The Hindu Business Line : Idea Cellular plans three new circles

IDEA Cellular Ltd, the private mobile telephony services provider with operations in eight circles across the country, is in the process of finalising plans for roll-out of services in three circles of UP West, Rajasthan and Haryana.

The Chief Executive Officer of Idea Cellular, Mr Vikram Mehmi, said that with a huge untapped potential for cellular telephony, the company was in the advanced stage of rolling out services in these three circles. However, various issues relating to capital expenditure are under advanced stage of consideration.

Idea Cellular has a subscriber base of 4.1 million users across eight circles in the country. It has recently drawn up plans to invest about Rs 1,200 crore this fiscal to fuel further expansion of its mobile services in these circles. The company has also recently completed the merger of services of Idea with Escotel. With Escotel, Idea Cellular has enhanced its

footprint to cover around 60 per cent of India's population and over 65 per cent of the potential telecom market.

With regard to the Andhra Pradesh circle, Mr Mehmi said, "The company has a subscriber base of about half a million and plans to double this number to take it past the magical one million mark by the fiscal end. We are confident of achieving this objective given the massive expansion plan we have put in place for the State.

"This plan includes rolling out of services to at least 10 new towns a month during the course of this fiscal. This will enhance our footprint in the State and help us reach out to customers in some of the untapped areas of the State. We plan to invest about Rs 120 crore in the State for the network expansion and towards the roll out of services to more towns," Mr Mehmi said.

Tie-up with MAA TV: Idea Cellular and MAA TV have come together to develop and design an innovative mobile phone to TV interactive entertainment contest, which they claimed was first such initiative in the country.

Mr Mehmi said, "Idea No.1 is a unique musical interactive entertaining game show of Telugu songs based on the SMS platform for viewers in Andhra Pradesh. Activities like movie-based songs and Antakshari have proved successful mass entertainers. This initiative with MAA TV for a game show will deliver tremendous entertainment value to our subscribers."

The Chairman and Managing Director of MAA TV, Mr P. Muralikrishnam Raju, said, "This fun-frolic based entertaining musical game show anchored by Jahanvi offers loads of prizes amounting to Rs 10 lakh. MAA TV has commissioned a separate SMS gateway that has the capability to handle over 1,000 SMSs per second."

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