Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd. (TTML), the listed entity of Tata Teleservices is expected to launch its GSM services in Mumbai and Maharashtra circles by the second quarter of the financial year 2009-10. Recently Japan?s telecom giant NTT DoCoMo has picked up about 12% stake in the company through an open offer. TTML has been rated as the only congestion-free network across Maharashtra and Goa in two consecutive Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) reports. Mukund Rajan, MD, TTML, spoke to Nikita Upadhyay of FE about their upcoming GSM foray and expectations from mobile number portability. Excerpts

How do you foresee mobile number portability as an opportunity to attract subscribers?

Our network has been rated as the only congestion free network in the Trai report. Subscribers who are tired of the poor network quality or frequent call drops are really looking forward to mobile number portability (MNP). Since the reports came in at the right time, subscribers are aware of our network quality. Markets across the world have shown that MNP has helped the operators with great network quality to increase their market share significantly. So one year hence the launch of MNP would be a crucial period for us and would be looking ahead to huge churn coming into our network. However, I cannot quantify it in terms of numbers.

What have been your significant investments for the upcoming GSM services?

We have invested over Rs 1,700 crore in our infrastructure in Mumbai in the last decade. We have paid a total license fee of Rs 393 crore for 1800 Mhz GSM spectrum for Mumbai in September 2008 and Maharashtra & Goa in November 2008. We have a plan to invest about Rs 1,000 crore for the GSM rollout in the financial year 2009-10. We are also about to set up close to 1000 base stations in Mumbai.

Will you be bidding for the 3G licences?

We are looking forward to 3G services. Innovation in 3G services being offered to subscribers would prove to be a brand differentiator. We have to carry voice and data on the spectrum that we have received. We would be able to fully leverage our GSM networks when launched for promoting and offering 3G services. Currently our VAS revenues are around 13.4% of the total wireless revenues while ARPUs for the wireline business is in the excess of Rs 1,000.

Are you planning to increase the number of towers for GSM operations?

Currently we are not planning to increase the tower numbers. We will be using available towers and having invested in our fiber networks, we would be leveraging that to carry our entire voice and data traffic.

How much subscriber base are you targeting after the launch of GSM services?

We would like to have them all. Well, we have had a robust growth of our subscriber base. Last year our subscriber base grew by 48% to 7.5 million. We see this going up to 10 million in a few months.

For promoting the GSM services, what would be your strategy?

We have seen the mobile tariffs for new GSM operators going really down. These low tariff subscribers tend to churn out on getting some other low offer. We would launch the GSM services with a different strategy for which subscribers have to wait.