Idea enters into Mumbai

After a prolonged delay, Idea cellular of Aditya birla group, has started their mobile services in the Mumbai circle. With its entry Idea becomes the seventh operator in the Mumbai circle to offer its services along with competitors like BPL Mobile, Vodafone, Airtel, MTNL, RCom and Tata Indicom. Idea cellular is planning to invest Rs. 800 crores for the Mumbai circle operation and expansion and company is looking to capture 20 percent of share of new subscribers. The company also targets for 8 lakh subscribers in the region in their first year of operation.

Idea cellular has been eyeing to enter into this circle for a quite long time and from 2001 itself. According to the company, this is the biggest ever single city launch by any telecom company and it will have an initial network of over 1,000 cell sites. The network will operate on 1,800 Mhz frequency on a pooled core switching network with 2.75 G capabilities and EDGE services. Idea cellular already has 5.7  million subscribers in the Maharastra circle (excluding Mumbai) and is the largest operator there. So entering into Mumbai circle is a critical move for the company.

The company’s Mumbai operations will have over 60 ‘My Idea’ exclusive service centres. In addition, Idea reaches customers through 15,000 retail outlets. In terms of value-added services, Mumbai subscribers will be able to access a suite of services such as data, high-speed Internet, dialer tone in 19 languages at the press of a button and Idea Music Station with a library of over one lakh songs in 21 languages. Also, the Idea portal has a range of wall papers, games, animations and mobisodes (an episode of a television drama series condensed and broadcast to cellular phones).

Source: The Hindu