(14 June 2007 9:00 pm)

BANGALORE: Tata Indicom (TI) has announced an offer for free unlimited outgoing Tata to Tata local calls for its mobile prepaid customers across all the circles it operates in with the launch of its ‘Freedom Call Voucher’ (FCV) priced at Rs.325 per month. This includes calls to Tata fixed lines within the circle. TI operates in 20 circles.

TI claims that all the competitors offer these features at Rs.490 in the Delhi, Punjab, HP, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles only with call rates that are far higher than those offered by TI.

TI Karnataka circle COO Manzoor Amin said,” Tata Indicom is the first mobile services provider in the country to offer free unlimited local on-net outgoing calls at this price point.”

Tata Indicom has also introduced a range of attractive colour handsets at very competitive entry prices bundled with the Go Active Regular starter pack: Huawei C2285 colour at Rs 1499, Haier D1200 at 1799 and Kyocera Topaz at Rs 1999.

The Go Active Regular starter pack (priced at Rs 299) entitles the customer to free incoming facility for a year and 1000 minutes of free Tata to Tata calls (valid for six months).

Today the pre-paid mobile segment has emerged as the most important segment of the Indian mobile market and constitutes 92 per cent of the incremental market share. According to Amin, TI hopes to add at least a million customers a month with its new offerings. TI has an all India fixed, fixed wireless and mobile subscriber base of about 17.1 million, while Karnataka has about 1 million TI users. Fixed and fixed wireless connections constitute about 45 per cent of the total subscriber base according to Amin.

An outdoor media campaign has already commenced, a print campaign is likely to start by early next week, while the TVC's are a little distance as yet according to a company source. Creative work has been done by FCB Ulka for this campaign.