Reliance completes 6 lk rural subscribers

New Delhi, Mar 25: Reliance Communications has completed rolling out telephone services to six lakh rural subscribers till March 2007 under the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).

The agreement signed with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in 2005 for subsidy support toward Rural Household Direct Exchange Lines (RDEL) in specified Short Distance Charging Areas (SDCAs) entitles the company to receive subsidies for providing telephone connection to every subscriber.

I am delighted to announce that Reliance Communications has rolled out telephone connections to 40,000 villages hitherto devoid of any phones under this particular programme,'' said Sanjeev Govil, Head-National Rural Marketing, Reliance Communications Ltd.

To boost rural penetration of telephones, Reliance Communications has come out with a slew of exciting offers for its prepaid subscribers such as Three Year Free Incoming with New Fixed Wireless Phones (FWP) at Rs 1299, Two Year Free Incoming with New FWP at Rs 999, Two Year Free Incoming with renewed FWP at Rs 699, enjoy Full Talk Time on top up Rs 75 and Rs 275 vouchers and Make Calls at an attractive rate of Rs 0.8 a pulse on these connections to all.

The tariffs are applicable to both two and three year incoming products.

Furthermore, Reliance Communications has made local calls very rural-friendly at just 80 paise for three minutes for Fixed Line and WLL (Mobile) and Reliance Phones and 80 paise per minute for mobile phones.

Intracircle calls attract 80 paise per minute on Fixed Line and WLL (M) and mobile phones while they are charged at 80 paise for three minutes on Reliance Phones.

However, intercircle calls carry a flat rate of 80 paise for 30 secs for all the modes ie. Fixed Line and WLL (M), Mobile Phones and Reliance Phones.

The Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund was set up by an Act of the Indian Parliament in December 2003 for funding the Union Government's Rural Telephony Programme. All the telecom operators contribute five per cent of their annual revenues toward the Fund.

Reliance Communications owns and operates the Worlds largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 1,50,000 kilometres of fibre optic cable systems in India, the US, Europe, West Asia and the Asia Pacific region.

UNI