'Cell phone ban in K'taka schools will not affect Spice'

Bangalore, Sep 13 (UNI) The Karnataka Government's recent ban on use of mobile phone by school children up to 16 years of age in the State will not affect the business of Spice Telecom, the cell phone services provider claimed today.

Spice Telecom Senior Vice-President (Operations) Rakesh Singh told UNI here that the company was mainly targeting youth in the age group of 20-35 years.

''Our focus is on college students and the ban will not affect us. We are promoting our products among the youth who have already entered college,'' he added.

Mr Singh said the company's strategy to emerge as the second largest mobile phone service provider, next to Airtel, was on the right track and it had rolled out several offers in this regard.

''We are adding 80,000 to one lakh new subscribers every month to our present subscriber base of 1.2 million,'' he added.

He said the company was going ahead with full force in adding coverage in 100 more new towns in the State by the year-end. ''We have added 40 new towns till now and this has been an ongoing programme.'' UNI