Having bid Rs 1,076 crore for the 3G license in Gujarat, Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has now lined up an investment of Rs 250 crore for roll out of its GSM brand Tata DOCOMO's new 3G services in the state by December 2010. Becoming the first private company to launch of 3G services in tier-II cities like Rajkot, Ankleshwar and Bharuch of the Gujarat circle, Tata DOCOMO now plans to complete the phase one roll out within a month or so.
"We had bid over Rs 1,000 crore for the 3G license in Gujarat which is one of the most important circles for us. However, now that we have launched 3G services in few cities of Gujarat, we have planned an outlay of additional Rs 250 crore for roll out across the whole state," said Nipun Sharma, head of GSM operations in Gujarat, TTSL. The outlay for Gujarat is part of the overall $500 million (Rs 2261.49 crore approx.) investment that the company is making for 3G roll out in nine circles including Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh, UP (West), Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.Talking about the roll out, Deepak Gulati, Executive President, Mobility Business Division, TTSL said, "Tata DOCOMO's 3G services will equip customers in Gujarat with a dual advantage—trusted service from the House of Tata, riding on the technological excellence of NTT DOCOMO. We have been able to complete the ramp-up of our network to support 3G services due to the superb 3G-ready network we created at the time of our 2G launch itself, last year. Our 3G roll out across all nine circles will be completed this year itself." Tata Docomo's HSPA+ 3G Network, set up with the assistance of NTT Docomo, supports high-speed Internet access with speeds of up to 21.1 Mbps. The network also supports high-definition voice (HD Voice) for a superior voice experience on calls. Tata DOCOMO's 3G offering starts off with the introductory service portfolio including applications like Video-SMS, Video-Streaming, Mobile Television, Ultra-High-Speed Data Transfers, and Route-Finder, among others.
"It will offer a cumulative market potential for our 3G services. We will cover 51 per cent of Indian towns with a population of over a million and 60 per cent of towns that have over half-a-million people. Additionally, our footprint covers 55 per cent of households with an annual income of over Rs 3 lakh, and 49 per cent households in the SEC A+B category. All these parameters provide us with fantastic market reach and potential," Gulati said.
Tata DOCOMO also announced innovative plans - Small Screen Plan & Large Screen Plan - for consumers to upgrade to the 3G Life. The Small Screen Plan is designed to suit mobile phone users who need both 3G voice and data connectivity, while the Large Screen Plan is for those customers who want to use 3G services to access the Internet on their laptops, PCs and Tablets.
The Small Screen Plan has options ranging from Rs 350 to Rs 2,000, offering 750 to 5,000 free call minutes, coupled with free data of up to 2 GB. Priced at Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, the Large Screen Plan has many attractive options, all of which offer unlimited data usage. Under this plan, users will get speed of 3.6 Mbps to 21.1 Mbps for data usage of 5 GB to 15 GB, depending on the option taken. Voice plans are also competitively priced and as an invitational offer, all purchases and recharges of 3G services done before December 31, 2010 will get an additional 100 MB of data free per month for the first two months.
