Just imagine the possibilities

Though it is also true that critics like Harit Shah, Telecom Analyst, Angel Broking, have been apprehensive to B&E about the fact that “the gap between Bharti and R-Com is currently increasing, with Bharti adding over 2 million users a month, while R-Com is adding only 1.5 million.” But then, one cannot ever forget that it has taken Anil simply ‘4’ years to cover up on all the sustainable advantages previous players had till date. Just imagine the possibilities that this man can achieve in another four years, especially with his undying and unwavering focus on the potential power of convergence!

And it’s not that with CDMA, R-Com has had to flounder on the technology and innovation front. Oh yes, there were the extreme rumours that apart from simple voice calls, the CDMA technology is not fundamentally efficient enough to support value added services like net access, data transfers and similar services! Interestingly, far from all this, the CDMA technology is in fact brilliantly superior to its GSM counterpart. As the R-Com President Shukla comments, “In mobility today, technology has been a very big challenge. But to our advantage, while an ordinary GSM service has a data speed of only 9.6 kbps, CDMA in fact offers a maximum data speed of 144 kbps! So the technology difference (between CDMA and GSM) is not just in percentages, but in huge multiples.”

This tremendous bandwidth advantage has been exploited right from the star, as R-Com perhaps was the first to bring the concept of advanced valued added services (VAS) to the consumer, even at a time when competitors were only toying with the idea. When we spent an afternoon with Mahesh Prasad, Head, Content Application and Solution, R-Com, he shared with us, “When we launched in 2003, we were the first to provide complete multimedia experience on the handset – people could watch videos, send picture MMS, e-mails, could enjoy excel access, music, play games and even undertake the transactions that they would have normally done on an internet platform.” That was then. But with the increased focus on such services and even competitors excelling in the VAS area, what’s the scenario at R-Com now? Mahesh divulges, “Today, we have the mobile TV experience where you can watch news as it is happening, play games, and all in a video format. In fact, even undertake some of the most complex transactions in the financial space, such as M-banking, M-commerce, credit card payments, direct debits to your bank account, transactions which require utmost security in the network that is accepted by the financial community.”


Look at how well such an orientation has helped R-Com. When the company started its services in 2003, its presence was just in 300 towns. Today, the expanse has grown to a super 13,000 towns and 500,000 villages. Angel Broking analyst Harit Shah grudgingly accepts, “R-Com’s network is undoubtedly amongst the vastest in the country...” Add to this the fact that Anil Ambani has now officially quoted that R-Com would this year have “the largest roll out in the world in possibly the shortest period of time,” as they now plan to reach a soul stopping figure of 23,000 towns with an overall coverage that touches almost 90% of India’s population. If that is not visionary, pray what is! But it is not just the distribution that R-Com is betting on. R-Com is the undisputed leader of the ‘handset bundling’ strategy that has driven down the entry level point for mobile connectivity to a new low of Rs.777!

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative
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