S Tel launches mobile services in Himachal

S Tel mobile phone services were launched in Himachal Pradesh today, the first circle in which S Tel has started its operations in India. S Tel is a joint venture company of India’s Siva Group (formerly Sterling Infotech) and Bahrain’s Batelco. S Tel now plans to roll out its wireless operations in several other circles in India.

S Tel is a GSM mobile operator, holding telecom service licence and spectrum for 6 telecom circles. S Tel tariffs in Himachal Pradesh are the same as the industry standard these days: one paisa per second. S Tel also announced that for one minute of mobile call, the S Tel customer will be charged just 50 paise. The one paisa per second tariff applies to all local and national calls, the company said.

S Tel will soon roll out operations in Odisha (Orissa), Bihar & Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Assam and North East. The company said that its late entry into the highly competitive mobile market in India is an advantage, since it has come in with the latest mobile technologies. S Tel said that all of its telecom towers are EDGE enabled, which is more technologically advanced than GPRS.

Apart from the 1 paisa per second tariff, S Tel has also offered special tariff vouchers to attract more customers. There are three special tariff vouchers of Rs. 9, Rs. 149 and Rs. 1499. The S Tel users gets 60 minutes of free outgoing local calls to any network per day for a day, month and year respectively, the company said in a press release.

P Swaminathan, Director, S Tel and President, Siva Group, said that goal of Siva Group is to make advanced technologies work for the benefit of the common man. “The six circles that S Tel is entering in, is where the next wave of growth lies. We are excited to be playing our part in the growth of this critical sector contributing to India’s economic growth and competitiveness,” he added.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Shamik Das, Chief Executive Officer, S Tel said, “The six growth circles with a population of 226 million people provide us an opportunity to deliver a tailored, relevant value proposition. Launch of S Tel’s services will enhance mobile penetration in these circles and rapidly bring benefits of technology and communication networks to people in these regions.

S Tel also hopes to be among the top five telecom players in India by year 2015. India’s mobile telephony market is in the midst of a fierce tariff war, with rivals undercutting each other with lower and lower tariffs. S Tel joins the price war waged by other GSM operators like Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, Aircel and Idea Cellular.