World phones to come calling in a month

Mobile phone users will have something more to rejoice over. World phones, which can work on both CDMA as well as GSM networks, are about to debut in the country in the next four to six weeks.

Tata Indicom is in the midst of finalising contracts with phone manufacturers like Motorola and Samsung to offer these phones to customers bundled with their service at over Rs 15,000.

For those who are looking for a cheaper device "" top executives in the company say"" a phone for less than Rs 10,000 will be available in the market by the end of the year.

Even Reliance Infocomm is testing World phones from at least two to three vendors and telecom industry experts say they will be in the market in the next three to four months.

"We are definitely testing World phone and hope to introduce them in the market," says a Reliance Infocomm spokesperson.

The World phones will have slots for putting in two separate SIM cards( in CDMA these cards are known as RUIM or removable user identity module) "" one of which can be used for a GSM card and the other for a CDMA card. Users can shift from one service to another with a press of a button.

Initially, the World phone will make a lot of business sense to customers who travel abroad. Users of CDMA phones who travel to, say Europe, where only GSM services are available will no longer need to carry separate phones.

Similarly GSM consumers can use the phone while roaming in markets like South Korea and even in large parts of the US where operators like Sprint and Verizon offer CDMA services.

Tata Indicom is expected to launch the service initially for corporates and at the higher end of the market, but it will be followed quickly bya mass-based offering.