06 January,2009 06:47 AM IST | | Aditya Anand
Six new GSM-based mobile phone service providers, including Reliance Communi-cations, will wage a tariff battle with five existing ones in the Mumbai market this year.
Telecom analysts predict that the slew of launches is likely to result in subscribers discarding one operator for another in search of lower tariffs. Reliance Communications, which launched its Mumbai operations yesterday, already has its game plan chalked out.
"Our tariffs, which are designed for customers who wish to spend less than Rs 300u00a0 are bound to create a flutter in the market," declared Dinesh Gulati, head, western region, Reliance Communications.
Meanwhile, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is working towards meeting the timeline of June 2009 to launch the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) retaining the mobile number when changing operator service, after which it will start accepting applications from the prospective firms to act as agencies for porting numbers.
A Reliance Communi-cations spokesperson said that it had logged in over one lakh subscribers for its GSM services in Mumbai on Monday.
96.5 lakh
Number of subscribers in Mumbai
2.5 %
The rate at which mobile telephony subscription is growing every month
Rs 2.5 crore
Potential mobile phone subscribers in Mumbai
Look who's comingu00a0
Existing GSM-based cellular operators
- Vodafone
- BPL
- Airtel
- MTNL
- Idea (launched in 2008)
New GSM entrantsu2026
- Reliance Communications (launched on January 5)
- Tata Teleservices
- Datacom Solutions u00a0u00a0(a Videocon subsidiary)
- Unitech
- Shyam Sistema
- Swam Telecom
- Loop Telecom
