The Hindu Business Line : Reliance pre-paid arrives packaged with offers

Mr Kaushik Roy (left), Head-Marketing, Reliance Infocomm, with Mr. Atul Jhamb, Head, Mumbai & Maharashtra circles, at a press conference to launch Reliance pre-paid services in Mumbai on Monday. - - Shashi Ashiwal

Mumbai , Feb. 9

RELIANCE Infocomm on Monday launched its pre-paid service across the country; its bundled deals offering free pre-paid vouchers worth nearly the cost of some of the prepaid handsets on offer.

"In the next three months, we think this introduction will make the mobile market grow by 40 - 50 per cent from the current levels," said Mr Atul Jhamb, Head of Mumbai and Maharashtra Circles, Reliance Infocomm.

At local and intra-circle tariffs of Rs 2.49 and Rs 2.99 per minute to mobile and fixed lines respectively; NLD tariffs of Rs 2.99 per minute to mobile lines for distances of 50-200 km and above 200 km; and of Rs 3.99 to fixed lines for distances above 200 km, the rates are largely in step with the pre-paid tariffs in the mobile GSM sector.

The service will be available February 11 onwards.

SMS costs are slightly lower than GSM SMS, at Re 1 per local or intra-circle message (existing prepaid costs are between Rs 1.50 and Rs 2 ), Rs 2 for inter-circle messages and Rs 3 for international messages (GSM operators charge Rs 5).

The pre-paid vouchers would be available in denominations of Rs 324, Rs 580 and Rs 1,080 and Rs 100 would be deducted from each voucher towards administrative fee and other charges with an additional 8 per cent going towards service taxes. The Rs 324 voucher would yield Rs 200-worth of talktime, with the larger denominations offering more value for money.

After the expiry of the free vouchers, which themselves are valid for up to six months, the pre-paid customer's connection continues to be active for another six months. He can to receive calls and messages even if he does not recharge his phone. Existing offers cut connection completely if the vouchers are not recharged after the due date.

There are no roaming rentals, no roaming airtime charges, no paid calls to be made for customer service, no rentals for voice mail, no fee access to the data services of R-world till end June, 2004, and no Internet rentals for R-connect through which Internet connectivity will be available at Re 1 per minute.

The other special feature is that the pre-paid vouchers bought from anywhere in the country are valid for customers from any other circle.

Pre-paid target customers would be the youth, who constitute 28 per cent of the population; customers from SEC C, D and E categories. According to Mr Jhamb, the presence of pre-paid vouchers of Rs 100 and even less - Rs 50 and in some areas Rs 6 - will not present much of competition.

"These vouchers are valid for only a few days. Our research shows that prepaid ARPU in the country is sub Rs 250 and Rs 324 coupon is an optimum denomination," he said.

The lowest package offers a Motorola C131 handset for Rs 3,500 with recharge coupons worth Rs 3,240 coming free. Some of the other packages are the LG RD2030 at Rs 6,500, which comes with vouchers worth Rs 6,480; and at the higher end, a GTRAN model at Rs 12,000, which too comes with free vouchers for Rs 6,480.

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