Tata Teleservices launches GSM in city with a splash

Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) launched its GSM service Tata DOCOMO in Kolkata on Thursday with a splash, making it available in 10,000 outlets across the city. The reach and coverage of the Tata DOCOMO network in the Kolkata district is greater than any other operator at the time of launch, claimed TTSL managing director Anil Kumar Sardana. Tata DOCOMO has been launched in nine other circles across the country and the pan India rollout will be completed by the year-end. The Tata group had entered into a strategic alliance with Japanese mobile operator NTT DOCOMO in 2008. NTT DOCOMO is a global leader in 3G technology. The service will enable TTSL to take the pay per second concept further with pay for what you use . The per second pricing model covers everything like voice calls to value added services. A Trai survey has found that customers pay 18-25% extra because of call drops. Why should a customer pay for what he hasn t used? Our pay per second model, which other operators are also trying to emulate, will free the customer of this burden and bring in transparency, said Sardana. Tata DOCOMO is keen on setting up a research and development centre in India. NTT DOCOMO has five research and development centres across the world and we are planning to set up one in India, mainly for the value added services, somewhere in the south, said Sardana. The value added service (VAS) in India has not reached even 10% of its potential. Tata DOCOMO -- DOCOMO being a leader in VAS -- will introduce services like diet-SMS, free voicemail, timed SMS service, free missed call alerts, call-me tunes, in the Indian market, according to Tata DOCOMO president Deepak Gulati. VAS share of revenue for us is 14%, which is the highest in the market, Sardana said.