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ShareMumbai: Reliance Communications (RCom) has given Rs800 crore contract to eight technology providers, including the US-based Tekelec and HP, to roll out its mobile number portability (MNP) project.
The other firms include Huawei, ZTE, Lucent, Ericsson and RTS. MNP allows subscribers to retain their mobile numbers while switching operators and the regime is to be ushered in the country next year.
The California-based HP will provide RCom the necessary gateway infrastructure for MNP implementation while Tekelec will provide network intelligence and signalling solution.
RCom's MNP implementation will cover its entire network including 24,000 towns and over 6,00,000 villages. In a separate development, RCom said it is likely to join the per-second tariff war between mobile operators to grab more subscribers.
"Per-second billing is an option that we have evaluated internally. While 'Simply Reliance' is delivering positive traction for us, we are keeping all our options open," Satish Seth, group MD, said on an analyst conference call y. Seth said the launch of services many operators over the past few months across the country will lead to consolidation in the next two years. "This has led to heightened competitive activity and build-up of over-supply in the industry. In the near term such competitive activity will only increase and the overhang of these developments will accelerate the process of industry consolidation in the next 18-24 months", Seth said.
