Uninor, a joint venture with real estate firm Unitech and Norway based Telenor, has today announced the launch of its services in five more telecom circles. The company has launched in Mumbai, Kolkata, Maharashtra and Goa, Gujarat and West Bengal, taking its presence to 13 circles in India. The company launched operations in India in December last year; and has five million customers across all the Southern states, Orissa, UP and Bihar.
"We have launched in almost all the big circles--all the metros except Delhi, and most of the category A circles," said Rohit Chandra, COO, Unitech Wireless Tamil Nadu. It is yet to receive spectrum in Delhi and Assam and is looking to launch in most of the circles by the end of this calendar year. It has licenses to start operations in all the 22 telecom circles of the country. The company has set a target to achieve eight per cent market share by 2018, EBIDTA positive in three years and cash flow positive in five years.
Uninor will its offer dynamic pricing plan in these circles wherein a pre-paid consumer gets discounts in different areas of a city across different time slots, depending on the congestion in the network. The discounts can range between five per cent to 60 per cent, and the consumers get regular updates on their phones. With the discounts, the call rates can range from 20 paise to 47 paise per minute. "Mumbai people commute four hours a day. It can create a lot of opportunities," says Stein-Eric Vellan, MD, Uninor.
The company which has stayed away from bidding for the recently finished 3G spectrum, has said that the company will offer value added services like Internet access, over their 2G network. "We are still launching 2G and want to do it properly before we get new technology. Incumbents could also use 3G for voice. We have a congestion free network," said Vellan.
Sprucing up its network infrastructure is also on the agenda of this company. It currently has 21,000 base stations and plans to increase it to 40,000. This includes infrastructure in new circles as well as for increased coverage in the circles it is already present in. The company has outsourced its entire telecom tower business to tower companies, and most of its 10 year contracts are with Tata Quippo.
