BHUBANESWAR: Uninor launched its services in Orissa today, completing what it calls the Blue Arc - the GSM service provider is present seamlessly across nine states in south, east and north India now - in style.
The Orissa launch meant Uninor, a joint venture between infrastructure major Unitech and telecom giant Telenor, is now present in eight circles. Uninor has licence for 22 circles and already acquired spectrum for 21 of them.
On December 3, it launched its service in seven circles. Orissa apart, it is present in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
With over 2.25 lakh points of sale across the country, Uninor has achieved a network of 50 distributors and 14,000 sale points in Orissa on day one.
It made easily one of the biggest launches in recent times but Uninor is aware of the stiff competition and is ready to take the bull by its horns.
``The market is crowded but we have created the telecom of the next decade,’’ Executive vice-president (Corporate Affairs), Uninor, Rajiv Bawa told a media conference here.
Uninor has outsourced its IT services to Wipro, while passive infrastructure such as towers and installation have been outsourced to expert agencies too.
Bawa said the model of outsourcing is such that the company has managed to create a cost-efficient structure so that the saving can be transferred to customers and help the company achieve its targets in the long run.
Executive vice-president, Orissa, Akash Das said Uninor, as a long-term player, has positioned itself in such a manner that its proposition to customers will go beyond pricing. The telecom company has partenered with Genpact, Sparsh and Aegis.
``While we will certainly be competitive on delivering value for money, we believe competition must not only be on pricing. Our long-term focus will be on quality,’’ he said. Clearly, Uninor is taking on rivals like Docomo on the per second call plans by offering simplified options.