Tata Teleservices to invest Rs 100 crore in Punjab

CDMA operator Tata Teleservices Ltd will be investing around Rs 100 crore in Punjab in this financial year.

The investment would mostly be for raising coverage capacity by expanding the number of base transceiver stations (BTS), backbone network for data communications, true-value shops and hubs.

The service provider has set a target of doubling its subscriber base this year. At present it has subscriber base of 750,000 including those in Punjab and Chandigarh (fixed and mobile telephones taken together).

On the expansion plans, Chief Operating Officer Subhash Arya Punjab said: "In order to strengthen our presence and to have a better penetration in Punjab, we will put up more towers as well as share towers. At present, we are sharing about 50 per cent of the towers with other players. We have plans to increase this percentage to 75 per cent in this financial year." He added that putting up new towers was a costly proposition, and that's why the company intended to share towers with other players wherever possible.

He further said the company had plans to cover the entire Punjab. At present, there are about 500 cell sites in Punjab which cover 6000 villages and 270 towns. Apart from that, it has plans to increase true-value shops and hubs.

He said that unlike GSM players, CDMA players will not have to overhaul their whole networks. "Moreover, it is not about more number of BTS but about how much population does a BTS cover. It is here that the CDMA technology scores over the GSM since the BTS for CDMA have higher density," added Arya.

Today, the company announced the launch of "Freedom call Voucher" offering free and unlimited outgoing calls to any local Tata phone, both mobile and fixed. The voucher is available for Rs 325 for 30 days and gives Rs 150 bonus talk-time for other calls. It also offers attractive call rates, local mobiles at Rs 0.49 per minute and local fixed line at Rs 0.99 per minute.

Tata Teleservices Ltd and Tata Teleservices(Maharashtra) Ltd together serve over 17.1 million customers covering over 3,400 towns. The telecom company is targeting to achieve 100 million subscribers by 2011 by offering world class technology and user friendly services in 20 circles.