New Delhi, April 17 (Inditop) State-owned telecom operator Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) Friday said it has postponed the launch of its third generation (3G) mobile services, Jadoo, in Mumbai to May.
The response to MTNL’s 3G services in Delhi has been lukewarm, forcing the company to delay the launch in Mumbai. Under the earlier plans, the Mumbai launch was scheduled for February.
MTNL now says it will get into aggressive marketing of its 3G services only after achieving satisfactory penetration.
“We will resort to aggressive marketing once we see good penetration of 3G services,” Kuldip Singh, MTNL’s director (technical), told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here.
Jadoo was launched in February in certain pockets in the national capital, with a capacity to support 150,000 subscribers. Compared to this, MTNL has only about 500 subscribers of its 3G network, Singh said.
Despite this, he said, MTNL planned to expand the 3G coverage network across Delhi over the next two to three months.
For activating Jadoo, subscribers need to pay Rs.500 plus taxes as activation charges and a monthly rental of Rs.599. A voice call on MTNL’s own network will cost 60 paise a minute, and those to other networks will cost Rs.1.
The domestic and international long distance (STD and ISD) call tariff will be as per the subscriber’s budget plan.
An MTNL-to-MTNL video call will cost Rs.1.80 per minute, while such calls to other networks will cost Rs.3. The voice STD call will cost Rs.3.75, and a voice ISD call will cost Rs.30.
