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Nortel eyes rural mobile market

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CIOL Bureau
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Bhaskar Hazarika

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NEW DELHI: Nortel India is in talks with major mobile service providers to spread its reach to rural areas.

With saturation in the urban market, service providers are eyeing the rural mobile market, which is yet to take off.

According to telecom experts, the rural market will play a major role in adding a larger share in the subscriber base. The major operators are striving to get a bigger share of the larger pie.

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The Ministry of Telecommunications has also set the target of reaching the 500 million-subscriber landmark by 2010. To reach the goals set by Dayanidhi Maran, minister for Communications and IT, the Department of Telecom (DoT) is initiating the move by urging the operators to ‘connect the unconnected’ (the rural areas).

Sanjay Jotshi, vice president (Marketing), Nortel India told CyberMedia News informed that his company is in talks with major telecom operators to spread its reach in the rural areas.

“We are already in talks with the major telecos on the rural connectivity, but we are not in a position to reveal the name of the companies. It is a major market for the operators as it is a unravelled market,” Jotshi said.

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However, according to industry experts the company is closely associated with state owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Bharti Airtel and some of the big names in the mobile connectivity for spreading the wings of connectivity in the nook and corner of the country.

He said that the rural connectivity would bring about huge revenues for operators offering value added services through mobile connectivity.

“We are responding to the growth of wireless voice and data usage by developing technologies capable of meeting and surpassing the needs of mobile communicators. The ability to provide enhanced wireless data services such as Multimedia Messaging and other information services will define the successful GSM/GPRS/EDGE operator of tomorrow,” he added.

Jotshi said that Nortel has worked with operators worldwide to implement high-performance networks using the GSM/GPRS/EDGE portfolio of standards. The company has also offering its services for the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology.

© CyberMedia News

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