TATA Docomo Revises GPRS Benefits with immediate effect

TATA Docomo, one of the operator providing cheapest and quality GPRS service has today announced revision in their various GPRS packs. This move is as part of tariff revision foray which all operators are undergoing after the 2G auction. All operators are now trying to increase their revenues by cutting down the extra benefits they were offering to customers as part of competition. Now the competition has come down and now everyone into increasing tariffs and cutting down various customer offers.

These are the revised tariff details of TATA docomo GPRS.

OLD OFFER			NEW OFFER ( REVISED OFFER)			APPLICABILITY
MRP	DATA	VALIDITY	MRP	DATA	VALIDITY
49	500 MB	21 Days	56	500 MB	21 Days	On EVD/Paper/SMS/USSD Mode of recharge
70	1.5 GB	30 Days	70	1 GB	30 Days	On EVD/SMS/USSD Mode of recharge
98	2.5 GB	30 Days	98	1.5 GB	30 Days	On EVD/SMS/USSD Mode of recharge

Vodafone opened up Sabarimala portal for Devotees

 

Vodafone India has announced the launch of various portals for Sabarimala devotees. Through this portal, customers can gather information on the historical background of Sabarimala, routes to the shrine, Temple opening and closing dates and times and many more.

 

Customers can access this portal by dialing 5670309 for Rs.30 per month. Alternatively it can be activated through sending sms to 144 in the specified format SMS ACT SAB or dialing *567*946#. This pack is available in both prepaid and postpaid. This pack is only valid till 15th January 2013 and will get deactivated automatically with effect from 16th January 2013.

 

Also a list of ayyappa divotional songs are available in caller tunes. Customer can directly access this by dialing 543213 at a cost of Rs.30 per month and Rs.15 additionally for every song change.

 



Huge dip in new activations after the stringent activation policy in place

 

Various sources reports that there is a huge dip in gross activations after the new acquisition policy came in place.

 

New acquisition policy which came in place on 9th of Nov is very stringent, though it is good for national security and avoids fraudulent acquisitons to a large extent. Due to this all operator acquisitions are reduced to more than 70% compared to an average of last six months of their acquisitions. Policy is in place and large operators are still working hard to streamline the process of acquistions to avoid possible delay in acquisitions. As of now in urban areas connections are getting activated in 3 working days and in rurel it is 7 days on an average. But still there are some cases not activated evenafter 10 days of submition of documents to retail partners.

As per the process for a new connection customers has to approach retail dealer first and submit all the relevant documents. After varifying the documents retailer will issue sim card of his/her choice but connection will not get activated at that time. As per the process retailer has to send SMS in a specific format mentioning the details of the new connection. After getting the SMS a pickup boy from the nearest distributor point will come and collect the varified and sealed document by retailer. Again distributor will check, varify and seal the documents. Post that a company representative will come and collect the documents and enter the details to an online portal. On successful completion of this customer has to dial to a specific number and furnish the name and address details as he mentioned in the documents at the time of purchase. This is to ensure the same doument owner is using the connection. Post successful completion of address varification the connection will be activated from the backend. For outstation customers, the process is little more complicated that he has to submit one local contact details along with his address proffs. His connection will get activated only after varifying both local contact and his own connection.

On the other side the new process will improve the quality of acquistion. Earlier customer used to purchase new connection only for initial talk time and after consuming that they through off the connection. This lead many operators to number constrain and lack of new numbers.

Idea launches unlimited calling plans in postpaid

Now Postpay and DATA are the key focus of operators and now Idea also came in to the array of unlimited calling in postpaid by launching three unlimited calling plans in order to attract their prospective postpaid customers having more than 1000 rupees monthly usage. Now the situation has come to this stage that it is evitable to provide unlimited calling offers in postpaid to attract customers whoever having high monthly bills.

Earlier TATA docomo introduced this unlimited plan in postpaid and later Reliance communications joined them by launching the same plans (with FUP). Now idea is the third operator launching this same plans. Still TATA docomo's plans are more attractive because they are offering unlimited calling and data usage without any limit but other operators unlimited usage is based on a Fare usage policy (FUP).

 Here are the new plans launched by idea.

Airtel likely to raise call tariff in two - three months time

Finally Bharti Airtel also to join the tariff hike rally along with Idea and Vodafone. Airtel CEO Mr. Sanjay Kapoor hinted this during the inauguration of their new network experience center in Manesar. He mentioned that the current tariff is unstable for any telecom operator to sustain and thus a tariff hike is required at this point of time. He added, the tariff hikes are expected to happen post spectrum auction.

We believe there are couple of reasons for Bharti Airtel to raise tariffs-

1. Tariff hike is indispensable as a result of the high base price of spectrum (post auction all tariffs are expected to raise by 30-40%)

2. The intense competition has come down from new operators, as Uninor scale down operations in many circles and Aircel & MTS is going to do the same for many of their circles.

3. All their nearest competitors have already increased tariffs.

4. Marginal dip in Net revenue and ARPU is coming down.

Anyway in order to take the advantage of Aircel and MTS scaling down their operations in some of their circles, Airtel might not think of a sudden tariff hike rather they prefer a gradual increase in two to three months time.