over 4,000 consumers in 19 countries world wide, in order to understand the future for the market, revealing global trends and some regional differences.

In India, although the user-base of mobile gaming is smaller, a substantially higher proportion of 63 per cent was satisfied with the service, which reflects gaining acceptance and opportunity for mobile gaming companies as the segment moves beyond the early adopters.

Meanwhile, m-commerce applications continue to face challenges for gaining wider acceptance in the country.

KPMG’s survey revealed that there exists a huge potential for banks to grow their market with mobile phone users, as globally 53 per cent of consumers said they are comfortable with the idea of using a mobile phone for financial transactions.

About 64 per cent of Indian’s surveyed stated that they are “at least somewhat likely” to conduct banking through a mobile device in the next 12 months.

Further, 93 per cent respondents said clear pricing and 94 per cent felt download speed as an influencing factor for the purchase of video clips and mobile TV.