Pune: Competition is snapping at the heels of Reliance Infocom and BSNL with Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Limited announcing the launch of its CDMA mobile services in Pune, Aurangabad, Nasik, Nagpur and Mumbai in the next eight to 12 weeks under the Tata Indicom brand. The company will invest Rs 350 crore in the project of which Rs 50 crore has been earmarked for Pune.

Tata Teleservices’ (Maharashtra) chief operating officer Ajay Pandey said that, the company will be working on a new common package to take advantage of the varied offerings from the Tata’s telecom portfolio and synergise the products to offer services at concessional rates to subscribers. These packages would be decided only after interconnect user charges (IUC) applicable becomes clear, he said.

For the first time, the company is also taking the distributor channel route to expand the market. This will also offer consumers a single point interface for all its telecom products. Around 20 to 25 customer access stores will be opened with the company inviting franchises to partner them in the business soon.

Mr Pandey said his company would work out a package for customers that was transparent and flexible. "We will not be binding the customer or locking them to a particular price plan or handset," he added. Tata will be the third entrant using the CDMA technology and the sixth player offering mobile services and is not unduly worried about competition or about the market reaching saturation levels. "Rest of Maharashtra is the place where teledensity is slated to grow the fastest and we hope to reach a lakh within six months of launch," Mr Pandey said.

Tata Teleservices is already offering fixed line telephony and ISP (Internet service provider) services in Maharashtra and Goa. After focusing on Mumbai for long, the company would be now intensifying its focus on rest of Maharashtra to increase the share of revenues coming from the region from the current 15 per cent to 30 per cent of its total revenues. Tata Teleservices Maharashtra revenues were Rs 276 crore (2000-01).

The company is also setting up village public telephones in 2000 villages in Maharashtra by March 31, 2003. The company’s initial license commitment was 25,000 villages but with BSNL providing telephony in many of the villages the numbers of villages left was 9,000. The target was revised to 7000. The company has already covered 1450 villages.

"We have spent around Rs 10 crore and would need to spend another Rs 20 to Rs 25 crore for this," Mr Pandey said.