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Friday, November 20, 2009
Airtel Turbo Plan - Roaming Rates Slashed

Bharti Airtel appears to be under severe pressure to compete the new operators as well as the Mighty Reliance Mobile which is now being offered to customers on both GSM and CDMA Platform.

Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of new plan called Airtel Turbo - Reduced Roaming Rates. Airtel had introduced per second billing with a Gimmick but had kept roaming rates unchanged. Unable to sustain the heavy competition and dropping Roaming traffic, Airtel decided to Slash Roaming Rates by upto 60%. Here is how the new rates look like,
  • Incoming Calls while Roaming - Rs 0.60 / min
  • Local and STD to Airtel Mobile - Rs 0.60 /min
  • Local and STD to Other Mobiles / Landline - Rs 0.80 / min
Airtel plans are still confusing with multiple Tariffs and Rip Offs. Simple Reliance so far is the best plan - Rs 0.50 connect and talk to any phone in any corner of India.
Published on Friday, November 20, 2009 at 1:35 PM   0 comments
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Tariff cuts spur subscriber adds + Multiple SIM ownership

GSM mobile subscribers net adds were 10.3Mn in Oct-09 vs. 8.6MM in Sep-09 (excluding RCOM, Tata DoCoMo), up 20% M/M. The net add numbers saw broad-based increase with ~50% increase in net adds for Vodafone and Aircel (except BSNL that declined ~50%).
  • Vodafone India net adds increased 51% to 3Mn, a sharp rise after decreasing for seven months in a row
  • Bharti Airtel's net adds in Oct were up 7% M/M at 2.7Mn (vs. 2.5Mn Sep-09) with the total subscriber base reaching 113+Mn.
  • Aircel net adds at 2.0Mn increased 54%M/M from 1.3MM in Sep-09. The company has informed us that it has set 50 Million Customer Target by 2010.
  • BSNL net adds decreased 54% M/M, as the company added 0.6Mn in Oct- 09 vs. 1.3Mn/1.4Mn in Sep-09/Aug-09.
  • Idea Cellular net adds increased to 1.9Mn up 36% M/M; from 1.4MM in Sep-09
We expect RCOM to gain share from October with its new plan and net-adds for RCOM to move up.
Published on Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 10:53 AM   2 comments
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Consolidation is inevitable - No Business Case for new Operators

UBS hosted a 2 day event for the Executives of Indian Telecom Industry. Here are the key takeaways from the meet.
  • The current tariff structure is likely to put pressure on revenue and profitability in the short term. Consolidation is likely to happen in the next 12-18 months
  • New operators have no business case as they can not match incumbent scale with their limited quantity and quality of spectrum
  • 3G auction is likely to happen by March 2010 and will segregate long-term players from newer operators
The current tariff war will lead to consolidation creating winners & losers in the sector. The incumbents are facing high competitive intensity primarily in the urban areas, while there is limited competitive pressure in the rural areas.

3G spectrum is likely to help reduce the spectrum constraints on 2G voice front. The spectrum will initially be used to decongest 2G network and then once applications develop the 3G network can be used for data. [ Where is the constraint for Spectrum for operators other than Bharti Airtel ?]
Published on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 11:37 AM   0 comments
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Per Second Billing War - Chronology of Events

mobile tariff warTata DoCoMo and Aircel set on fire the Per Second Billing Tariff in July-09, which will go in History as one of them most disruptive Telecom Tariffs. Since then, operators were reducing tariffs halfheartedly. However, as consumers started to shift to Per Second Billing ditching incumbent services, the telecom tariff war deepened in October with RCom introducing Simply Reliance Tariff.

Here is a chronology of Mobile Tariffs introduced by the incumbent operators

Date / Operator / Plan
5-Oct-09 RCOM National 50p plan Lifetime 50p/min 50p/min
Tata Docomo National Per sec billing Lifetime 1p/sec 1p/sec
9-Oct-09 Idea HP, Rajasthan, Bihar Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec - Idea HP, Rajasthan, Bihar Saral plan 40p/min 60p/min 37
10-Oct-09 Vodafone MP Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec
12-Oct-09 Idea Mumbai 50p plan 40p/min 50p/min
16-Oct-09 Vodafone UP (East) 50p plan 50p/min 50p/min
19-Oct-09 Vodafone Bihar Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec
21-Oct-09 Idea Kerala 50p plan 50p/min 50p/min
26-Oct-09 Idea Mumbai Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec
31-Oct-09 Bharti National Per sec billing 1p/1.2p per sec 1p/1.2p per sec
1-Nov-09 Idea Maharashtra Per sec billing 1p/1.2p per sec 1p/1.2p per sec
2-Nov-09 Vodafone Kerala, Mumbai Per sec billing 1p/1.2p per sec 1p/1.2p per sec
3-Nov-09 Vodafone Kolkata, UP-E Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec
3-Nov-09 RCOM National Per sec billing 1p/sec 1p/sec
3-Nov-09 RCOM National 3min pulse Lifetime Rs1 per 3min Rs1 per 3min
4-Nov-09 Vodafone Delhi Per sec billing 1p/1.2p per sec 1p/1.2p per sec

Only Tata DoCoMo and Reliance Mobile are offering Lifetime Validity on per second billing while all other operators mentioned above are offering 12 months validity.
Published on Saturday, November 07, 2009 at 12:15 PM   0 comments
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Local Calls at 10 Paise + STD 25 Paise - A Raja's Dream

A. Raja, Indian Telecom Minister met with the heads of 17 Telecom companies in New Delhi to get feeling of the sector ahead of 3G auction.

A Raja has said that
there may be a reduction in termination charges among operators, which would result in lowering of mobile tariffs. The termination charge is a levy payable by an operator to another on whose network the call ends.
The minister is upbeat on lowering termination charges by 2010 and accordingly tariffs can be reduced. He said that local call charges can be as low as 10 paise per minute while STD tariffs to just 25 paise per minute after the reduction in termination charges.

In the meeting with the telcos, the minister has also pushed for optimum utilization of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) fund, for subsidizing rural operations, to enhance telecom infrastructure in rural areas. The government is expected to simplify the rules for getting funds from the USO fund, nearly pegged over Rs 16,000 crore.

The government has prioritized for increasing the rural teledensity and has insisted the operators to venture into rural India for setting up telecom infrastructure. There is a target of having 10 million broadband subscribers in rural areas in the next two years.
Published on Wednesday, November 04, 2009 at 11:16 AM   1 comments
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