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Dolphin to roam by month end

Thomas K Thomas

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd will launch a roaming facility in its cellular service, Dolphin, by the end of this month. MTNL has reached an agreement with all the other cellular service providers in the country in this regard. The facility will be introduced first in the Delhi-Bombay sector.

"We have reached an agreement with almost all the other operators in principle. The agreement will be formalised in the next few weeks and we should be able to launch roaming at the end of this month," J M Mishra, principle general manager, Delhi Telephones, and the head of the cellular division, said. He added that MTNL had tied up with Tata Infotech for back end support.

After the roaming facility, the next on MTNL's agenda is a pre-paid card.

"We see a huge potential on the pre-paid segment and expect more than 60 per cent of our subscribers from the pre-paid segment." Mishra, however, added that MTNL would have to put in place back end software and other necessary infrastructure before launching the pre-paid card.

Commenting on minister of state Tapan Sikdar's statement that MTNL's cellular service was "bogus", Mishra said the quote had been read out of context. The minister was only trying to tell the heads of BSNL telecom circles, who had gathered in Delhi for a two-day meeting, that BSNL should not launch its cellular service before putting in place the required network, like MTNL had done, he explained.

MTNL has managed to get 10,000 subscribers in two months. Most of the customers are unhappy with the service, with complaints of calls dropping and poor indoor service being common. One of the main problems faced by Dolphin subscribers is that the service does not cover Delhi's satellite towns of Gurgaon, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad. Besides, there is no roaming or short messaging facility available, yet.

MTNL also has not set up any independent call centre for its mobile customers, and the helpline set up by the company, 9868111234, "does not exist".

"We have just begun our services, and therefore there are bound to be start-up problems. We are sorting out the issues and within two months' time we will be able to optimally utilise our network," Mishra said.

He said MTNL was at a disadvantage because customers were comparing its service with that provided by Airtel and Essar, who entered the market five years ago.

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