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K. Giriprakash

Bangalore , Nov. 17

RELIANCE Infocomm has ruled out plans to migrate to the 3G network as the current portfolio of services it offers are comparable with the third generation services.

"It is just a business decision for us. But we don't need to migrate to 3G (third generation) as of now," Reliance Infocomm President for applications and solutions group, Mr Mahesh Prasad, said. He said the current portfolio of services would get expanded soon. Services such as accessing of ATMs through the mobile phone and carrying out e-commerce activities will be offered for Reliance phone users, Mr Prasad said.

Mr Prasad said the platform on which CDMA is built is a common platform on which 3G technologies are built. He said CDMA provides better capacity for voice and data communications than other commercial mobile technologies, allowing more subscribers to connect at any given time. CDMA is a "spread spectrum" technology, which allows several users to occupy the same time and frequency allocations in a given band/space. As its name implies, CDMA (code division multiple access) assigns unique codes to each communication to differentiate it from others in the same spectrum.

But worldwide, 3G CDMA is gaining popularity. According to the CDMA Development Group (CDG), the 3G CDMA2000(r) subscriber base has nearly doubled since December 2002, reaching 67 million by October and is growing at an average 3.5 million users per month.

More than 30 per cent of the CDMA subscribers now use 3G services.

Pre-paid services by month-end

RELIANCE Infocomm plans to unveil pre-paid services during this month and invest at least $70 million to add 70,000 sq ft of more space to its Internet data centre.

Reliance Infocomm President for wireless products and services, Mr S.P. Shukla, said the pre-paid service will be the first offered by an Indian CDMA player. "Except China, no other country offers pre-paid service for CDMA phones." Mr Shukla said there would be a separate tariff for pre-paid service and separate price for buying CDMA phones for those using this service. He said the activation process would be the same for pre-paid services as well.

Mr Shukla said the company would also offer SMS-based applications for its mobile users, apart from a new handset which will have an inbuilt camera. "All these offers will be available within this month itself," Mr Shukla said.

Reliance Infocomm is planning to add 70,000 sq.ft. of space for its Internet data centre. It already has a 35,000 sq. ft. centre in New Mumbai with another 1,00,000 sq ft of space being built currently.

The company is also planning to expand its dedicated call centre to other cities. Its existing call centre has a seating capacity of around 6,300.

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