Idea to invest Rs 300 cr in K'taka

Telecom services provider Idea Cellular on Monday formally launched its services in Karnataka, following its acquisition of BK Modi promoted Spice Communications in June this year. The Aditya Birla Group company, which operates in 15 circles across the country, also announced to invest over Rs 300 crore for network upgrade in the state in the next 15 months.

Idea has already entered to Punjab almost 10 days ago where Spice Telecom was operating other than Karnataka.

The investment the company has announced for Karnataka will primarily be used for network expansion, which include setting up of new towers and expanding its coverage from the present 40 per cent of the total population in the state to 78 per cent by March 2010.

“We have decided to cover the hinterland of the state, and plan to expand our coverage from the present 3,400 towns to 11,200 towns by March 2010. Besides, we plan to cover all national and state highways apart from rail routes, which will provide seamless connectivity to our subscribers across the state,” Himanshu Kapania, director - operations, Idea Cellular, told mediapersons here.

Idea also announced to use adaptive multirate - full rate (AMR-FR) technology, which will help in providing whisper clear audio quality to the users. Looking at the profile of its users in the state who are mostly from the IT background, the company is planning to use the latest version of architecture network, which will facilitate huge amount of data transfer.

Idea claims to be among the leading brands in Maharashtra, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. The company has a 20 per cent market share in South India. The erstwhile Spice Telecom currently has about 140,000 subscribers in Karnataka with a market share of over 9 per cent.