Bharti Set To Kick Off Wap Services

Bharti Cellular, the city-based operator, is expected to start wireless application protocol (WAP) services in the next few days, according to Ericsson managing director Anil Raj. Ericsson has almost finished installing the infrastructure required to run WAP applications.

About four months ago, the Swedish telecom major had received an order from Bharti to increase its switching capacity to about 5 lakh from about 2.5 lakh. The order included creation of infrastructure for WAP and general packet radio service (GPRS).

The initial GPRS order, which is the first Indian order for Ericsson, is for about 5,000 subscribers. The project is likely to be completed around October. The handsets, however are expected to arrive only in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal, Raj said on the sidelines of a press conference. "We will be able to bring GPRS into the country at about the same time as its overseas launch," he said.

 

He, however, refrained from quoting how much the order was worth. According to estimates, a 5,000-line GPRS system is expected to cost around Rs 4.5-5 crore. Ericsson's GPRS system offers 130 kilo bits of data transfer.

Meanwhile, Ericsson also announced that it is looking for tie-ups with domestic software companies for customisation of content and applications. Around July, the company is also expected to launch Ericsson education certification programme for WAP.

The company also plans to set up a WAP testing and demo lab as part of its "future factory" programme for innovation. The lab is expected to be in place in a fortnight. Ericsson launched its first WAP-enabled phone, R320, in India, almost simultaneously as the global launch a fortnight ago. To be priced around Rs 32,000, it is said to be the slimmest cellphone.