Tata Teleservices to invest $500 mn in UP, U'khand

Launches GSM service in the two states

Leading cellular service provider Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) has launched its GSM service Tata DoCoMo in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The two states comprise the telecom circles of UP (East) and UP (West), with the latter including Uttarakhand as well.

The company will invest close to $ 500 mn in the two telecom circles as part of its 2 billion dollars capital expenditure over a period of two years.

“We are aiming atbecoming a pan-India player in the GSM space by the end of this fiscal itself,” TTSL managing director Anil Sardana said at a conference call.

Tata DoCoMo will cover a total of 505 towns and about 17,000 villages in the two states, and 50,000 retail outlets will hawk its services.

The company launched the service with the ‘pay per second’ model with one second pulse of one paisa/second.

The company has licences to offer GSM service in 19 telecom circles and has been allotted spectrum in 18 circles. Tata DoCoMo, which started its operations in June 2009, has already launched services in 15 circles and will soon cover the geographies of Gujarat, Rajasthan and rest of West Bengal.

“We are focusing on network superiority, coverage and service offerings to break through the clutter with multiple operators present in the country,” Tata DoCoMo president Deepak Gulati said.

“We are registering incremental growth between 30-55 per cent in different circles,” Sardana informed. On a consolidated basis, TTSL has about 52 million subscribers across the CDMA and GSM space, of which CDMA has close to 40 million subscribers.

TTSL launched its CDMA service in January 2005 and is a pan-India operator in that segment.

Japan-based NTT DoCoMo has 26 per cent stake in TTSL and is the leading telecom operator in that country with over 50 per cent market share.