Abhinav Lal

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Posted on 20-08-2010

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Nokia and Reliance Mobile (Reliance Communications’ GSM service) have entered a strategic partnership, and are looking to provide Indian customers with a host of service offerings, aimed at both the urban and rural sector. Calling it a required “collaboration in the ecosystem”, the two giants intend to make all phones smartphones, no matter their price, by helping to make their customers’ daily life smoother, and catering their mobile needs and wants, anywhere and anytime.

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According to D. Shivakumar, MD Nokia India, this first-of-its-kind partnership isn’t just between an operator and a manufacturer, is also a joint venture with applications and digital content from both Reliance and Nokia’s Ovi, content that's not just limited to the mobile staple, music. No plans of what that VAS content will be were mentioned though.

i) Ovi Life Tools (Nokia Life Tools) – A Nokia developed range of personalized subscription services that aim at satisfying the agricultural, entertainment, and educational needs of rural and urban customers, currently available in 11 languages - Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Punjabi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Oriya and English. The services do not require a GPRS-enabled device, or any other expensive specifications, and so can be accessed by all segments of the market. Life Tools was also recently launched in India in partnership with Tata DoCoMo,  Tata Teleservices' GSM service. The services are divided into two subscription packages

a. Agriculture service for Rs. 60/month
b. Educational and Entertainment service at Rs. 30/month. Pay-per-Use service is for Rs. 3/request.

Nokia India ’s V Ramnath, Director of Operator Channels, commented that though the Agriculture service was priced twice as much as the Entertainment and Education service, farmers they spoke to found it to be 1/10th of what they’d spend without it. The Agriculture service offers farmers personalized information about their three chosen crops, for which they shall receive daily live market rates, farming tips and weather updates. The data is aggregated by Nokia from various top providers.

ii) Ovi Music Unlimited (OMU) – Owners of Nokia OMU phones will be able to access their fair share of ‘mobile music’ from Ovi Music Store’s 4 million track database, using Reliance’s GPRS and Mobile Broadband services. They will also get the following incentives:

a. Discount of Rs. 1,000 on Reliance Netconnect Broadband USB modem, worth Rs. 2,999, when purchasing an Ovi Music Unlimited phone. This includes a 10GB free for the first month offer.
b. The ability to use both the Netconnect modem and GPRS connections to download OMU’s DRM protected music on to a variety of devices, from laptop to mobile phone.

iii) Mobile Broadband/GPRS – All Nokia GPRS customers on Reliance Mobile will get exclusive data packages, such as a mobile data bundle of 1.2GB for 6 months. Purchasers of Nokia 1800 users will enjoy another privilege – 1800 free on-net minutes for 6 months.

Both companies agreed that things in the Indian economy are rapidly changing, and these first 15 years of mobile voice telephony have been a big part of the country’s growth. With the market turning from a penetration market to a consumption and experience-driven one, the next ten years will see the growing needs for content and data connectivity being met by operators and manufacturers. 3G will be the first major step towards that goal of course, but for now, GPRS/EDGE will have to suffice for everyone, including Reliance and Nokia.

It is a partnership that could really go places, and consumers of Nokia phones and Reliance Mobile services only stand to gain by it. The often disappointing data speeds on Reliance’s Netconnect USB modems maybe the only sore point for now, with many of competitors already offering more reliable 3G data speeds in the market.