(1 March 2007 5:00 pm)

BANGALORE: Tata Indicom today announced the national launch of the ultra slim Motofone F3c on the CDMA platform in Bangalore today based on Qualcomm’s QSC 6010 chipset. On the anvil are launches of other chipsets – 6020 and 6030 with other handset manufacturers according to Tata Teleservices (TTL) CEO Darryl Green. The Motofone F3 will be exclusive for TTL for the next six months. Bollywood actor Neha Dupia did the honours for TTL.

TTL plans to target the ordinary man who probably gets a cell phone for the first time with the low cost stylish handset as bait. The Motofone F3c is priced at Rs.1,699/- inclusive of all taxes and charges. TTL plan to combine Motofone F3c with the benefits of their GO XTRA PACK, will enable customers to avail double talk time for the first six months with bonus talk time valid for 1 year from the date of activation. The scheme also offers free incoming calls for the first six months without recharge. Darryl is confident of selling 2 to 3 million of these handsets over the next 12 months.

This was also the first global launch of the single chip by any company globally according to Qualcomm senior vp Kanwalinder Singh who avers that “QUALCOMM is committed to bringing wireless connectivity to emerging markets, and our QSC family of solutions enables compelling, affordable devices for cost-sensitive countries such as India. We are pleased to be working with Motorola and Tata in bringing the Motofone F3c, and look forward to further collaboration with the industry toward the common goal of making connectivity accessible to more people worldwide.”

“Though many companies have announced single chip solutions, they are so far only there on paper,” added Singh.

The Motofone F3c has features such as voice prompts in six local languages---English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, the QUALCOMM Single Chip (QSC) enabled device from Motorola, MOTOFONE F3c has been specially designed to suit the needs of Indian consumers. It offers a rich vacuum metallized finish making it extremely sturdy, with polyphonic ringtones including three Indian tones, high audio, office quality speakerphone and ringtone downloads.

TTL, which recently crossed one million subscribers in Karnataka and two million subscriptions in New Delhi, is looking to close the financial year with 18 million subscribers. They currently have 15 million subscribers.