Balance enquiry on your mobile

Soon non-financial transactions like balance enquiry could be moved out of bank ATMs to your mobile phones. This will work in the same way as you can check your mobile prepaid balance by dialing some specific codes. 

National Payments Corporation of India is in talks with mobile companies to facilitate banking transactions through USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) messages. USSD messages are at present used by mobile companies to enable users check pre-paid balances and get information on offers by dialing a specific code. 

These query are real-time on the telecom networks server and are therefore faster and more responsive than SMS queries.

TRAI's new Do Not Call law

From next month TRAI will be making the mobile operators responsible for allowing unwanted calls and text messages that have been drowning mobile-phone users. TRAI will also levy heavy fines on telecom companies that allow calls to be made to people on Do Not Call list.

The biggest change to current law will hold carriers responsible when telemarketers contact people on the Do Not Call registry. Under the new law carriers will face a fine of $2,200 for the first offense; $11,000 for the second offense; and $22,000 for each subsequent offense. The new rules were announced Dec. 1, yet enforcement has been delayed while officials and the industry worked out a key provision that lets subscribers know when a call or text message is from a telemarketer.

Under the provision, telemarketers' phone numbers must start by the numbers "140" on caller-ID screens and commercial text messages must have standard headers that will identify them.

Users data lost after fire, Govt gets tough

The central security agencies have taken serious note of nearly 1.2 crore SIM cards belonging to Idea Cellular being lost in a fire, terming it as a "security lapse", and worked out fresh guidelines for telecom operators for maintaining records.

In a report, the central security agencies said inquires into the fire incident at Jyoti Warehouse in Ahmedabad, where nearly two crore Consumer Application Forms (CAFs) of Idea Cellular were stored.

The warehouse had CAFs from 1996 onwards when it caught fire in February this year, but only 80 lakh forms had been scanned.

"The incident not only highlights the fact that important data has been completely lost, but also underscores the slow rate at which the digitisation of subscriber data was being carried out," the report said.

Telecom service providers have now been asked to ensure quick and time bound scanning of all CAFs, proper duplication of records with a mirror image in the archives, the stores where the CAF have been kept should have fire proof arrangements and secure from other hazards.

A database of cellphone bill defaulters

Customers who default on their payment to cellphone companies will find it increasingly difficult to cheat other companies in the near future.

The Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (Cibil) is in talks with leading telecom companies to create a database of cellphone customers in the country on lines similar to that of a financial institution.

This will mean that every default on cellphone bills and the credit history of a customer would be available for mobile operators at the click of a mouse. Cibil is carrying out a pilot run in Mumbai in association with one of the main service providers.

Tata Docomo offers free incoming

Tata Docomo launched a an exclusive ‘Roam Free’ offer for its post payed customers. Under the offer, customers can enjoy incoming roaming absolutely free anywhere across the country on Tata Docomo network.

By availing the unique offer customers don’t have to worry about incoming roaming charges, while outgoing roaming will be charged at 1paise per second. What more! All this comes at absolutely no extra cost to Docomo customers.

Salient features of the plan are:

• It introduces roam free plans only on PostPay.
• Plans Offer free incoming across the country on Tata Docomo’s national network.
• Outgoing calls are also billed per second while roaming.

Existing customers can avail the offer, by just sending SMS to 121 to start using this benefit on the new Roam Free plans with greater than 299 rental.

Nokia the top manufacturer in India

Mobile ad network, InMobi, has revealed that the Indian mobile ad market grew by 1.5 billion ad impressions (27 per cent) between October 2010 and January 2011.

The finding is part of InMobi’s January 2011 Mobile Insights Report - India Market.

With 59 per cent market share, Nokia continues to be the top manufacturer in India, followed by Samsung with 24 per cent impression share. These two competitors account for 83 per cent of total impressions served in the Indian mobile market--and are followed by Sony Ericsson, LG and Micromax.

Idea, BSNL have the highest call drop complaints

Despite massive campaigns promising respite from call drops and superior network, telecom service provider Idea Cellular is one among the few operators who are facing the problem of frequent call drops.

According to the parameters laid down the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), a telecom network is considered as "worst affected cells" if more than 3 per cent of phone calls are not complete.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Etisalat are other two companies which fall in this category. From my personal experience I can say that calling from BSNL is a nightmare, as there are frequent dropped calls. Mobile number portability can rescue many people from these cell phone operators who don't want to change their number.

Gujarat unhappy with telecom service providers

It seems mobile phone users in Gujarat are not happy with their service providers. At least the data provided by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) suggests that.

A release by the regulator says that as huge as 3,64,849 subscribers changed their service providers in just 40 days.

The TRAI release says the number of requests received from Gujarat is the highest among all 22 telecom circles in India.

The ‘Mobile Number Portability’ (MNP) service was made available in the country from January 20, 2011. And of more than 4.35 crore mobile connections in the state, 3,64,849 wanted portability.

Till late 2009, there were only six operators in Gujarat, but now the choice is wide, making people switch to operators that give comparatively better services.

Idea Cellular had the highest ‘port in’ requests at 28,803 during the period. As per industry sources, Reliance and BSNL have lost the maximum number of connections in the state during the period. While Reliance (both GSM and CDMA) lost 40,000 customers, BSNL lost 25,132 customers.

Tata Docomo launches 3G services

Tata Docomo, the GSM arm of Tata Teleservices Ltd, today became the first private operator to launch its 3G services in the country.

Announcing the launch Tata Teleservices Ltd Managing Director Anil Sardana said the services would be available from midnight tomorrow in all the nine circles--Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, UP (West), Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra.

He said the 3G network, set up with the assistance of NTT DOCOMO, supports high speed internet access with speeds of up to 21.1 Mbps.

Mr Sardana said that the present customers with 2G at present can shift to 3G and avail free service till November 11 as Diwali gift.