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Our Bureau

Idea Cellular, which has its presence in eight circles in the country, would be adding three more circles.

Pune , July 5

Idea Cellular, an Aditya Birla Group company has crossed the 20 lakh customer base in the circles of Maharashtra and Goa by July this year.

Talking to presspersons, Mr Vikram Mehmi, Chief Executive Officer and Mr Lakshminarayana, Circle Head, Maharashtra said it is targeting a customer base of 35 lakh by the fiscal year end.

He noted that currently on an all India basis it has about 90 lakh customers and was intending to bring into its fold another 30 lakh customers.

Mr Vikram said Idea Cellular, which has its presence in eight circles in the country, would be adding three more circles, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh within the next three months. This would entail an investment of Rs 750 crore but did not give out much details.

He said it has also applied for a licence for the Mumbai circle and was expecting to obtain it soon. Mr Lakshminarayana said on the burner, Idea would be rolling out the FWP (fixed wireless protocol), which had the potential to replace the landline and FCT (fixed cellular terminal), which could replace the EPABX system.

He noted that FCT and FWP were being tested in Maharashtra and would be rolling it out soon.

He said it was actively involved in the revival of the postpaid segment, which has seen its proportion considerably reducing.

He said it was offering all the value added services, so far being offered to the prepaid customers, to the post paid customers.

This included GPRS, background tones, group talk, Idea madhur, dialer tones, live astrology, music messaging, SMS-based movie ticket booking, pay easy, e-mail on mobile and Lifelong.

Mr Vikram said the company is planning to increase the BTS to 1,700, BSC from 14 to 18 and add more than 700 towns this year and added that an investment of Rs 450 crore has been earmarked for its development in Maharashtra and Goa.

Currently about Rs 2,000 crore have already been invested in this circle.

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Idea customer base crosses 20 lakh in Maharashtra, Goa circles

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