India’s Department of Telecommunication had ordered a special financial audit into the books of some telecom operators including RCom, Bharti Airtel, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar and Idea Cellular. This audit was conducted in May this year and the findings for RCom are out.

Parekh and Co., the official auditors appointed by the government, submitted an audit report to the DoT yesterday whose findings state that for the FY’08 actual wireless revenue earned by the company was only Rs 12,298 crore as against Rs 15,213 crore reported to the shareholders, which is an over reporting of Rs 2,915 crore. It also found that RCom evaded licence fee and spectrum fee to the tune of Rs 315 crore. Continue Reading…

First Aircel came up with a special Dialer Tunes card offering unlimited changes of dialer tunes. Now, Airtel is upto something similar and has brought in a special festive offer. No card, no recharge and no voucher, all Airtel users across India can now enjoy unlimited change of their Hello Tunes for the next one month. But be careful while using this service as the Hello Tune download is free but calling to choose your Hello Tune attracts a charge of Rs 3/min. Airtel subscribers can call 543211 to avail this offer.

IDEA Cellular, a pan-India mobile operator seems to have quietly launched its GSM services in Kolkata. The launch without any big opening or inaugural ceremony. IDEA hasn’t released an official press release yet and we can’t even find the Kolkata circle listed on its website, but our reader from Kolkata have informed us that IDEA prepaid sim-cards are available to general public across Kolkata. We’ll bring our readers their launch plans and schemes once the official word is out, in the interim, if our Kolkata readers wants to add anything then feel free to do so.

[Thanks, Debashish!]

This Diwali is definitely bringing up a lot of heat, and nope we are not talking about fire crackers. This Diwali is charging up competition between telecom operators and all are in a race to bring in the best offers. Here are the offers that our publically owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has brought this Diwali.
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When we talked about ‘Simply Reliance’ and IDEA ‘Diwali voucher’, we knew that the other big operators will soon follow and bring in similar tariff vouchers; here comes one from Airtel. Airtel’s new tariff voucher is called RC 62 and is focussed on reducing call rates for local and STD calls made across non-Airtel network.

This voucher is priced at Rs 62 and comes with an airtime of Rs 40 along with a validity of 180 days. This voucher will allow subscribers to make local and STD calls across Airtel network for 50 paise/min and across non-Airtel network for 60 paise/min. SMS and roaming tariffs will be standard. Although the voucher looks good, it suffers in front of RCom’s killer plan ‘Simply Reliance’.

Aircel is one operator who definitely plans its value added services (VAS) seriously, and well even innovatively. Aircel recently added this new VAS called ‘Talk-a-Mail’ and as the name suggests, this service allows Aircel’s subscribers to compose their mails by making a call. Read on to know how to use this service.

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Unitech is all set to launch its GSM services in December this year under the brand ‘Uninor’ and it has finalised on Nokia Siemens Networks to be its network and infrastructure partner. It will initiate its services in six circles which will include Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Nokia Siemens Networks will also be responsible for network operations and maintenance as a part of the Managed Services contract with Uninor.

Stein Erik Vellan, Managing Director, Uninor stated that, “We are creating a new global telecom model. We call it the Telco of the Next Decade that leverages existing competencies in the market to drive cost and time efficiencies, superior quality and flexibility that future proofs our operations in a rapidly changing competitive environment. Our partnership with Nokia Siemens Networks will help us pursue our unique model in these six circles as well.”

Nokia Siemens Network intends to make use of its Flexi BTS platform to make mobile base stations. NSN claims that this technology will let it bring in the industry’s smallest and most energy-efficient mobile base station.  NSN will also offer consultation and network design services to ensure smooth interlinking with Uninor’s existing infrastructure.

IDEA Cellular launched its services in Mumbai around a year back and within a year it has been able to grow gradually and steadily in this highly competitive metro city. The current base of IDEA Mumbai subscribers stands at more than a million.

To further attract customers and as a special Diwali and Christmas offer, IDEA has launched a special tariff voucher priced at Rs 47 which will enable IDEA subscribers to make local calls at 40 paise per minute for the entire year. The voucher will also reduce the STD and SMS rates bringing it down to 50 paise on any mobile or landline network.

However, this special tariff does come with one condition, which is; everyday, the first minute/SMS will attract the regular tariff and subsequently users can enjoy the special reduced rates. Looks like IDEA Cellular is hitting back on RCom which today came up with a special tariff plan of 50 paise per minute which is without any voucher or conditions.

Last week saw Kolkata getting its sixth GSM operator – Tata Docomo. The operator is already present in 10 circles which include Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Orissa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh and Haryana. We bring you a peep into its prepaid offering in Kolkata –

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Tata DOCOMO shook the Indian telecom market when it came up with its innovative per second billing tariff. In reply to the Tata Docomo’s one-second billing plan, IDEA Cellular, launched a new ‘Super seconds’ tariff plan in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand which offers calls at 1 paisa per second on all local and STD calls on any network in the country.

With this move, IDEA becomes the first mobile operator to offer the pay per second tariff plan after telecom regulator TRAI suggested earlier this week that per second pulse should be made a mandatory option along with other tariff plans.

In Himachal Pradesh, existing IDEA subscribers can purchase a special voucher priced at Rs 24, whereas new subscribers can get it for Rs 49. In Bihar and Jharkhand, existing IDEA subscribers can purchase this voucher for Rs 8 and new subscribers can get it for Rs 14. Similarly, to avail this tariff plan in Rajasthan existing users will have to pay Rs 24 and new subscribers will have to pay Rs 55 for the Super Seconds one year service.

“This is yet another ‘first from Idea’ to offer world class and affordable telephony services to mobile consumers in the region,” Anish Roy, Chief Operating Officer-Idea circle for Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu said. The new tariff vouchers will be available at My Idea Showrooms and Idea Points in the regions.