Airtel Slashes its 3G Data Tariffs

In an unprecedented move, Airtel has slashed it 3G data tariffs across India. The new plans look much more economical than the predecessors and Airtel is also offering its Smartbytes solution on its 3G network now. Smartbytes solution allows users to buy additional data quota if they run out of the free quota in a bill period. The new 3G plans are as follows:

Smartbytes plans are available to postpaid customers in the following denominations:

A very good move by Airtel. The competition should follow suit.

[via Airtel.in]

Samsung Opens Pre Orders for Galaxy S III in India

Samsung has opened pre booking for its latest Galaxy phone, the S III in India via its online store samsungindiaestore.com. One has to pay INR 2000 to book a Galaxy S III. Samsung will send a coupon of the same amount to the customer which can be redeemed against the full payment of the phone when its launched for sale (the rumored date is 31-May-2012). Furthermore, users buying the phone within 3 days of the launch will also get a bluetooth headset worth INR 2900 free with the phone.

To book one for yourself, head over to samsungindiaestore.com now.

[via BGR.in]

Adobe, Croma & Vijay Sales launch online stores in India

Adobe India has launched its online store at shop.adobe.com/in where users can buy Adobe software. The titles are available as digital downloads and payments can me made in Indian currency. Most Adobe software are available as full copy or upgrades if you have a previous version. The Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6) is also available for pre order on the store. Adobe plans to launch sale of physical products (software on CD, DVD etc.) in the near future as downloads can be pretty heavy for many users in india owing to low internet speeds.

After about a year, Croma has finally launched its online store today at cromaretail.com. The Tata group backed electronics megastore chain aims to establish an online presence in the emerging Indian ecommerce market. However, a quick glance at the store reveals that most products are available at MRP or with little or no discounts. This is another example of companies assuming an ecommerce portal as merely another channel for selling items as opposed to looking at it as a potential channel for massive sales if they offer products at attractive prices.  Moreover, limited products are available on the site which will make excited new customers unhappy in my opinion. Hopefully things should improve going forward.

Popular electronics & home appliance retailer Vijay Sales has also launched it online store in India today at vijaysales.com. The store offers limited inventory just like croma. However, prices are competitive and Vijay Sales seems to be offering some discount on the MRP. Unfortunately, many of the items are out of stock on the store making this launch a total flop (WTF?). I am not sure why they felt the need to launch the store when they did not have enough stock. Perhaps they succumbed to peer pressure from Croma? Vijay Sales informed us in a tweet that their online store is live since January 2012. Very well. But it would be great if they can stock up their warehouses.

Reliance Infotel Plans to Install 100,000 Towers for 4G LTE Operations Across India

Now that the non compete agreement between the two Ambani brothers is terminated, Mukesh Ambani is planning to revolutionize wireless broadband in the same way he revolutionized mobile voice communication. His company, Reliance Infotel is planning to install 100,000 cell towers across India in the next 3 years to offer high speed 4G LTE wireless broadband services. Rumors say that the company plans to offer wireless broadband at a very sensible (as opposed to absurd) pricing of INR 10 per GB. This means that a 100GB plan with 5 – 6 times speed will cost you just INR 1000 which is just 1/5th of what it costs today.

Wireless broadband leverages the 4G LTE technology which offers 100 Mbps downloads and up to 40 Mbps uploads. Service providers around the world are upgrading their infrastructure in order to meet the growing demand of mobile internet fueled by the rapid popularity of smartphones and tablets. Infotel won the pan India license of wireless broadband in the telecom auctions and Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries purchased it soon after it was awarded the license. Many players in India including Airtel and Tikona are betting on 4G LTE. Tikona has even announced its plans to invest INR 1000 crores in its network and is planning to combine WiFi and LTE networks to offer wireless broadband.

Relance Infotel plans to start its services by 2012 end. They will rent towers from other firms while they install their own over a span of next 3 years.

[via BGR India]

The new iPad to be Launched in India on April 27, 2012 at a Starting Price of INR 30,500

The new iPad with the awesome retina display and quad core graphics will be available in India on April 27, 2012 at a starting price of INR 30,500 says Apple India’s website. It will be available at all apple authorized resellers. As per the press release, the prices of all the models will be as follows:

WiFi only:

16GB: INR 30,500

32GB: INR 36,500

64GB: INR 42,500

WiFi + 4G:

16GB: INR 38,900

32GB: INR 44,900

64GB: INR 50,900

The iPad 2 will be available at a lower price of INR 24,500 for 16GB WiFi only model and INR 32,900 for 16GB WiFi + 3G model. Following the trend worldwide, the 32GB and 64GB models of the iPad 2 will be discontinued.

[via Apple PR & BGR India]

Flipkart’s flyte MP3 App is Now Available for Android

As part of their long term digital store strategy, Flipkart has launched their flyte MP3 app for android phones. Users can now buy & download music from flyte directly on their android devices without the need of a computer.

The one click (tap?) purchase process will leverage Flipkart wallet to make quick payments and also bypass the need for the user to go through the secure payment process every time one purchases a song/album. This means that one will need to have sufficient balance in the flipkart wallet before purchasing any music from the app.

Once purchased, the tracks can be downloaded and stored on the device for offline playback. Note that the downloads on the mobile device will also consume the maximum download quota of 4 per track. So, it will probably a good idea to transfer the music from your device to your computer later, instead of download it there again. This can work on Android, however, it will be a challenge for iOS devices as there is no officially supported feature to transfer music from an iOS device to a computer.

Sonner or later, flipkart should try and convince the studios to let go of the stupid quota rule. The most successful music store in the world, iTunes, also does not have any such rule. When I have purchased a song, I should be able to download it as many times as I want. It will be interesting to see how flipkart tackles this issue on iOS.

Siri Speaking in Hindi!

Siri supports a few languages right now and Apple is working on new ones. However, @kunalkaul123 has made Siri speak Hindi on his iPhone using a proxy server. Kunal is forwarding the Siri requests to his Google API server for translation. Here is a video of the hack in action:

Pretty cool eh? It would be great if Apple adds Hindi support for Siri. It would be an awesome way to sell iPhones in india.

[via 9to5mac]

Airtel Launched its 4G Network in Kolkata, offers super absurd plans

As rumored last month, Airtel has launched its 4G LTE network in Kolkata today. The high speed 4G LTE network should theoretically offer download speed up to 100Mbps and upload speed of 40Mbps. And as expected (given its history), Airtel is offering super absurd plans for using the service. here are the plans currently available:

Only Airtel can come up with such absurd plans. I am not sure why anyone would want to subscribe to these plans given that the FUP will be consumed within a week (max) at 4G speed. In my opinion, people are satisfied with 3G speed for browsing, so, 4G ISPs should focus their plans on uses other than browsing like HD video streaming, online gaming, and downloads. As a matter of fact, most of Airtel’s marketing focuses on these uses. However, with the above FUP quota limitations, none of these plans are good enough for a month’s usage of such services. To add insult to injury, Airtel CEO Sanjay Kapoor recommends moving to fixed line connections if you need more data. WTF? Give me plans with these speeds and sensible FUP limits and I will be the first one to come on board. I am not sure if he checked, but it is really difficult to even subscribe to 4Mbps plans on Airtel’s fixed line network now a days.

What is really needed in this arena is some tough competition (are you listening Reliance Infotel, Qualcomm & Hayai?). That should bring Airtel back to its senses.

In case any of you still want to get any of these plans, hop on to airtel.in/4G to subscribe. The plans are only available in Kolkata as of now, although Airtel says that the service will soon be launched in Bengaluru.

As far as devices go, Airtel has a USB 2.0 stick and an indoor wireless gateway router to access the 4G services.

Facebook Acquires Instagram for $1 billion

The popular photo sharing service Instagram has been acquired by Facebook for $1 billion, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed in a post on his Facebook timeline. The acquisition isn’t as much a surprise as the valuation, considering Instagram started from scratch and has just 13 employees in total, all of whom will be joining the Facebook team (in addition to becoming millionaires). The acquisition happened after a few days of Instragram releasing its android app and being valued at $500 million.

Zuckerberg also confirmed that Instagram will operate independently and that it will continue to support connectivity with services other than Facebook.

Instagram has 27 million users on iOS and grabbed 1 million users on android within 24 hours of launching on the platform. Both Google and Facebook has been trying to seal this deal for the last year and a half, but it looks like Instagram needed at least a billion reasons to get on board. In case you have not tried Instagram yet, you totally should.

TRAI Working on Regulating Advertisements on TV Channels in India

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is working on an initiative to regulate advertisements shown on TV channels in India. TRAI is said to be working on a consultation paper to devise new regulations which will set the new guidelines for advertisements on Indian television. The action has been taken up based on complaints & feedback received from subscribers about the increased duration and distracting formats of advertisements in India.

TRAI is specifically looking into the following areas:

• Setting different maximum limits for advertisements on paid and free channels.
• Scheduling advertisements only during valid breaks in sporting event telecasts.
• Defining reasonable gaps between consecutive advertisement breaks during telecast of movies and other shows.
• No more part screen advertisements (only full screen advertisements will be permitted).
• Defining reasonable screen area for news channels to run scrolls & tickers.
• Defining reasonable audio levels of advertisements to match that of the programs.

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