‘We will start our services in UP (E&W) and Bihar in 6 months’

What is the status of your network?

We want to be a pan-India operator and would like to do it in phases. Presently, Videocon has licences for 7 circles, Punjab, Gujarat, UP (E), UP (W), Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar. The company caters to 46% of India's population as this belt has the lowest tele-density.

We are planning a good rollout and creating brand awareness. Our base has started going up from January, 2013, onwards thanks to the visibility. In Punjab and Haryana, we have covered all towns and villages. In MP and Gujarat, we have covered all cities and towns and around 3,000 villages.

What is Videocon's USP in mobile services?

Videocon is known for its value for money offer and we have demonstrated it in LED TV, refrigerator, air conditioner. We offer products at 20% cheaper cost and we want to replicate the same thing in mobile by offering best network at the lowest price and also improving our visibility and retailer engagement.

What are your plans for LTE?

In the new auction, we have got liberalized spectrum where we can offer 2G/3G/4G services for 20 years. We are partnering with Nokia Siemens Networks to provide LTE-FDD and would be the first in the country to offer LTE on this band.

We have to roll out network in UP (E), UP (W), and Bihar fully and partly in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and the same antenna can handle both. This flexibility is not available with most of the operators as they are not allowed by the licence agreements.

By March 2014, we will deploy some LTE sites and we want to provide LTE service in all major towns and cities by 2015.

What are your future plans?

We are in discussion with our bankers for plan A and plan B. Plan A is business as normal and the focus is to achieve EBITDA positive in the shortest possible time. In plan B, the focus is on becoming a larger player and making substantial margin later.

We have not started our activities in UP (E), UP (W), and Bihar and will do so in 6 months subject to board approval by May, 2013. Initially, we will cover all towns and later on villages with 2,000 population. We are absolutely clear that we will provide both voice and data services. In 2013-14, we are planning to generate `300 crore from ILD. We are also evaluating deployment of enterprise services like: MPLS, toll free numbers, and international calling cards.In 4 circles, we plan to have 500 Videocon experience zones by 2014 which would have a mixed model