Date:11/05/2006 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/05/11/stories/2006051102310400.htm

Back Now, it's Don't Stop from Tata Tele

Our Bureau

Two-year free outgoing calls to Indicom connections in a State

PAGING THE WAY FOR NEW TARIFF WAR: Mr Darryl Green (left), CEO, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Mr Charles Antony, Managing Director, Tata Tele Maharashtra, at a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday. - Shashi Ashiwal

Mumbai , May 10

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) today set the stage for another mobile tariff war, announcing a two-year package of free outgoing calls to all Tata Indicom connections within a State, without the customer having to recharge every month.

Called the `Don't' Stop' offer, this builds on the "tremendous success" of the `Non-Stop Mobile' offer introduced by TTSL last year, said Mr Darryl Green, CEO, TTSL, at a news conference here today.

"Yet again, our target audience for `Don't Stop Mobile' is definitely the masses of India," he said.

The `Don't Stop' scheme offers free outgoing calls for two years to mobile, fixed-wireless and landline phones of Tata Indicom within a State, subject to a maximum of 3,600 minutes.

Incoming calls for these two years would also be free.

Existing customers can move into the scheme paying Rs 199; subscribers can then recharge with any prepaid voucher starting at Rs 50. All vouchers come with 100 per cent talk time. For new customers, the offer is bundled with the handsets Indicom Ace (bundled offer for Rs 2,299), Kyocera Prisma (Rs 2,499) and Indicom Star (Rs 3,749).

Beyond expectatons

The company's `Non-Stop' schemes last year (the two year non-stop scheme and the Life-time non-stop schemes) have come up with an average revenue per user of Rs 200 per month, which is far in excess of the company's original expectations, said officials at the conference. Market circles had speculated then that these customers would only receive calls and not generate revenues for the operator.

Over half of the last 5 million customers of TTSL had signed up under the `Non-Stop' offer, they said.

TTSL and its listed subsidiary Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd together have 9 million customers in over 2,500 towns.

Only promo offer

The company's revenues are growing at between 8 per cent and 10 per cent every month, said Mr Green.

Since this was a "promotional" offer it would not come up against any problems with the regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, said officials.