Team Link, a Punjab Wireless group company, has been awarded the contract to operate the radio taxi service in Bangalore. The service will be formally launched on August 20.
A committee consisting of the DoT, Centre for Development of Telematics (CDoT), RTO and Road Transport Authority officials decided on Team Link, out of four companies who were in the race till the final stages.
"The government signed an agreement with Team Link yesterday," said RTO (Bangalore South) R Srinivas. "At the moment we have appointed one service provider for the moment. Our main consideration is quality. We wanted to be sure that the company would be able to operate the taxis cost-effectively." "We think of it," said Team Link's Subramanian, "as a service to the community. There are profits in the business, but we will have to wait. The radio will cost a lot and a cab driver may not be able to afford it. We are ready to make it easy for him."
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"We can start the service immediately as we have done extensive trials. We have operated taxis all over the city and ironed out most of the bugs," he said. Punjab Wireless, a government-owned company, has been in the business since 1972 and provides services to all the defence wings. It operates in 20 cities, including Delhi, where its subsidiary ProCall operates the cell phone service.
Team Link operates a cell phone system in Bangalore, and has a control tower at Raheja Towers. It has invested Rs 1.4 crore in wireless systems in Bangalore and is confident of operating the radio trunking service that will be the backbone of the service.
Team Link has a technology transfer agreement with Kenwood and has experience of operating a trunking service (i.e. sharing of frequencies) for the military. It will be using the frequencies higher than 800 mhz for the service in Bangalore.
ANCO, Omni Talk and Quick Calls were the other firms short-listed. The money in the service is in air-time usage. But, Team Link, to help the cab drivers in the beginning has decided not to charge air-time fees for the first 2 months. More than 500 people have registered with the RTO to ply taxis under this service.