Spice to invest additional Rs 100 cr in Punjab

MUMBAI: Spice Telecom has rolled out its infrastructure plans to for further developing telecom services in Punjab. The company has plans to invest a further Rs 100 crore towards increasing its network infrastructure in 100 new sites and up gradation of its existing switch to the latest version available worldwide (SR 9.1). The upgradation of the switch would result in increasing the switch capacity to eight lakh -subscribers.

Spice Telecom today covers 110 important towns of Punjab thus covering 95 percent of Punjab’s urban area. 100 new sites would be added in the coming months to improve coverage across the length and breadth of Punjab. Spice Telecom would have close to 300 base transmission receivers in place by the end of December 2002. In addition, to improving in-building coverage, this would also increase coverage in remote areas of Punjab.

As a result of these coverage initiatives, the network capacity would increase by 100 per cent. Spice Telecom has also implemented Synthesized Frequency Hopping on its network. This initiative would result in the improvement in the Voice Quality in high traffic areas. Another initiative undertaken recently by Spice Telecom has been the introduction of Pan India Incoming as well as outgoing National Roaming on its pre-paid card.

Elaborating on the initiatives undertaken by Spice Telecom, Ashok Goyal, Executive Director, Spice Telecom said, "Spice Telecom is committed to undertake strategic initiatives to provide world-class services to the mobile users of Punjab. The up gradation of the existing switch, expansion of coverage and capacity of the network and implementation of Synthesized Frequency Hopping are important steps in raising the cellular service standards in Punjab. We will continue to strengthen our infrastructure in our endeavor to take Punjab to the top of the telecommunications scene in India".