Spice announces soft launch of mobile data services in Punjab

Spice Telecom, the cellular service provider in Punjab and

Karnataka, has announced the soft launch of its data services over the GSM network. With

this, subscribers in Punjab will be able to surf the Net, exchange files and send and

receive e-mails through their mobile phones, by October this year. A subscriber needs to

connect his mobile phone to a laptop with an accessory fitted inside which works using the

GSM technology. The data is transmitted over the GSM network at speeds of 9.6 KBPS.

According to Spice MD Sean Dexter, "This service is

not for revenue generation as of now. It is a value added service just to earn the

goodwill and loyalty of our customers." Spice is the only cellular operator in the

whole of Punjab. At present, it covers 14 of the 18 district headquarters in the State.

Fatehgarh and Ferozpur are expected to be included in Spice's purview by the end of this

month. In all, approximately 958 kilometers are covered. Spice has a total of 53,986

standard subscribers and 1,392 roaming subscribers in 45 cities in Punjab. The average

airtime used is 155 minutes and there are 68 active cell sites.

According to Mr. Dexter, "Since the last 17 months,

Spice has had a network availability of 99.73 percent." The cellular operator is in

the process of installing a fraud management software--TeleProbe from Wipro and it will be

Y2K compliant by October.