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DoT to Telcos - ‘Better follow KYC norms or be ready to shell out!’

The talk of Department of telecom penalizing the Telcos for not following KYC norms or verification process has reached a new acme.

According to a report in Business Line : DoT has decided that operators will have to pay a penalty of Rs 50,000 per subscriber if they have more than 20 per cent of their user base without proper identity documents.

At present, operators pay only Rs 1,000 for every unverified mobile subscriber.

This is seen as a bid to address concerns raised by security agencies, and to further tighten the mobile subscriber verification norms.

Graded penalty system:

The operators would be liable to pay out more if they have a higher number of unverified subscribers.

So If a Telco has such percentage of unverified subscribers in a particular circle:

5% :penalty Rs.1000/subscriber.

5-10% :penalty Rs.5000/subscriber.

10-20%:penalty Rs.20000/subscriber.

<20%:penalty Rs.50000/subscriber.

This would further be followed by random checks every month by DoT's vigilance officers to determine the extent of violation by the operators.

@hat does this mean to telcos:

In an environment where Indian telcos are adding more than 10 million subscribers a month this comes as a big jolt because these companies would eventually find it unmanageable to handle verification process for such a large numbe. Even if they go for outsourcing it would cost them very dearly and would definitely increase the cost of acquiring subscribers.

In the meantime it could come as a boon for many companies involved into verification processes and even for small BPO units because Telcos will definitely try to obey the new rules in order to avoid paying heavy penalties.

DoT seems to be doing the right thing by imposing hefty fines because these companies if they wanted could have obeyed the law by outsourcing verification process but they didn't do it as they feared losing a lot of subscribers if they go for verification as those customers may not even be holding valid papers to obtain mobile connection.

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Google Launches Book Search for Mobile & Voice search In Mumbai & Bangalore

Mobile is the next frontier and Google seems to understand that well. They have introduced 2 new services The Book Search and the Voice Search.

As far as Voice search is concerned, Google reveals that they really value speech recognition (and are always working on making it more efficient) and voice access to information in this recent blog post on the Google India blog. Last week they extended their Voice search service to Mumbai and Bangalore (which was erstwhile only in Hyderabad & Delhi) which will enable people to search for movie timings and local businesses by mentioning the service they're seeking and their location to 1-800-41-999-999, which is a toll free number.

Now obviously chances are that since this service is quite new and they're working on it, your voice might not always get recognised, in which case it'll redirect you to an operator (after 2 times). Once you figure out the info you want, you can either receive it via SMS or have it read out to you. The feature is currently in English, Hindi and Telugu.

The other feature which has been extended to the mobile domain is the Book Search. So all those public domain books can now be accessed through your mobile phone. That's the good news. The bad news is its only available for the iPhone and Android based phones for now. This service allows you to access over 1.5 millions books from your mobile, which are optimized to be viewed on the small screen. Hopefully, this feature gets extended to other phones as well.

Head to http://books.google.com/m to check it out.

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A Twitter Festival!? Are you on twitter yet?

Twitter is one of the fastest going social media platforms out there. They raised $20 million recently at a $250 million valuation!

And all this is without a concrete revenue model!

How big is Twitter in India you ask?
Well why don’t you search for ‘Dev D‘ on twitter!

There are nearly 6,000 conversations with the mention of Dev D on twitter right now. There might be a lot more conversations happening about your brand on twitter! You need to get on!

Well on 12 February 2009, 175+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals. The major mantra is to get Twitter communities together for an evening of fun and also to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

In India the twestival is happening in the following cities:

Bangalore
Chennai
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kolkata
Lucknow
Mumbai
Nizamabad
Pune

Be sure to check the respective sites for details.
If details are missing, you can find out whom to contact here.

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Tata Tele launches High Speed Net In Chennai.

Tata Tele launches high speed net access in Chennai, reportedly Photon Plus high-speed internet access service is 10 times faster than existing mobile wireless technology.Photon Plus service can be accessed using a router, for SMEs and business enterprises, configured with an in-built modem and Wi-Fi capabilities, and the USB modem, for individual users and the SOHO segment.

Available at Rs 3,500, customers can now simply plug in the USB Modem into the USB port of either their laptop or desktop PC and enjoy high-speed internet connectivity.For the business segment, the router is being made available at a refundable security deposit of Rs 6,999 and a one-time activation fee of Rs 1,000.

Tata Teleservices has launched CDMA services last november in Assam with an initial investment of Rs. 100 crore. To expand its national footprint, Tata Teleservices has invested over Rs.100 crore in the Assam circle, establishing a pan-India network with 20 circles.

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Paying with ItzCash cards for train bookings

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Cleartrip ties up with Itzcash - Alternative payment systems finding more takers.

Cleartrip recently tied up with Itz cash to provide customers with a wide variety of payment options. This is certainly inline with cleartrip policy of providing more payment options to their customers as they just a month ago started accepting debit cards and international cards which is said to have boosted their sales by 10% .

They currently provide transaction through netbank,credit cards,debit card and this tie up will give them a foothold in the upcoming payment systems of cash cards and might ignite the use of mobi payment services in future.

To know how to use itzcash on cleartrip:

Paying with ItzCash cards for flight bookings

Some alternative payment system available in India:

Itzcash:

It is one of the fastest growing cash card service in India.It was started by essel group and offers a variety of sites and services under its umbrella and also has tie-up with many Internet service providers.

Mcheck:

It is a mobile payment system and boast of 1 million users It recently tied up with airtel for a bigger maket visiblity.

Reliance-HDFC Mpay:

The tie up between reliance and hdfc bank allows customers with hdfc bank credit card to make payments through their reliance mobile phone.

Paymate:

This is also based on mobile payment system.It has a very stringent security in check because every transactions are verified by auto IVR call back.

NGpay:

Although this is not exactly a payment system but it allows transactions to take place on the cell phones through their proprietary software with the use of variety of payment systems.

Atomtech:

It provides two ways of transaction choice i.e one being based on java application for mobile and another through IVR.

Few other payment systems include Donecard and Icashcard.

Growth in use of cash card and mobi payment gateways could provide a big opportunity to modern day retailers as well as E-Commerce industry due to the low usages of credit card.

The future growth would definitely depend on transaction fees charged by these payment systems and the simplicity of use in their services.

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The Fake Blessings of The Dalai Lama on Twitter

The web and later the print media got very excited with reports that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has jumped the social media bandwagon with an official twitter account. And if the news reports confirming that the account was in fact a fake you would realize the impact the news had, with almost all the major publications reporting the bit.

So what exactly happened?

Reports started coming in that the Dalai Lama’s office has setup a Twitter profile over the weekend. Most centered around the news that the Dalai Lama’s Twitter feed — twitter.com/ohhdl — was launched on Saturday. OHHDL stands for the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And “Welcome to the official Twitter page of His Holiness the Dalai Lama — administered by The Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” was the first message by the team.

The news covered by a lot of high profile online publications and blogs, which perhaps pushed a lot active users to follow the account. In the two days that the account enjoyed the freedom of being considered real it got nearly 20,000 odd followers.

However, the Twitter guys perhaps out of the excitement of having a more customized profile rather than caution got in touch with the office of the Lama who in turn denied using the service. Yes, the account turned out to be fake. Acting swiftly and quickly (for what reason I don’t know) they deactivated the fake account, and the blogosphere went abuzz again crying hoax and fake everywhere.

Apparently the fake Lama is back claiming that he is fake and not part of the official setup of the office of Dalai Lama on the Twitter bio and still linking back to the official website of the Lama.

Why did both bit of news receive so many online content space and is that of any consequence?

Blogs, the flag bearers of social media need to promote their tribe and the growth of social media directly relates to their growth. Influential personalities joining social media helps them gather traditional buzz and help get on board newer breeds and flock on to the tribe, who in turn come back to these blogs to graze and debate. And hence, all kinds of press for anything that can go beyond the realms of debates will foster varied discussions and posts and debates. The more social medium talks the more other media talks about social media, and then social media talks about other media talking about the social medium. And the cycle continues thus. This post of course is one such as well.

The question is, given the response they got, will the real office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama consider joining Twitter?

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Quasar Gears Up To Go Global - Sets Up Delivery Hub

Quasar media recently posted a job opening requirement of 50 positions on WATJob. Even I was surprised by the same given that in this downturn where people seem to be firing left right and center how come a digital advertising agency seems to be hiring and hiring not 1 or 2 but 50 people! Well this news piece clears the air as it clearly states that SITG group (which is the promoter of Quasar Media) is looking to hire 50 people to set up a global delivery centre to service International clients.

Keep in mind that Quasar is now a WPP company so they are best positioned to have access to a global network of clientele among all the agencies currently present in the Indian market. Also given that digital media and marketing solutions can be delivered remotely this could be a move to build the first digital marketing outsourcing hub from India to service global brands.

Afaqs states that Quasar has no plans to open any offices outside of India. Now that might be challenging as local knowledge of culture and brands might be necessary to crack bigger and longterm deals with clients. It will be interesting to see how this foray into the international market works out for Quasar Media.

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