Hutch now in Chennai

CHENNAI: Hutchison Essar has launched its cellular services in Chennai under

the recently launched unified pan-India brand Hutch. With this Hutch completes

its metro journey, thus becoming the first of the new round of licensees to

launch its services in any metro.






Coming with a single tariff plan called 'TalkFlexi', the customers will have to
pay a rental of Rs 275 per month. The airtime rate for the incoming as well as

the outgoing call will be the same and will depend on the airtime minutes used

by a customer in a month. The flat rate will start at Rs 2.50 per minute and end

at Rs 1.75. "The more airtime a customer uses, the lower will be the

applicable tariff rate," said, Hutchison Essar South Ltd. chief executive

officer, Rajiv Sawhney






Speaking during the launch, Hutchison Essar director, Asim Ghosh said,
"Chennai promises to be one of the important markets for Hutch, as the

company sees tremendous potential to expand the subscriber base. Currently,

Chennai is the sixth largest cellular market in the country, with a subscriber

base of 2.7 lakh. This is approximately 22.5 per cent of the fixed lines in the

city. In comparison, this figure stands at 46 per cent in Mumbai. Hutch sees

this as a significant market opportunity."






Hutch brings with it value added service like unified messaging service, 32K
Intelligent SIM, voice response services, voice messaging and roaming facility.

The company has installed 110 towers in Chennai and plans to set up further

soon.