Tata Teleservices (TTSL) is planning to extend its marriage with Japanese telecom major NTT DoCoMo to upcoming GSM mobile services, too.
The company, currently a CDMA player, is working on a new brand name for the GSM service. “This new name brand will incorporate brand names of both Tatas and NTT DoCoMo. However, a name is yet to be finalised and we will do this before the commercial rollout of our GSM services,” TTSL Chief Marketing Officer Lloyd Mathias told Business Standard.
NTT DoCoMo is predominantly a CDMA player, though its co-branding initiative with Tatas would be for GSM services.
TTSL has a well-established CDMA presence, across all 22 circles in the country.
Hence, the company does not want to change its brand name. More, GSM services are aimed at niche subscribers.
TTSL will be bringing NTT DoCoMo’s technology and popular value added services into the Indian market.
Tatas will also leverage the data service abilities of NTT DoCoMo to differentiate its GSM services offerings.
However, these would be customised for the Indian market, Mathias said.
The Japanese telecom major had acquired 26 per cent in TTSL, Tata group’s unlisted telecom company, for around $2.7 billion in November last year.
At present, the Tata group provides all telecom services under one brand, Tata Indicom. However, the company has also created sub-brands like 'Walky’ (fixed mobile services) Plug2Surf and 'Photon’ (data services).
TTSL had received a cross-over licence (also to provide GSM services) last year and was gearing up to commence operations.
