The Hindu Business Line : Aircel applies for licences in 8 circles

Mr C. Sivasankaran, Chairman, Aircel, addressing a press conference in Chennai on Saturday. Seated behind is Mr K.V.P. Baskar, Director and CEO. - Bijoy Ghosh

Chennai , April 3

AIRCEL Ltd, part of the Sterling group, has applied for licences to start cellular mobile services in eight circles. Besides, it is also interested in starting services in Jammu and Kashmir.

The circles for which Aircel has applied for licences are UP West, UP East, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar, Bihar, Orissa, Assam and North East. The company will have to pay the same licence fee that the fourth operator paid in each of these circles, according to officials.

Mr C. Sivasankaran, Chairman, Sterling group, said at a press conference here on Saturday that Aircel would also expand capacity in the two circles — Chennai and Tamil Nadu — in which it operates now. It had acquired RPG Cellular in Chennai and renamed it as Aircel Cellular Ltd.

The company's capacity would go up to two million by November and to three million by mid-January 2005. As on March 31, 2004 Aircel had a combined subscriber base of one million. The company would invest about Rs 180 crore to increase capacity. For the Chennai circle, the capacity would go up from 3,00,000 to 7,50,000.

Mr Sivasankaran said Aircel would come out with new schemes in the next few months to increase its subscriber base. These include giving three new connections to an Aircel subscriber, which he or she could give to women or children.

The connections would be given free of charge, except for a flat rate of Re 1 for one minute on calls made using that connection. The only criterion would be that the person should have been an Aircel subscriber for at least four months before January 1, when the scheme would be introduced.

Also, Aircel is in discussion with a Japanese company, whose name he could not reveal now, to provide a handset which could receive only calls. This handset would be given free-of-charge to the children of Aircel subscribers (both parents had to be Aircel subscribers).

The parents' pictures would be digitally engraved on to the handset and all that the child would have to do is to press on any one of the pictures and the call would be connected. This would be introduced by January 15.

Mr Sivasankaran said the group had asked the Government for additional spectrum and offered to pay Rs 500 crore as spectrum charges and a 15 per cent revenue sharing when others had to pay only 8 per cent as revenue sharing. Moreover, the additional spectrum would be used only for data communication and not for voice transmission.

Enquiries reveal that additional spectrum had been sought for DishnetDSL, another group company, which hopes to grow the broadband business.

Keeps options open for selling Aircel

Mr Sivasankaran is not averse to the idea of selling Aircel.

He told presspersons all that he would say (referring to a recent report in a business daily) was that three companies — Hutch, AirTel and Idea Cellular — had approached him to buy out Aircel Televentures, which owns both Aircel Ltd (the operator in Tamil Nadu circle) and Aircel Cellular Ltd (previously RPG Cellular Ltd, which operates in Chennai circle). "I have not rejected. I have not accepted (the offers)," he said.

Mr Sivasankaran said he was open to the idea of selling the company, provided the price was right. Till such time, he would continue to build it by investing in capacity expansion and offering innovative services to subscribers.