Research In Motion (RIM) today introduced the BlackBerry Bold smartphone in India with Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance.

The BlackBerry Bold is the first BlackBerry smartphone to support tri-band HSDPA high-speed networks around the world. It integrates 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi and GPS, which can pinpoint the user's location and supports location-based applications and services. It comes with a half-VGA (480x320 resolution at 217 ppi) color LCD that is fused to the undersurface of the lens. The smartphone also comes with a media player for music, videos and photos and a 2 megapixel camera with video recording.

"We at RIM are excited with the response to BlackBerry in the Indian market. Through the widened reach of Airtel, we look forward to penetrate the high level of consumer sophistication in the Indian market by introducing the new BlackBerry Bold which will set new benchmarks in business mobility by integrating elegance with powerful internet speed," said Mr. Jim Balsillie Co-CEO Research In Motion.

"We are delighted with the opportunity to bring the BlackBerry Bold smartphone for Airtel customers" said, Mr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Mobile Services, Airtel. "We are always committed to introduce innovative and cutting edge technology to our users. BlackBerry Bold users will experience next generation technology and also be able to optimize their business and leisure time while on the move."

Managing music, pictures and video is made easy with the inclusion of Roxio Media Manager for BlackBerry as well as Roxio Photosuite 9 LE in the BlackBerry Desktop Manager software. For users that manage their collection with iTunes, the new BlackBerry Media Sync application provides a simple way to sync iTunes digital music collections with the smartphone.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone also comes with a newly enhanced, high performance browser. The trackball mimics a mouse, making it easy to navigate sites in "Page View" or "Column View" or to zoom in on specific parts of a web page, while various emulation settings allow users to choose between the full desktop-style HTML content and layout or the mobile version.

The BlackBerry Bold smartphone comes with a 624 MHz mobile processor, 128 MB Flash memory plus 1 GB on-board storage memory, and a microSD/SDHC memory card slot that is accessible from a side door. DataViz Documents to Go is also preloaded, enabling users to edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint files directly on the smartphone.

The BlackBerry Bold also features a new acoustic design that increases the size of the phone's audio sweet spot, improving listening quality and clarity. It comes with support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits (including car kits that adhere to the Bluetooth Remote SIM Access Profile) and other Bluetooth peripherals, noise cancellation technology that offsets background noise, a powerful speaker phone and support for polyphonic, mp3 and MIDI ring tones.

The smartphone works with BlackBerry Enterprise Server, which enables advanced security and IT administration within IBM Lotus Domino, Microsoft Exchange and Novell GroupWise environments, as well as BlackBerry Professional Software for small businesses.

It also works with BlackBerry Internet Service, which gives users access to up to 10 supported work or personal email accounts (including most popular ISP email accounts).

Priced at Rs. 34,990, the BlackBerry Bold will be available by the end of September 2008 at authorized channels nationally.

Article By Tech2

India's state-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) will erect 19,000 towers in two phases to extend mobile phone connectivity to all villages in the country, the government said Wednesday.

"Some 8,000 mobile towers will be erected by the end of this year under Phase-I of the shared mobile infrastructure scheme," India's Telecommunications Minister A. Raja told a parliamentary committee here Wednesday.

Another 11,000 towers will be erected in the second phase, he said while addressing members of the Consultative Committee of Parliament attached to his ministry.

BSNL will also procure 93 million GSM lines so that people in all villages in the country having a population of more than 1,000 can avail of mobile phone services, he said.

GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communications and is the world's most widely used mobile phone technology.

"The government is giving the highest priority to extending telecom facilities to rural and remote areas of the country," he said.

To provide broadband connectivity, the government will initially connect 5,000 blocks, the smallest administrative unit in India, by wireless broadband, he said.

Villages coming within a radius of 10 km of a block headquarter will be covered by such connectivity.

This will benefit schools, public health centres, village administrative bodies (panchayats) and the community service centres (CSCs) meant to provide e-governance and data services to rural areas.

This will be done soon after new spectrum is allocated to the various telecom operators. This activity will be funded with the support of the universal service obligation (USO) fund, he said.

The USO fund is created from a 5 percent universal service obligation levy that the government charges all telecom operators in India.

The fund is meant to support extension of connectivity to areas where private operators do not enter for lack of adequate profitability.

To ensure widespread rural connectivity the ruling United Progressive Alliance coalition government has kept a target of 500 million telephone connections by 2010 and 750 million connections by 2012, Raja said.

He hoped that this target would be surpassed.

He said to promote expansion of rural wire line and wire line based broadband services, the government has recently decided to waive off the license fees for rural wire line.

The government has also decided to give USO fund support to BSNL and reduce USO levy from 5 percent to 3 percent for covering more than 95 percent of the development blocks, he said.

This was in accordance with a recommendation of India's telecom regulatory body Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), he said.

The Minister also said that BSNL will launch during the current year value added services like mobile banking, mobile advertisement, tele-education and lost mobile tracking systems.

BSNL will also provide wireless broadband services and upgrade its mobile network to third generation (3G) levels. It will also provide high-speed data services.

News from Tech2

Virgin Mobile will now allow customers to purchase products and services online from its site, www.virginmobile.in.

Apart from the convenience of buying from home, customers will be rewarded with additional talk time, extra messages and other freebies. For example, the 'Bak Bak' offer will provide online customers Rs 100 worth of free talktime, 500 free SMS', lifetime validity and a free prepaid connection, on purchase of every handset.

After buying the desired phone online and making the payment via debit or credit card, the handsets will be delivered to the customer within 24 - 48 hours and the requisite documents for proof of identity will be collected in person. The connection will get activated post verification.

M. A. Madhusudan, Chief Executive Officer, Virgin Mobile India said, "With 44% of the total internet population in India within the age group of 19-24 years, this medium has become an integral part of youth's lifestyle. It is therefore logical for us to extend our presence to the online space and offer our customers the convenience and comfort of buying Virgin Mobile connection at the click of a button."

The company has tied up with Blue Dart for delivery of handsets, and with Billdesk for payment authorization. In the near future, the company also plans to bolster its online portfolio by making available product bundled offers, facility of gifting a phone and an option of recharging and topping-up the Virgin Mobile phone online.

Original Article From CompareIndia

Starting September 15, pre-paid mobile subscribers in the country will not have to pay any processing fee for the recharge vouchers they buy; they will get talk time worth almost the full value of the coupon.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has directed the operators to stop charging processing fee, which in most cases amounts to 30-40 per cent of the recharge value of the coupon at present.

TRAI has asked operators to charge only an administrative fee which shall not exceed Rs 2 and applicable taxes.

This move will result in huge savings for consumers as they will be able to talk more using a single recharge coupon. For example, Bharti Airtel has a pre-paid voucher for Rs 345, out of which consumers currently get talk time worth only Rs 177 (about 90 minutes). The balance money goes as service tax and processing fee.

Once the new regulation comes into effect Airtel mobile users buying this voucher will get talk time worth Rs 305 (about 150 minutes) after paying Rs 38 as service tax.

While Vodafone Essar charges only a maximum of Rs 10 as processing fee on its voucher cards, the major beneficiary in this case will be those recharging using the e-top up (through SMS) option.

Vodafone Essar’s pre-paid users at present have to pay a processing fee of Rs 130 every time they recharge through SMS for a value of Rs 300. Post September 15, when the TRAI’s regulation comes into effect, subscribers will be able to talk for almost 50 per cent more time compared to the talk time they get now with the same Rs 300 voucher.
Financial impact

The move, however, could have financial implication for the mobile operators. As much as 85 per cent of the 300 million mobile users are on pre-paid connection, accounting for almost 70 per cent of the operators’ revenues.

While the operators may not end up losing much money as there is no reduction in the total value of the recharge coupons, the minutes of usage will go up as a result of TRAI’s decision. Validity of most of the recharge coupons is between 30 and 60 days, which mean that subscribers will have to buy a new coupon anyway within a month or two to keep their connection alive. However, the increase in talk time for each voucher could force the operators to invest more into ramping up their network to meet the new demand.
Rationale

Explaining the rationale for the decision, TRAI said, “It was brought to the notice of the Authority that service providers are deducting certain fixed amount even for recharges exclusively meant for providing talk time to subscribers who already have validity. Such subscribers had already obtained validity by paying a fixed fee. The Authority felt that levy of a second or subsequent processing fee when the customer buys talk time through exclusive talk time top-ups is unjustified.”
Other measures

The telecom regulator also announced a slew of other consumer-friendly initiatives. It has mandated that consumers of a mobile company should get benefit of any tariff reduction announced by the operator without having to ask for it. This proposal assumes significance in the light of the recent announcements by Vodafone and Idea of making available reduced domestic long distance charges to only those subscribers who requested for it through an SMS.

Consumers using lifetime validity plans will be allowed to migrate to new lifetime plans without having to pay any additional payment. TRAI also said that lifetime subscribers need not recharge more than once in 6 months.

Operators have also been asked to make available key tariff information in vernacular languages at all retail outlets and the franchisees.

News By The Business Line

Motorola today announced the Indian launch of MOTOZINE ZN5. This phone was developed in association with Kodak. The ZN5 is the first phone to combine Motorola’s “ModeShift Technology” and KODAK “Imaging Technology”.

In addition, the new mobile phone is preloaded with Kodak EasyShare software. Moreover, the camera includes an ultra-fast 5 megapixel camera with auto-focus and a Xenon flash. The stylish phone also features multiple capture modes like multi-shot and panorama, which automatically aligns, captures and stitches together continuous shots taken on the horizon line into a single, extended image.

Users can further upload their photos on various social networking sites through ShoZu via Wi-Fi. User can also transfer images on the computer by Bluetooth or USB. Besides, consumers also have the flexibility of sharing pictures on their television set with a TV-out cable.

Talking about the newly introduced handset Ian Chapman-Banks, corporate vice president and general manager, Asia, Mobile Devices, Motorola, “Today’s creative consumers not only want to be the photographer, but also the retoucher, the exhibitor and the critic. With the MOTOZINE ZN5 we allow people to unleash their power of curiosity, creativity, impulse and play, whenever the mood strikes. So go and click, capture and share all you want.”

Other features of the MOTOZINE ZN5 phone include CrystalTalk technology for flawless conversation even in noisy environments and dual compatibility for GSM and Wireless Local Area Network.

The first phone in ZINE series, ZN5 will be available in the India from mid-September 2008. The phone will be bundled with a 2GB memory card and a TV-out cable for easily viewing pictures on a television set.

Original Article on Techshout