The Hindu Business Line : Tata Teleservices hopes to expand to 700 towns in Tamil Nadu

Speaking to newsmen in Coimbatore today, Mr Srinivas Rao Sarapalli, Circle Operating Officer (COO), Tamil Nadu Circle, TTSL, said his company has a customer base of around 9.7 lakh in Tamil Nadu, which it expects to touch the 1-million mark in the coming days. He said TTSL has around 400 towns under its network and it hopes to extend it by another 200 towns by the end of the current fiscal. It plans to add 150 more towns during April-September 2008 covering 700 towns.

Falling Rates

Asked whether the growth in the number of customers reflected real growth or was because of migration of customers from one operator to another, Mr Sarapalli said the growth in numbers was the net increase in the customer base and was not because of poaching.

Commenting on the fact that the monthly billing rate for a mobile subscriber had not shown, on an average, any significant difference in the past few years, he said this was because of falling rates. While the mobile usage time per subscriber has increased, the earning per subscriber has not changed dramatically because the tariff had come down.

Happy 2008

Under the Happy 2008 plan, the pre-paid customers of Tata Indicom could make local mobile calls at 49 paise per minute for 2008 days (nearly 5.5 years) at a daily rental of Re 1. The tariffs are Re 0.39/min during day time and Re 0.09/min during night on Tata-to-Tata phones, Re 0.49/min to all other local mobiles and Re 0.99/min to local fixed lines. The South Corridor Pack offers for post-paid mobile customers at a monthly rental of Rs 75, STD calls at 50 paise/min to any phone in Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. However, this would not be applicable while roaming.

More Stories on : Telecommunications | Outlook | Tamil Nadu

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page