Modi Telstra To Bid For Second Wb Cellular Licence
Modi Telstra, the cellular service licensee for Calcutta, has decided to bid for the second West Bengal cellular circle licence. Currently talks are on with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on the issue.
Modi Telstra is a 51:49 per cent joint venture enterprise between the Modi group and Australian public sector telecom firm Telstra.
A top Modi Telstra official told Business Standard the company will have greater advantage over others and will not face the need to scout for vendors as it is backed by skilled manpower in engineering and sales and has the experience of running Indias first mobile network.
This in itself will help the company to keep the costs at a lower degree. The West Bengal circle, which is listed under DoT's Circle B and falls under the country's lowest tele-density zone, had so far failed to allure cellular operators. Earlier, Reliance Telecom became the first licensee for the state circle. The licence fee was Rs 42 crore. Talks are also on with Reliance Telecom, licensee for the seven north-eastern states, to workout a `handshake deal' to extend roaming facilities to Modi Telstra in the north-east.
Reliance Mobile is a member of the Global Connect consortium while Modi Telstra belongs to the World One consortium.
Modi Telstra, which has 18,000 subscribers in Calcutta, is bullish on West Bengal and plans to invest around Rs 427 crore in the capital equipment by the end of its 10-year licence period. It also aims to develop a customer base of 200,000.
In the future, we will emerge as a multiproduct company. Most of our products will be sold in the market but some will be available only to the MobileNet customers, said Modi Telstra chief executive officer Simon Beresford Wylie.
As part of its expansion-cum-upgradation of network, Modi Telstra yesterday renewed its tie-up with Nokia for sourcing telecom equipment. Telstra will invest Rs 20 crore in the state in the next few months which includes a threefold increase in switching capacity from 25,000 to 75,000 and add 10 more base stations to the existing 40 by the end of 1997 to spruce up its network.
Mobile Telstra will also install `micro cells', developed by Australian public sector telecom giant Telstra, which will further augment the reach and voice traffic handling capacity of MobileNet.
Modi Telstra will today launch `Helpline' service, a first in a series of value-added products, which will bring the caller in touch with his nearest hospital, blood bank and, police station.