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S.P. Shukla, president of Reliance Communications' (RCOM) personal business segment, is intent on further consolidating the company's position in the wireless market. In an interview with tele.net, he talks about RCOM's future thrust areas, key challenges and GSM plans. Excerpts from the interview...

In terms of achievement, Reliance has come a long way. What is next on the horizon for the company?

The immediate task for us currently is to complete a quick rollout in the deepest interiors of India. As you are aware, we are the fastest growing network in the country. Our aim, therefore, is to quickly enhance our reach from 15,000 to 22,500 towns. Along with taking our network to those towns, our challenge would be to ensure that we have a customer service and sales infrastructure in place, so that the customer can make use of our services fully supported with after-sales services. We have to concurrently ensure that we have a profitable and viable business case, as serving the rural parts of the country has different parameters than serving the metros or big cities.

What is the single biggest challenge faced by RCOM today?

The challenges faced by us are similar to what other operators also encounter in the telecom sector. The challenge on the infrastructure front is getting tower sites and electricity connections in the rural areas. And even then, there may be electricity only for a few hours during the day, so we have to rely on generator sets. Taking fibre to the remote areas for connecting base transceiver stations between cities is a major part of network rollout.

On the business front, in terms of customer care, sales and marketing, etc., the task that remains is recruiting quality manpower in those areas. Training them in the softer aspects of customer service and effective management of sales and distribution is important since the deeper one goes into the interiors, the more difficult it is to supervise directly. It is therefore important to train manpower in all these aspects so that they can independently handle operations in a professional manner.

What are the company's GSM plans?

We have already announced that it takes about 12 months from the time one gets spectrum for a complete rollout. We are working hard at it. As you are aware, we already have infrastructure with towers, generators, etc. in place for our CDMA service. We will be putting GSM electronics in place at a fast pace, for which Reliance is known.

How does the company face competition in both segments –­ GSM and CDMA?

We already offer GSM services in eight circles, which cover one-third of the country's geography as well as one third of the country's population. So, in that sense, we are not exactly new to GSM. I will answer your question in two parts. First, in broad terms, I can tell you that Reliance has always stood for complete reliability of service with customer-friendly value plans which expand the market. Both these planks along with India's No.1 network will be the key elements of our strategy in both voice and data services.

Second, all strategies need to be fine-tuned at the time of the launch since the market situation is never static and keeps changing. So, the final touches will be given closer to the time of launch of GSM service.

What is RCOM's strength and what would you say is its weakness?

First, our strong project execution skills are legendary. We have achieved the fastest rollout of CDMA and similarly, we will achieve the fastest rollout of GSM. Second, our speed-to-market is something even consumer product companies now envy. We also have the ability to take quick decisions and implement them flawlessly. Third, since our strength lies in our very committed manpower, we will be able to derive the benefit of achieving synergy between GSM and CDMA through leveraging our existing wireless organisation.

What growth trends do you foresee and which segments are likely to do better?

Non-voice services will start attaining a larger share of the revenue pie in the long term. Wireless will become a significant medium for accessing the internet. Customers will begin to use the mobile handset more extensively for money transactions and checking their credit card statements and bills. Reliance has been a pioneer in this field with the largest number of customers using datacapable handsets for various applications and services through the "Reliance Mobile World" platform.

What are the company's key thrust areas for the future?

In the wireless space, our thrust area will be launching GSM in a few months on a pan-Indian basis. We will further consolidate our position in the CDMA segment where we are already the market leader. We will look at synergising both services which will help us offer better services to the customer and reduce the cost to serve.

Finally, how would you rate the Indian telecom market in terms of the business opportunities it offers?

The Indian telecom market remains absolutely superlative in terms of growth. It will remain one of the fastest growing markets anywhere in the world and we still have a long way to go. In a country with a vast population like ours, mobile penetration has not even reached 25 per cent. The opportunities thrown up by the current telecom landscape are just great.

Second, in a large market like India, different consumers are at different stages of product maturity. The segment of users that started using mobile handsets earlier (innovators/early adopters), is now moving from voice to value-added and data services. Just as the population is divided into various demographic segments, so are the mobile handset users. Here, the element of segmentation is based on when the consumer started using mobile services and what they have been using their handsets for.

As a result, people who first started using mobility services are now discovering new uses and applications of their mobile phones. They have become comfortable using mobile handsets for voice and have now started using the handset for connecting to the internet and for transactions such as booking of airline and train tickets. Once they become comfortable with the idea of buying or downloading ringtones on their handsets, they will also think about other services they can purchase using mobile phones. Mobile users are quick to learn and adapt, and in some time, the markets for both voice and non-voice services will percolate deeper and mature with nonvoice services gaining respectable share.

Third, as a company goes into the interiors of the country, there is a huge advantage in using wireless medium for internet connectivity. This will help bridge the divide between the urban and rural areas. RCOM is the biggest provider of wireless internet access in the country. We provide the largest number of wireless internet cards (data cards or USB modems), which can be put into a laptop, thereby facilitating access to the internet on the go.

Furthermore, many rural areas also have difficulty in accessing the internet through fixed line. There are people with desktops in small towns or villages where the internet connection may not have good speed or good connectivity. Such people may find it worthwhile to use our USB modem. We are the largest provider of this service in the country, with nearly 70 per cent market share.

On the same subject, there was recently some duty relief on data cards which we have completely passed on to the customer. We have brought down the prices of our wireless internet cards to below Rs 2,500. This product can be added to either the desktop or the laptop, depending on whether the user is looking for mobility or just using the internet. The customer can make use of internet on the go and does not need to wait for a connection. The market thus offers integrated companies like ours a fantastic opportunity in telecom sector. India will remain a growth market for many years and we will all be working towards achieving the targets laid down in the National Telecom Policy. We must aim to be on par with the best telecom infrastructure in the world. Once the infrastructure is in place, all the different sectors of the economy will benefit from it.

There was a UN report that every dollar invested in telecom infrastructure leads to a growth in GDP of $6. With telecom infrastructure improving in the developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa, it is seen that improved access to telephony has made it possible to improve the speed of transactions and increase productivity. I think in India, we are already witnessing the benefits offered by an improved telecom infrastructure over the past few years. RCOM has contributed significantly to this. In fact, our launch of mobile services led to a drop in prices in the mobility space, which made mobile telephony affordable. This period was concurrently marked by rapid GDP growth of the country. To some extent, cause and effect are interdependent. One cause becomes the effect of another and vice versa. So, both GDP growth and telecom infrastructure feed on one another and lead to simultaneous growth of the economy including the telecom sector.