Yes that’s true if a draft information memorandum of the DoT is to be believed. According to the same, the ministry’s claims of having room for about 8-10 players in each circle does not hold true. Shockingly, there is room only to accommodate a maximum of 4 players in each circle. With the Indian market being highly competitive and housing just about a dozen players, the constraint would leave many of them empty handed.

Adding to the concerns, the ministry has already handed over spectrum to the public sector players – MTNL and BSNL. This would be the worst news for rookies in the field, who would be going against biggies like Bharti and Vodafone. The true picture will be exposed as we get closer to the auction dates. Till then its more of a nail-biting time for the beginners.

Have you ever felt the need to watch News or India’s Cricket Match when you are on the go? If you have, then here’s something for you. First launched by MTNL, the Streaming TV service, now launched by Tata Indicom offers you 25 channels. Some of them, like News channels would be brought to you live, while the others would be recorded versions of already telecasted programmes.

The service, which has been priced at a whopping Rs. 15 for 5 minutes of usage, may not be affordable to the common man. However, given a choice, people may opt for this one if the need arises. The range of channels being offered is quite wide, with News, Entertainment, Regional and Cartoon channels being a part of the offering. However, it might not be able to withstand competition from MTNL in terms of the price of the service.

Social Networking seems to be the ‘in’ thing these days. And Tata Indicom seems to be taking this quite seriously. Tata’s first attempt being Mobile Blogging, which offered users access to social networking sites and allowed them to scrap, add/ share photos and flaunt status messages.

This time around, Tata has announced its own Messenger with its name clinged to it. The service is very close to the normal Instant Messenger, offering the same benefit on your phone. The added benefit being you can also IM your friends who aren’t online – the IM will be delivered as a message.

• Download Source: Tata Zone
• Cost: Rs.49 for a month
• No additional charges
• IM can be used only among Tata Indicom users

We say: Though the whole concept may seem interesting, it limits the users boundaries to Tata users. A Tata Indicom user would rather prefer to Mobile Blog (given he has the compatible handset) and access all his profiles over this service. But, given the decent need for the service among the young lot, this might just give the IM a run for its money.

Tata Indicom’s is marching towards their goal of attaining a pan-India presence. After launching their services in Assam a month before, Tata Teleservices have announced their services for the residents of Jammu & Kashmir. TTSL will bring in a variety of services like prepaid/postpaid mobile phone services, fixed wireless telephony (Walky Talky) and a lot more.

The first pack to be introduced will be the Go Active pack priced at Rs. 199 that will allow subscribers to call local Tata to Tata at 50 paise whereas STD calls at Re. 1.

The company has already installed 100 cell sites and injected over 100 crores worth of investment for seamless data and voice quality in the circle.

Spice Mobile a few days back launched a finger touch phone S 930 for a price of Rs 7,999. S 930 allegedly is the cheapest phone to provide a multi-touch swipe experience. The phone comes with a virtual keypad, a 2 mega pixel camera, 1 GB memory stick, USB card reader, TV out cable and an additional battery.

Spice Mobile’s S 930 also has an MP3 player, FM Record & Playback, stereo Bluetooth and comes preloaded with application in tie-up with Thomson Reuters for news alerts.

BSNL is the most recent entrant in the BlackBerry league and will directly compete with five other services providers – Airtel, Vodafone, BPL, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices who already provide BlackBerry services to their subscribers.

In a recent statement, the state-run telecom giant has declared that they are well on track in terms of the required infrastructure and facilities and will be launching BlackBerry services by December. No further details were given by the company, but this seems to be a certain move by BSNL to stay in the race with private operators.

9th February is the new date which has been scheduled for the much delayed 3G auction which was earlier planned for sometime in the second week of January. Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has proposed that it will issue an information memorandum that will detail the 3G auction process by December 8.

Also, a recent report by the telecom ministry has published details regarding the number of 3G operators in each circle. The details regarding some circles are as follows:

• Delhi and Gujarat will have three 3G operators each
• Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh will have four 3G operators each
• West Bengal will have two 3G operators
• Rajasthan and the north-east circles will not have 3G services because spectrum is not available in these regions
• All other circles will have up to five operators 3G operators each.

DoT’s decision to have fewer 3G operators per circle will definitely affect consumers waiting private telecom operators to offer 3G services, as DoT has decided to give first preference to state-owned BSNL and MTNL in the auction process.