'MTS network adjudged among the best in terms of various quality parameters by TRAI' - SSTL CEO

Vsevolod RozanovVsevolod Rozanov
President and CEO, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited

‘After an initial spurt of activity among subscribers, the MNP trend will soon confine itself to a small percentage of the total high-end or post-paid subscribers’

India has reached another major milestone in terms of its unprecedented growth in the number of mobile phone subscribers and, just this month, it added its 500 millionth customer. There is still a lot more steam left in the market and it is estimated that another 600 million potential subscribers wait to be connected by mobile phones, and so there are serious efforts on to woo them by both the existing as well as the new telecom operators in the country.

The customer is truly king in the mobile phone space and he/she has all manner of choice, not just as far as telephone service providers, but even as far as a host of subscriber-billing plans are concerned. After the new operators came in, they introduced concepts like pay-per-second billing and this forced the incumbent players to follow suit and offer similar tariff plans.

The latest in the effort to fulfil the customers’ needs is the proposal of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to implement mobile number portability from January. Till now, a lot of subscribers in the post-paid category have been hesitant to change their operator even though they may want to, given the large number of call drops and poor reception quality on their existing networks because they stand to lose their telephone number.

Now, with Trai’s mobile number portability facility, subscribers can retain their telephone numbers when they move from one access provider to another irrespective of the mobile technology or from one cellular mobile technology to another of the same access provider. Overall churn rates — the proportion of customers who move from one mobile phone operator to another each month — is around 3-4 per cent already, a sign of just how dissatisfied customers are with their current mobile phone service providers.

As a new operator, we welcome any move to make the customer feel more comfortable and ensure smooth access for better services. The MTS network was adjudged among the best in terms of various quality parameters by Trai in its last survey. A congestion-free network, fewer call drops, high levels of voice clarity with high-speed data service are the hallmark of our service. We are sure that number portability will make our network a preferred choice for the discerning Indian customer. The move to introduce mobile number portability is one that favours the operator who provides better quality voice/data services along with attractive tariff plans.

Since the Indian mobile phone market is predominantly a pre-paid one, it has to be recognised that the dynamics of number portability will also be different from that seen in other major mobile phone markets across the globe. Pre-paid customers tend to be less fussy about retaining their phone numbers as compared to the post-paid segment. Also, mobile number portability comes with a small fee which will keep away the ultra-price conscious pre-paid customer. Besides, there will be a few days of blackout as customers shift from one operator to another.

There can be an initial spurt of activity among subscribers in the first phase leading to a churn of sorts in the first few months. This trend will then taper off to near normalcy, or a small percentage of the total high-end or post-paid subscribers. This has been the international trend too. In an intensely competitive market such as India, of course, even that small percentage churn becomes attractive and several of the new players will have planned for this in their business plans.

However, we know that it is not mobile number portability that will give us the required numbers, but the quality of our voice services and tariffs offerings that will do the trick. Number portability is a move which gives the subscribers a choice, and thus empowers them. The choice that this gives to customers, along with the increased competition that has occurred with new access providers coming in, will ensure that all operators will have to deliver good value to customers, both in terms of the quality of services as well as in terms of the tariff plans offered.

As a new operator, we are committed to quality and confident that it is the quality of services that will determine which access provider the subscriber finally settles for