CIOL: What is being done to take the brand into the market?

VR: MTS is the eighth-largest telecom company in the world with over 100 million customers. In India, we are the sixth or seventh operator. We are using faces of models talking on the mobile phone to relate to the consumers and give our service the human touch. We have also decided to concentrate most of our advertising and marketing spend on local media, via regional language instead of English.

We have also recently rebranded our existing operations in Rajasthan, under the 'Rainbow' brand, to MTS. Rainbow was a regional brand limited to Rajasthan and what we needed was a pan-India brand name. Accordingly we painted the Pink City Jaipur to red - the colour of our brand.

The most important factor is the time-to-market - how quickly we could launch the brand across India in the next nine months. With MTS, the brand material, logo and specifications are all readymade and already available

CIOL: How do you look at the slowdown?

VR: Global economic slowdown is a business challenge for enterprises across the globe. However, Sistema is one of the largest public diversified corporations in Russia. We have sufficient funds to expand our operations, and launch our services on a pan-India basis.

India is one of the fastest growing markets for telecom, and has been relatively un-impacted by recession. As of now, the situation is under control, because the financial meltdown has not impacted Indian banks in a major way.

However, if the situation worsens, then we could be in a spot as we are not allowed to bring in foreign funds in the form of debt. We are allowed to bring money in the form of equity, but our promoters would like to have the flexibility to decide on what form they would like to pump in money into the company.

The Indian Government should consider relaxing the foreign investment norms, which will allow international players to bring in funds in the form of loan.

CIOL: What would be the newer trends in the Indian mobility sector?

VR: The year 2009 is expected to be an exciting year for the Indian mobile telephony market. With the Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) voted back to power, the sector can look forward to speedy auction of the long-awaited 3G spectrum.

A significant portion of the rural population will witness phased growth in first-time Internet access and welfare programs covering telemedicine, e-governance and distance learning - propelled by 3G mobile broadband and WiMax.

While the 3G network would infuse better services for subscribers and enhance revenues from VAS (value-added services) for operators, the introduction of MNP will offer users the convenience of retaining their mobile phone number even after switching between networks and operators.

Mobile payment and commerce for micro-transactions is also expected to attract greater user-orientation.