Spice Telecom to provide mobile telephony for rail passengers

Bangalore, Jan 3 (UNI) Spice Communications, servicing the mobile segment in Karnataka and Punjab circles, will soon come out with a janata handset for less than 20 US Dollars to enable railway passengers access mobile telephony during travel.

Dr B K Modi, Chairman of MCorp Global holding 51 per cent stake in the company, told UNI here today that with 400 million railway passengers annually, mobile railway phone held a huge potential. The company would set up kiosks on railway platforms to sell mobile phones and low cost connectivity cards, he said, adding that Spice Telecom was in dialogue with other mobile operators to have a cheap roaming cost while using railway networks.

He said the aim of the company was to emerge as a premier ICT company in the country. In this connection, he referred to a Rs 100 crore railway contract Spice Telecom had acquired to provide BPO services, besides other telecom value-added services for railway passengers over the next ten years. Beginning March, Spice Telecom would be providing inquiry services to Railways through its four regional hubs to be set up soon.

Spice Telecom Chairman and Managing Director Dilip Modi said the low cost sets would be procured from a Taiwanese joint venture partner. Spice Telecom had partners in Taiwan and China for mobile handsets.

Dr Modi opined that with widespread availability of cheap handsets, the efffort of the Government to have a penetration of 500 mobile sets by 2010 could be advanced by about 18 months.

UNI