Tata Teleservices to Start WLL Service in 5 cities in Maharashtra

After Reliance Infocom, it is now the turn of Tata Teleservices to roll out its limited services in Maharashtra. The company is going to launch its WLL services in five cities of Maharashtra in first quarter of 2003-04 under the brand name, ‘Tata Indicom.’ Ajay Pandey, Chief Operating Officer, Tata Teleservices said, " Since we have completed the acquisition of Hughes Telecom in December last yea, we are going to leverage the existing infrastructure of Hughes in both wireline and wireless services."

To start with, the company would roll out its CDMA based WLL services in five cities out of nine where it has the license of basic service. These cities include Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Nasik and Aurangabad. Eventually this service would be available in all the nine cities by the end of next year. 

The company would invest around Rs 350 crore- Rs 400 crore in setting up a robust channel and dealer strategy and customer showrooms. In Mumbai, the company would concentrate mainly on leveraging 80 percent of Hughes existing corporate clients. The company would also target 13,000 to 14,000 PCO booths in the Maharashtra circle for both wireline and wireless services. It is also targeting to double its wireline subscriber base from 2,05,000 to touch nearly five lakh combining both wireline and wireless by 2004-05.

Tata Teleservices already has presence both in the wireline and wireless services in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat and has a significant amount of subscriber base. With the induction of Maharashtra circle in its kitty, it is going to be the main competitor for Reliance Infocom in the country. 

(CNS)