Mobile telephony consumers may soon have a wider choice of operators, with the soft launch of GSM service by Anil Ambani group's RCOM in Delhi to become the first company in India to offer both CDMA and GSM services.
RCom has been offering CDMA-based mobile service throughout the country and has recently been allowed by the government to start GSM service simultaneously. The company has chosen the national capital to start its services under the dual technology licence.
To begin with, the company has offered over 1,000 connections to its employees as part of soft launch and after review RCom would soon offer services on commercial basis, sources close to the development said.
Asked whether services would be offered in other parts of the country too simultaneously, sources said the company has been rolling out networks in all circles on a war footing and as soon as the network is ready the services would start but no deadline has been fixed for this.
In fact the company would hire passive infrastructure from another group company Reliance Infratel which owns the tower business of the CDMA company.
RCom has said the rollout of GSM services would help it target the fast-growing subscriber additions of 7 million subscribers every month and address the telecom requirements of the existing 172 million GSM customers with the launch of nationwide GSM network, in addition to its CDMA network.