Idea Cellular have tied up with the world’s largest mobile handset maker, Nokia to take on Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar. Idea cellular and Nokia will together bring in the Nseries flagship phone, N96 which is considered the biggest competition to the Apple iPhone. iPhone as many of us are aware is available exclusively on Airtel and Vodafone networks.

N96 will be available on Idea network from September. The dual slider handset has a 2.8 inch screen and comes with 16 GB storage space, expandable to 24GB. User can store up to 18,000 songs and over 20,000 images at 5 mega pixel, 20 full-length movies or nearly 60 hours of video.

Idea’s partnership with Nokia also extends to other mid and high-end handsets from the Finnish giant’s stable besides the Nseries. Idea plans to introduce attractive offers and new tariff plans, on various devices, starting with the N96.

Idea is definitely making its presence felt in Mumbai. We came across this plan, called the Double Value 299 plan. The details of this plan are:

• Monthly Rental: Rs 299
• CLIP: Free
• Monthly free usage: 400 mins calls free (All Local), 200 SMS Free (All Local)
• Local calls to Idea mobile: 30 paise/min
• Local calls to other mobile: 50 paise/min
• Local calls to fixed phones: Re 1/min
• Local/National SMS: 50 paise/SMS

We say: This plan isn’t ‘double value’ in real terms. Idea has increased local free minutes by 100 but limited the total monthly SMSes to 200. The benefit is the same of a full value plan but this one is more call centric. If your local calls clock around 400 – 550 minutes, this plan can save some of your green paper.

Idea made its grand entry into Mumbai on Thursday and the operator was all over the place. Here is one of the plans that would be available to users in Mumbai. This one is called Value Plus 199 and the components are as follows:

• Monthly Rent: Rs.199
• CLIP charges: Free for 6 months, Rs.50 after that
• Local calls to Idea numbers: 30paise
• Local calls to other cellphones: 50paise
• Local calls to Fixed Lines: Re.1
• Local and National SMS: 50paise
• Free 300 mins of Local calls to all numbers
• Free 200 Local SMS Free to all numbers

Additional Details: To start off users would have to pay Rs. 200 (Converted to Security deposit after 6 Months) as plan enrollment and Rs.99 as activation charges.

We say: This plan is more or less the same when you compare it other full value plans. Here they give you an extra 100 mins of free calling which is then compensated with the CLIP charges which you’ll pay after 6 months. Let’s do a quick math for the remaining 100 free local mins. Effectively, Idea isn’t losing much if you call on mobiles but will suffer if the calls are made on fixed lines (Re. 1 X 100 = Rs. 100).

The Aditya Birla group-promoted Idea Cellular officially launched its mobile services in Mumbai, though they haven’t started attracting subscribers yet.

Idea Mumbai initially plans to set up 60 exclusive showrooms and a round-the-clock call center. It also plans to enter the data card and the local phone booth segment, popularly known as PCO.

Once, they are set up with the initial infrastructure, they’ll open up their services for Mumbaikars. And can we expect new tariff wars again?

Idea, a part of the Aditya Birla Group is all set to launch its services in the most buzzing market of India i.e. Mumbai. The circle, which is highly competitive and also has the highest revenue per user, isn’t an easy playground for telecom operators. The battle to get the maximum out of the users is being fought here and it is surely a rough road ahead for Idea, who is a late entrant into this circle.

Here’s wishing the operator “Best of Luck” from our side. We truly feel that such added competition gives birth to easy price wars, thus benefiting the consumers. Go ahead and give others a run for their money.