Reliance to unveil pre-paid services in February

Reliance Infocomm has withdrawn its popular Rs 501 post-paid scheme to make space for its prepaid services which will be launched in the first week of February.

Earlier the prepaid services were scheduled to be launched in early January.

The company, which has tied up with the US-based networking firm Comverse Technologies to offer the prepaid services, will also open recharge centres across the country.

"The initial modalities for launching the prepaid services are over and the cards bundled with Motorola code division multiple access (CDMA) handsets will soon reach the Reliance WebWorld stores across the country. The service will be launched in major cities in the first phase which will be extended to other cities and towns during the second half of February. Initially Motorola 131 handsets will be offered to the subscribers at Rs 2,500-3,000 which will be charged as an upfront fee. The rest will be charged in easy installments. Later the company may offer Nokia and Samsung handsets to its subscribers," said a company source here on Tuesday.

The company had withdrawn the Rs 501 scheme last Friday which was launched in July last year under the Monsoon Hungama offer.

The scheme was considered to be its most popular scheme.

"Reliance is planning to launch its prepaid cards at denominations of Rs 200, Rs 300 and Rs 500 initially along with an offer of Rs 1,000 for the high-end users. The company must have found that the Rs 501 scheme will discourage the prepaid customers and withdrew the scheme," the source said. Reliance has also chalked up a plan to open 'prepaid recharging centres' across the country, which will be a separate entity from its WebWorld stores.

"Later, a prepaid subscriber may also have the option to recharge his connection from the WebWorld stores while a system is being worked out through which by dialing certain numbers, the prepaid card will be recharged and the subscriber will be able to pay through his bank credit card or debit cards," said an industry source.

The prepaid services of the company will work on the basis of WIN-2 technology, proven across the world and extensively being used by most of the CDMA service providers.

The system, which can be configured to run under all major wireless network environments, will also support the IS-826 IN standard in the Reliance Infocomm network.

Meanwhile, though Tata Teleservices had that the company will introduce its prepaid CDMA cards during August-September last year, the service has not been kicked off yet.

TTSL, the rival of Reliance Infocomm in the CDMA cellular services, is at present working for development of a pre-paid SIM card system in line with the GSM operators, it is learnt.

In last July, a top TTSL official here said prepaid cards will be launched last September as a part of its soft-launch programme while the SIM card option will be adopted later.

However, so far nothing much has happened.

TTSL has also decided to offer CDMA handsets with the new pre-paid connections as a package offer and the company is now in talks with at least two major CDMA handset manufacturers for bulk buying.