Arun

New Delhi , Sept. 17 The Hindu Business Line MOBILE roaming charges are set to come down by 50 per cent with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) planning to fix a ceiling of Rs 1.75 per minute on roaming airtime charges. This will bring down the overall roaming tariff, which includes interconnection charges and other levies, to a low of Rs 2 per minute compared with Rs 3.75 per minute being charged by operators currently for mobile-to-mobile local calls. STD calls made while roaming are also expected to come down to a low of Rs 3.20 a minute compared with Rs 4.90 per minute now. Roaming charges comprise two components - airtime and interconnection charges. The existing ceiling for roaming airtime is Rs 3.45 a minute and the interconnection charges vary according to the distance of the call made. While the issue of interconnection charges, which include access deficit charges, is being taken up by the telecom regulator separately, for the moment it is proposed that airtime charges be set at a flat rate of Rs 1.75 a minute for both incoming and outgoing calls. If the proposal is approved by the TRAI, it will reduce roaming charges across the board including mobile-to-fixed calls. Mobile roaming charges have been on the rise in the last few months, touching a high of Rs 6 a minute in certain sectors, against Rs 1.99 a minute a year ago. While operators blamed the imposition of access deficit charges as the reason for the hike, the real reason is the lack of perceived competition from rival CDMA-based operators. The impetus for a decrease in roaming tariffs a year ago was the entry of Reliance Infocomm, the CDMA-based player, with a tariff of 40 paise a minute. This forced GSM-based operators to drop mobile-to-mobile roaming charges to Rs 1.99 from the then prevailing rates of Rs 6.44 a minute. While average revenue per user for cellular firms has been dipping, revenues from roaming services have been on the rise. While roaming services contributed about 9 per cent of the total revenue a year back, they now account for 11 per cent of the operators' revenues. The biggest users are the post-paid subscribers, whose roaming bill accounts for 20 per cent of the total compared with 1 per cent by pre-paid users.

LOLz !!! and this is the impression of the American media, about him...

Enter your First name: Enter your Second Name: Thanks for the cool trick, chandra :'(

So there won't be any broadband surfing facilities in Web World Express ?

Believe it or not, but the retail coffee chain of a company that has nothing to do with the coffee business will be India’s largest by the end of this year. The Reliance group’s Javagreen coffee retail chain, run by Ambani sister Nina Kothari and brother-in-law B H Kothari, is in an expansion mode. The number of Javagreen outlets will go up from the current 85 to 335 this year, when another 250 retail cafe shops will be rolled out. Over the next few years, the number of outlets will leap to over 2,000. Industry sources claim that the retail coffee shops are expected to grow along with Reliance’s WebWorld stores which now house these cafes. At present, about 250 Reliance WebWorld are spread across 111 cities. In response to a faxed questionnaire, a Reliance Infocomm spokesperson said: “Javagreen will also be rolled out as an independent format - through a combination of flagship stores, stand-alone cafes and other store-in-stores.” Reliance is positioning “Javagreen as a neighbourhood cafe, that is, fast, friendly and fun,” the spokesperson said. The group also intends to open cafe shops at Reliance Industries’ petrol pumps. “We believe that coffee shop space in India is still maturing and there is space for all,” the Reliance Infocomm spokesperson said that Javagreen provides its customers an international experience at Indian prices. Still, pricing has also been Cafe Cofee Day’s unique selling proposition. “We have a dedicated team of over 100 qualified F&B professionals, with expertise in products, maintenance, quality, training etc,” the spokesperson added. International global coffee chains too like Starbucks are said to be eyeing the Indian market. With no foreign direct investment allowed in this sector, they have adopted a wait and watch policy. They could enter the Indian market only by franchising their brand.

Yeah, where is it shown, vingan ?

Microsoft has teamed up with consumer electronics firm Thomson to launch set-top boxes supporting Microsoft TV's Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) software platform. The system allows network operators to deliver pay-TV services such as broadcast and on-demand television, as well as interactive content, over existing broadband networks. Microsoft's IPTV platform and Thomson's IP1001 and RCA IP1000 set-top boxes run the Windows CE embedded operating system. The units are based on Thomson's advanced-compression video delivery platform, and incorporate an Intel Pentium III processor running at 933MHz. They also include an Intel 830M4 graphics chipset to provide the processing power needed to decode advanced codecs and produce high-quality pictures and sound. Both set-top boxes support current and next-generation video codecs including MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, Windows Media 9 Series and MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC (H.264/JVT). Microsoft said that the set-top boxes are available now for all its IPTV trial customers, including Bell Canada, Reliance Infocomm, SBC Communications and Swisscom/Bluewin. Switzerland-based Bluewin is the first customer to conduct a market trial of the platform. Michael Zumsteg, head of expanded business at Bluewin, said that the set-top boxes would be used to deliver TV services across 30 channels, including five pay-TV channels, to the firm's trial base of over 600 customers.

Cellular service provider Reliance Infocomm will invest Rs 300 crore in Karnataka by December this year in a bid to roll out into 260 towns in the state. Reliance's footprint is now limited to 50 towns in Karnataka at the moment, and the telecom player is keen to increase its reach in one swift move. "We are a stage where such a massive expansion is quite important," Reliance Infocomm CEO (Karnataka), Viney Singh, said. With a base of 5.4 lakh subscribers in Karnataka, Reliance is second only to Airtel in Karnataka. But fuelled by the ambition to become number one in the state, the Mukesh Ambani controlled telecom giant, is planning to get into almost every single town in the state. Considering that there are only 270 recognised towns in Karnataka, Reliance's plan to cover 260 towns ensures almost total coverage. Reliance has realised that competition among cellular players have become tighter especially with Airtel crossing nine lakh subscribers in the state. Hutch too is on the climb. Reliance Infocomm is also setting up 70 more of its touch points, branded Web World Express outlets, in the state. Out of this 32 will be in Bangalore. The company is also trying is best to appeal to the SEC A consumer. For long, Reliance Infocomm had this image of being associated with SEC C customers, thanks to its innovative economy packs. "Reliance's policy has always been to cut deeply into the market. And for this to be achieved masses had to be attracted. But now we are making a conscious attempt at wooing the corporate lot," Singh said. The company is also trying to address the complaint that there are not too many handset options with Reliance. It has launched a new model called 'Slim', which is touted as India's thinnest mobile phone in the CDMA circuit, along with a few other handsets from the LG and Samsung racks.

OK, added now

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar launches Art of Living on R World World renowned Art of Living content now available at the click of a button on Reliance IndiaMobile. His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar unveiled the ‘Art of Living’ on R World, the mobile data application suite of Reliance IndiaMobile (RIM), at the Art of Living’s International Centre in Bangalore today. ‘Art of Living’ application is available under ‘New Arrivals’ of R World, which will feature an overview of the Art of Living Foundation and HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, streaming videos of experiences of Art of Living patrons on healing, improved personality, overcoming stress / fear, a ‘Did You Know’ section providing insight into various aspects of Art of Living and aim at undertaking such programmes. “We are delighted to associate with an institution like ‘Art of Living Foundation’, which is guiding our society by creating greater awareness on a healthy way of living,” said Mahesh Prasad, President, Applications & Solutions Group, Reliance Infocomm. “Our subscribers are sure to gain from this unique initiative that provides access to content related to spiritualism, self healing and stress management philosophy and will bring some of the popular techniques of the foundation such as ‘Sudarshan Kriya’.” In addition, there are ‘Tickers’ which provide the inspiring quote of the day and multimedia ‘Greetings’ of various Mandops and pictures of HH Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. “Other areas that are going to be shortly added are Art of Living ringtones, recipes, short audio discourses of Sri Sri Ravishankar and information about various Art of Living centers around the country and events. As in other content areas of R World, Art of Living will be frequently updated for the benefit of RIM subscribers,” added Mr. Prasad.

New Delhi, India, August 29, 2004 (Xtvworld) Driven by objective of giving fillip to the gaming community and to bring real broadband experience to neighbourhood, Reliance WebWorld in association with CHIP magazine organized Delhi’s first ever mega Multi-player online Gaming tournament for one of the world’s most popular game ‘UT 2003’ between 27th to 29th August. The tournament was held simultaneously at eight Reliance WebWorlds in Delhi, Noida and Faridabad. ”We are very happy to announce the first ever mega multi-player-online gaming tournament designed to reach out to gaming enthusiasts in Delhi. Over 1600 gaming enthusiasts have registered for this action-packed thrilling adventure and have came from places as far as Kanpur to participate in the tournament being held here,” said Mr Navneet Saluja, CEO Reliance Infocomm Delhi Circle. UT 2003 is a multi player first person shooter game wherein eight people are involved in a free for all shooting against each other. Registration was open and free to all participants through an entry form available in the August issues of Overdrive and Chip Magazines. All fresh registrants were given a free practice coupon worth Rs 50. If the registrant was an existing member, then a top-up of Rs 50 was added to the individual’s WebWorld account. The preliminaries were held on August 27 and 28 and the semi finals and finals on August 29, 2004. The Winners carry off a cash prize of Rs 20,000 sponsored by CHIP Magazine. The finals on Sunday evening will yield the names of the winners. “Reliance WebWorlds have seen a surge in walk-ins from all age to WebWorlds in search of activity and new age digital entertainment. Multiplier online gaming is one of the most popular broadband applications with the youth.” said Mr Sarup Choudhary, CEO, Reliance WebWorld.

Is your CAPS LOCK key stuck ? Please always try to type in lower case letters as text written in capital letters feels annoying for the reader and is often referred as 'shouting'.

KOCHI - 9-September-2004 : Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) will enhance investment in the state in the coming months. ‘‘By the end of the financial year, we will cross the investment limit in the state announced earlier,’’ said Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of the RIL, while talking to mediapersons at Nedumbassery International Airport. A major chunk of the investment is likely to be in the petroleum and telecom sectors. The RIL had announced an investment to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore in the state at the Global Investors’ Meet (GIM) held in January 2003. ‘‘We have already given employment for 700 more people in the state during the last few months,’’ he said and added that the Reliance Infocomm had kicked off the second phase of network enhancing works in Kerala. ‘‘Petroleum and telecom sectors are really booming in the country,’’ said Ambani, who was in the city to attend a review meeting of the Reliance Infocomm. The RIL is planning a number of petroleum product outlets in Kerala and the first in the series will commence by the end of this month either in Thuravoor in Alappuzha district or Tirur in Malappuram district. They are establishing more than 6,000 such outlets throughout the country and above 100 outlets have already started functioning. Higher officials from RIL, including V.G. Somasekhar, CEO of Reliance Infocomm, Kerala and Tamil Nadu region, Mahesh Thampi, business head of Kerala region and N. Hyder Ali, advisor and state co-ordinator of the RIL, were present to receive their chief at the airport.

Happy Birthday Niket & Tanveer !

Hmmm... individual clicks can't be monitored, I think it wont be counted as they place a cookie to track clicks. Also, I'm not sure when the total income earned will shown. Its still at 0.00, when I enquired at Baazee, they said it would be automatically by the month end. Not sure when the month end is, anyway will see 30 days after the day of signing up.

its because the "overall members page" shows validating members and counts them too. Hence its more than the "Total registered members" as shown in the bottom of the page. And there could be conflicts when some members are deleted too. Its normal with IPB, anyway not a big issue to ponder with.

World's 'slimmest' CDMA phone for Rs 2999 Rediff.com | September 07, 2004 Giving greater impetus to the Code Division Multiple Access segment, Samsung India on Tuesday launched 'the slimmest' CDMA phone in the country through an exclusive tie-up with Reliance Infocomm Ltd. 'Slim Ultra', which the company claims to be the world's slimmest CDMA phone, is priced at Rs 2,999 for Reliance subscribers in, both, pre-paid and post-paid categories. "We hope to give greater impetus to the CDMA sector by launching this phone," K S Kim, president and CEO (South West Asia) and MD of Samsung India, told reporters in New Delhi, adding that the company expects to fuel the growth of CDMA industry in India through innovative product launches. Reliance Infocomm has been working with multiple vendors like LG, Nokia and Samsung, Praveen Pasricha, head (sales), Reliance Infocomm, said. "While LG has supplied us almost 8 million mobile phones, Samsung has supplied us so far with 2 million mobile phones; but the focus of the two companies is different, with LG focussing more on mass market and Samsung targeting the high-end customers." This model, which has been customised for Indian users, has a phone book memory of 2000 entries, 16 polyphonic ring tones, Hindi SMS and it works on CDMA 800 mhz frequency. -- PTI Models displaying the 'world's slimmest' CDMA mobile phone from Samsung in New Delhi on Tuesday

Thats a great price compenn, I hope they dont monitor the bandwidth consumed per month ?

yup, it gets deleted when Reliance updates the home page of R-Surf.

OK, it has been reduced to 500 now.

DAKC (Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City), Navi Mumbai, August 27, 2004 · Abhishek Bachchan - John Abraham - Uday Chopra bike chase leads to WebWorld at Juhu · Winners of R World contest jostle with multi star cast of latest Bollywood entertainer · Reliance IndiaMobile SHOWTIME - the unique film promotion platform ties-up with Yashraj Films for promotion of 'Dhoom' Reliance WebWorld in Juhu, Mumbai witnessed electric excitement at the launch platform of Yashraj Films' latest film 'Dhoom' as Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham and Uday Chopra re-enacted the speedy bike chase from this latest film. The entire youth studded star cast including Abhishek Bachchan, John Abraham, Esha Deol, Rimii Sen, Uday Chopra along with Director Sanjay Gadhvi were present at the Reliance WebWorld for the promotion of Dhoom under Reliance IndiaMobile's unique film promotion platform, SHOWTIME. The entire star cast and the production unit of 'Dhoom' had a candid and lively chat with the media across the country as well as the lucky winners of the R World contest conducted by Reliance IndiaMobile. A 10-city videoconference facilitated all regional contest winners and media persons to interact with the star cast and production team of Dhoom. Reliance Infocomm, as part of its 'Reliance IndiaMobile SHOWTIME' platform for film promotions has tied up with Aditya Chopra's latest movie 'Dhoom'. The content of this movie was released on the R World suite of data applications exclusively for Reliance IndiaMobile subscribers. The content includes Trailers, Wall Papers of the stars, Poll, Plot and most importantly a contest that provides an opportunity for participants to win prizes. "Reliance IndiaMobile SHOWTIME is a special entertainment platform brought exclusively to our customers through CDMA 2001X based data capable handsets," said Kaushik Roy, Head - Marketing, Reliance Infocomm. "We believe that such a tie-up brings delight to our customers in the form of entertainment content of their choice. This 360 degree effort also provides us an opportunity to showcase our broadband technology and an alternate platform for movie promotion." Dhoom, the movie is being jointly promoted through various media including outdoor and indoor such as press advertisements, hoardings in various towns, a movie corner showcasing the film at Reliance Web Worlds and other below the line activities. Two lucky winners of the R World contest were given the opportunity to meet the entire youthful star cast in person where as the regional winners from nine cities interacted with the stars and production team of the film through a video conference organised at Reliance WebWorlds in 10 cities. Reliance IndiaMobile ShowTime is a platform that offers newer opportunities to customers to engage and interact with celebrities, win prizes and participate in several exciting contests across India. Over the last 6 months, Reliance IndiaMobile has been able to identify and associate with some major box office hits like Hrithik Roshan's Koi Mil Gaya, Shah Rukh Khan & Priety Zinta's Kal Ho Na Ho, Sanjay Dutt's Munnabhai MBBS, Amitabh Bachchan's Khakee and Salman-Akshay-Priyanka's Mujhase Shaadi Karogi. Besides these, there have been successful tie-ups with movies like Waarish in Bengali, Virumandi in Tamil, Gharshana in Telugu and Bisi Bisi in Kannada.

I'm sorry grafixguru, but no one has yet found a solution for uploading rintones/wallpapers to Samsung handsets. Hope somene will find a way someday !

Right, it checks whether the IP is unique or not. And if you have clicked once, it won't increase if you click again. BTW, thanks for all the clicks

Telecom tariffs to be stable now: Ambani Press Trust of India / New Delhi September 1, 2004 Amid the ongoing tariff war in the telecom sector, Reliance Infocomm chief Mukesh Ambani today said there would be no significant change in the ruling tariff structure. Mukesh Ambani, however, said that Reliance Infocomm was looking at a growth rate ranging between 20-25%. "Total value to the consumer is more important than price alone. It is only one important component for the industry," he said in New Delhi today. Evading a direct reply when asked whether the price war would see a further dip in tariffs, Ambani told a private TV channel that he saw continuity in generating more value-added services like low cost electronic security and GPS services for customers besides growing partnership between various industries. He said Reliance was "on track" and would post a growth of about 20-25%. "In India on the whole, I see an incremental growth for the industry," Ambani added. To a question, he suggested using exchange rate as a tool to fight inflation. "On the export front, we should remain competitive. Exchange rate can be used as a tool to fight inflation and also be competitive in export market," he said. Terming the automobile sector as the "mother industry", he said India's auto industry has come of age and was a major force not only in the region but around the world. "We believe auto industry drives the mainstream economy and inter-connects all segments of industry. It unbundles opportunities for others in sectors like polyster, plastic, synthetic rubber, steel and infromation technology," he said when asked what brought him to the automobile convention being held here.

Yeah, I still have those old flash animations in my computer. Well, since they have started lot of services by now, the current website is really good.