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Our Bureau

Mumbai , June 14

Reliance Communications, responding to the Department of Telecommunications' indications that it may move out of CDMA technology or that it might have to vacate CDMA spectrum, said it is merely looking for the best competitive services for its customers.

"We are committed to pursue the world's leading mobile technologies, whether CDMA or GSM, to provide the best and most competitive services to our many million customers," said a spokesperson.

According to industry sources, Reliance may not discontinue its existing CDMA services to move over entirely to GSM; but as things stand, it is currently cheaper for the company to expand on the GSM front, using its existing infrastructure.

Since Reliance Communications already has the infrastructure, an overlay of GSM equipment will cost around $40 per digital exchange line (DEL) as compared to $50 per DEL for CDMA equipment, which is the best bargain that they can drive given their ability to get good deals on large orders (otherwise costs could go up to $70 per DEL).

Additionally, the burden of distributing handsets is reduced. Reliance currently ships handsets to different places across the country. Couriering GSM SIM cards instead would cost much less, as GSM customers do not need their service provider to supply them handsets, sources said. They said it was clear that Reliance is also pushing to drive a better bargain with both CDMA equipment providers as well as Qualcomm, the CDMA technology provider.

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