MNP requests country-wide crossed 38 lakh by the end of February.
March 9
The facility of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Service was made available in the country from 20 January 2011. As per the data reported by the service providers, by the end of February 2011 about 38.33 lakh subscribers have submitted their requests to different service providers for porting their mobile number. Out of these requests around 3.20 lakh pertains to Haryana wherein MNP was implemented from 25th Nov. 2010.
In rest of the country, in MNP Zone-I (Northern & Western India) maximum number of requests have been received in Gujarat (3.65 lakh) followed by Rajasthan (3.14 lakh) whereas in MNP Zone-II (Southern &Eastern India) maximum number of requests have been received in Karnataka ( 3.18 lakh) followed by Tamil Nadu Service area(2.76 lakh).
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is constantly monitoring the implementation of MNP in the country. It is observed that the primary reasons for rejection of port request are Incorrect Unique Porting Code, Non-completion of 90 days, existing Contractual Obligations and Outstanding Dues.
In view of the large number of rejections and complaints, TRAI is in the process of verifying the correctness of the port rejections done by the service providers on sample basis.
Nokia and Union Bank of India Begin Roll Out of Mobile Payment Services
March 18
Union Bank of India (UBI), one of India’s top retail banks, together with Nokia, announced the commercial launch of ‘Union Bank Money powered by Nokia’ across India, starting with the National Capital Region.
The service is already available to consumers in Gurgaon, and will be soon go live in Delhi, Faridabad and Noida. This will be followed by a nationwide roll-out over the next few months. The unique service specifically targets users, who do not have a bank account, by providing access to financial services through their mobile phones and driving financial inclusion.
For customers in the no-frill category, the turnover will have an annual ceiling and prepaid card will have balance ceiling as per RBI guidelines. Other customers, who complete KYC compliance at the Bank, can use the product without any restriction on turnover. The service will enable consumers to transfer money to other individuals, withdraw cash from Business Correspondents cash-out outlets (registered Nokia stores) and ATMs, pay utility bills as well as recharge prepaid SIM cards (top-ups) by using their mobile devices, eliminating the need for intermediaries and delivering true convenience.
‘Union Bank Money powered by Nokia’ operates across all handsets in India. Making the service ubiquitous, highly accessible and user-friendly, Nokia is pre-installing the application in a wide range of Nokia mobile handsets across price points. The application can also be installed nearly on all already existing Nokia handsets in the country.
Maxis myDeals reaches 2.8 million members
March 17
Maxis Berhad ('Maxis'), Malaysia's leading integrated communications provider, recently celebrated a new threshold for the local mobile advertising landscape. Maxis myDeals, a permission-based mobile advertising service launched just eight months ago, has reached a critical audience mass with over 2.8 million members.
The large opt-in community provides brands and merchants with opportunities for innovative, interactive and personalized advertising and customer relationship-building, reaching Malaysians on their mobile screens as the latter grow their adoption of mobile devices as primary channels of engagement and transaction.
Maxis myDeals' permission-based mobile advertising model integrates multiple mobile channels, serving Out There Media mobile advertising technology. Over the past half year, Maxis myDeals has grown its brand partnerships in tandem with its opted-in community of keen technology adopters.
Maxis myDeals not only offers an enriched customer experience across all myDeals campaigns; but also offers each customer who is part of its community, loyalty points for every myDeals alert, redeemable against mobile products and services.
The Maxis myDeals community of brands, merchants and connected consumers can look forward to coming value additions such as community conversation features on its new website at mydeals.com.my. It's easy to be a member of the myDeals community and to start participating in exclusive deals and rewards today.
Tele-density in India reaches 67.67
March 4
The number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 806.13 million at the end of January 2011 from 787.28 million in December 2010, thereby registering a growth rate of 2.39%. The overall Tele-density in India reaches 67.67.
Subscription in urban areas grew from 527.50 million in December 2010 to 538.38 million at the end of January 2011, whereas for rural subscription increased from 259.78 million to 267.74.
On the other hand, the total Wireless subscriber base increased from 752.19 million in December 2010 to 771.18 million at the end of January 2011 registering a growth of 2.52%.
In case of VLR Data, out of the total 771.18 million subscribers, 548.66 million were active subscribers on the date of Peak VLR for the month of January 2011.
In Wireline segment, subscriber base declined from 35.09 Million in December 2010 to 34.94 Million at the end of January 2011.
Total Broadband subscriber base, again, increased from 10.92 million in December
2010 to 11.21 million in January 2011, there by showing a growth of 2.70 %
Lenovo appoints Shailendra Katyal as Marketing Head for India
March 17
Lenovo India announced the appointment of Shailendra Katyal as the company’s Marketing Head for India. Shailendra will be responsible for handling the Lenovo master-brand and leading marketing for the three business segments it operates in viz. consumer, relational and SMB. He will be based out of Lenovo’s Bangalore head office.
Mr. Katyal comes with 12 years of industry experience, having worked in varied roles in Sales & Marketing in the FMCG space. Prior to joining Lenovo India, he was Category Head at Marico Ltd. At his decade plus stint at Marico, he has had successful stints in sales and marketing. In Lenovo, his primary mandate will be to aggressively grow Lenovo’s brand preference in the consumer and SOHO segments.
Lava KKT 35 with Color Matcher App Launched in India for Rs.3,950
March 18
Lava has launched a budget handset KKT 35 with what it's called an innovative feature - a Color Matcher application on the occasion of Holi. The Lava KKT 35 is a dual-SIM handset with bar-form factor. It comes with a Color Matcher application to pick up any color as background and let users to use it as a home screen. The new phone comes in a slim metallic body and it features like 1400mAH battery that has a promising talk time of up to 8-9 hours. Apart from the Color Matcher application, the Lava KKT 35 includes useful features like conversation recording, answering machine, web camera and chat-style SMS.
The budget phone has a 2.4-inch QVGA TFT LCD screen supporting up to 260k colors, a camera ( supposedly VGA) with digital zoom, upto 8GB microSD support, audio (MP3, AAC, WAV, AMR, MIDI) and video (3GP, MP4 and AVI) players, Stereo FM, 3.5mm stereo jack, torch function, WAP browser, Mobile Tracker application and Flight Mode. The phone is priced at Rs.3, 950 and based on the official Lava site; the package includes a 2GB microSD card. “Color Matcher” is another example of our commitment. We understand that colors are a way of expressing ones personality and attitude. Normally consumer has a limited choice of selecting colors in a phone .With “Color Matcher” now you can pick up any color which excites you,” said Mr. Sunil Raina, Chief Marketing Officer, LAVA International.
Acer launches Android™ 2.2 – powered Acer liquid metal Smartphone
March 18
Acer announced the launch of the Acer Liquid Metal, the latest generation Smartphone offering from Acer that combines power and style in a striking metal casing. The Acer Liquid Metal leverages the power of Android™ 2.2 (Froyo) platform and is further strengthened by the Qualcomm Snapdragon Core processor enabling the user to enjoy uninterrupted web navigation at a super speed. The Acer Liquid Metal has been carefully designed keeping in mind the current requirements of today’s modern and dynamic individuals who need a fully integrated handset to support their lifestyle.
The Liquid Metal is equipped with a curved 3.6” display with a TFT capacitive touch screen aimed at providing users with a fast, responsive, multi-touch control of the phone.
The curved back gives an exceptional look to the phone enabling the users to slip the Liquid Metal easily into ones pocket or in ones hand.
The Liquid Metal utilizes HSDPA for on-the-go Internet access at speeds upto 14.4Mbps as well as WiFi allowing data transfer 10 times faster than previous devices. The LED signal on the upper part of the telephone notifies the user of missed calls, the need to charge the battery, and new incoming messages clearly.
Acer Liquid Metal’s 1500 mAh battery coupled with intelligent power management means you have up to 8 hours talk time and 550 hours in standby mode. Acer Liquid Metal comes with 3 popular keyboard layouts so you can choose the one most comfortable for you. Clever XT9 predictive text support saves you typing unnecessarily and lets you send messages as fast as your fingers can move.
Huawei launches high-performance AR G3 access routers to meet multi services needs of enterprises
March 18
Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions around the world, unveiled the AR G3 enterprise access router at CeBIT. The AR G3 access router adopts the latest third-generation router architecture, supports mobile and fixed WAN (wide area network) access and meets the multi-service processing requirements of enterprises.
With a rapid increase in the demand for enterprise services, such as enterprise video, voice, and security services, the IP network has become a unified platform for all ICT (information and communication technology) services. To be able to provide full IT services, enterprises need to establish a highly-efficient ICT system as a key part of their communications infrastructure.
The AR G3 access router uses multi-core CPUs and a non-blocking switching architecture and provides 3M pps processing performance and 80 Gb/s switching capacity that are two times the average in the industry, ensuring premium service experience for every user. The multi-core and multi-thread technologies process services effectively and the non-blocking architecture improves bus-based forwarding performance, thereby ensuring the service quality.
The AR G3 access router provides the most comprehensive wireless and fixed network interfaces in the industry, enabling flexible networking in an enterprise. It supports various 3G (CDMA2000/WCDMA/TD-SCDMA) standards to provide wireless connections for mobile offices. The device also has various wired interfaces such as ETH, E1, XDSL, XPON (can scale to 10 G PON), offering flexible access for all terminals anytime and anywhere.
Progress Software redefines Integration Agility with announcement of New Responsive Business Integration Suite
March 17
Progress Software Corporation, a leading software provider that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive, announced the launch of the Progress® Responsive Business Integration™ (RBI) suite, a comprehensive integration suite that extends the agility of service orientation. Using the Progress RBI suite, enterprises can add new business capabilities into their infrastructure with the ability to make continuous change easily and quickly. Equally importantly, IT professionals will be able to gain increased information transparency and integration integrity across distributed IT or federated SOA deployments. The Progress RBI suite enhances the agility previously delivered by classic integration and SOA to enable IT professionals to respond faster to new changes in business or organizational requirements.
The Progress RBI suite includes an intelligent policy-driven infrastructure that allows enterprises to more rapidly create, re-use and recombine new services that seamlessly interoperate with real-time, semantic information.
The Progress RBI suite combines the power of the Progress® Sonic® ESB, the Progress® DataXtend® semantic integrator, and the Progress® Actional® business transaction assurance platform to deliver three principal benefits across the SOA lifecycle – enhanced agility, information transparency and integration integrity.
For those IT professionals managing the entire lifecycle of SOA, the Progress RBI suite provides accelerated and simplified QA, deployment, and configuration with the ability to make administrative changes across geographically-distributed, organizationally-federated and technically-heterogeneous environments. Simply put, the Progress RBI suite is a powerful and comprehensive integration solution.
The Progress RBI suite will be generally available in the third quarter of 2011.
Delta launches new DPR 850B Rectifier
March 14
Delta Electronics, Inc., a leading power management solutions provider, announced its new DPR 850B rectifier that sets a new standard in energy efficiency for powering wire-line and wireless network equipment with lower power demand.
The rectifier delivers a high efficiency of 95% and power density as high as 30 W / inch3, keeping Delta in the forefront of energy efficiency and power density in the power range of less than 5.5kW for the telecom power market.
Its platform and shelf solutions also increase energy efficiency 3–5% compared to the industry standard for today’s low power applications. In addition, a 37–50% reduction in heat by the rectifiers requires lower installed cooling capacity leading to a total energy savings of 4.5–7.5% compared to the industry standard.
Deploying networks to provide broadband services such as 3G / LTE / Wimax / DSL requires small, energy efficient products. The DPR 850B platform offers compact footprint and creates additional space that allows operators to install more revenue generating equipment. The DPR 850B’s very low audible noise is an additional benefit for installation in urban areas.
The newly launched rectifier is ideal for the following applications and market areas such as Low /small power up to 5.5KW application, Shelf power application, Broad band /Wimax operator, Broadband /Wimax system integrators,DSL/3G standalone roll out application for mobile operators and could be embedded power for OEM equipment /telecom solution.
Yoigo Selects MACH for Complete Roaming Management Capability
March 23
MACH, the leading provider of hub-based mobile communication solutions, announced that Yoigo, the Spanish mobile network operator and a subsidiary of telecom giant Teliasonera Group, has selected its Wholesale Roaming Solution to help optimise its cash flow while simultaneously accelerating financial clearing and settlement for its roaming business.
The Wholesale Roaming Solution combines MACH’s industry-leading data clearing and financial clearing and settlement services and will help Yoigo reduce the time to market for advanced roaming services while providing full transparency of clearing and settlement across a single customer portal.
MACH’s solution offers Yoigo an integrated view of its roaming wholesale, retail and financial data delivering enhanced levels of control, analysis and business optimization across the group and subscriber levels. The Wholesale Roaming Solution also helps Yoigo reduce revenue leakage through its auto-repair function, designed to correct the most common TAP errors associated with incorrect billing reconciliation.
MACH’s Wholesale Roaming Solution delivers complete CDR-to-cash management combining rating and tariff administration, billing interoperability and transaction management as well as advanced reporting and business intelligence.
In addition, the solution provides access to MACH’s unique Multi-Lateral Settlement Pool (MLSP) which, unlike bilateral solutions, consolidates multiple payment transactions into one settlement transaction per member, improving operational efficiency and cash flow while reducing exposure to bad debt.
Comviva signs MoU with Starfish Mobile
March 21
Comviva, the global leader in providing mobile solutions beyond VAS, announced that it has signed a MoU with Starfish Mobile International Inc., one of the leading content aggregators and mobile marketing agencies in Africa. This tie-up with Starfish Mobile will further strengthen Comviva’s RBT (Ring Back Tone) content portfolio in the region.
With this partnership, both Comviva and Starfish Mobile bring their expertise and resources to the table with the content strategy that allows mobile operators to drive the quantity of users on their networks and to achieve sustainable usage of their services.
Comviva’s RBT content portfolio enables operators to provide a wide range of personalized mobile music applications, allowing subscribers to reflect their personality and emotions using Comviva’s RBT applications. The solution has witnessed huge success with over 13 million subscribers on a single operator network and deployed by over 20 operators across the globe.
Comviva has continuously enhanced its RBT offering to maintain subscriber stickiness, introducing ‘Star 2 Copy’ to simplify usage, ‘”A” Party Caller Tunes’ to provide callers with a choice of tune and RBT to promote subscriber-relevant brands and enable subsidized service usage. Handset and SIM independent, RBT is available to all subscribers, whether prepaid, postpaid, fixed or wireless.
Bharti airtel launches ‘airtel broadband TV’ in India
March 14
India’s leading telecommunications company, Bharti airtel announced the launch of ‘airtel broadband TV’. Adding another dimension to its strategy of multi-screen convergence, airtel broadband TV is a unique service which enables the customers to watch live TV on their computers or laptops. Customers can now watch TV without having to buy an extra TV set or cable connection/set top box or an air antenna by simply subscribing to airtel broadband TV with attractive monthly subscription packs starting at INR 49!
The 28 Live TV channels are across genres, languages and include the likes of UTV Bindass, UTV Movies, Bloomberg UTV, TLC, Animal Planet, all Discovery channels, Sakshi TV, Live India, NE TV, Otv News, Suvarna News and Tarang Music.
Airtel broadband TV also works on Wi-Fi giving customers the freedom to watch TV anywhere in their homes. Besides, while watching airtel broadband TV one can multi-task like browsing the net and working on the laptop or computer at the same time.
What’s more-bandwidth consumption for watching airtel broadband TV will not add to the customers’ Broadband Plan data usage, except for users in Noida and Punjab.
To avail this service all that airtel broadband customers need to do is visit www.airtellive.com and subscribe to their Monthly Subscription Pack of choice by clicking on the Live TV option.
Currently, customers have the option to watch 28 Live, 19 VOD (Video on demand) channels and 12 movies basis the chosen subscription plan. Watching broadband TV requires standard Macromedia Flash player version 10.2 and no other specific software.
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