Norway’s Telenor Group alongwith its Indian partner Unitech Wireless today launched GSM services under the Uninor brand name in 7 circles of India namely Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, UP East, UP West and Bihar including Jharkhand.

Keeping in line with the ongoing competitive tariff trends in the country, Uninor is offering subscribers two tariff structures to choose from. Talkmore@29p offers local calls at 29 paise per minute and STD calls at 49 paise per minute with a call set up fee of 39 paise.

Another plan Callmore@29p offers local calls at 29 paise per minute and STD calls at 49 paise per minute. This plan comes with a daily rental of Rs.2.

Uninor’s logic is that its plans suit best when the user makes more than 4 calls a day and whose call duration on an average is around 100 seconds. The company says that the per second pricing does not suits each and every subscriber and may prove to be costly to some segment of the subscribers.

The company has set up a retail network comprising of 210,000 retail points including 1,000 exclusive distributors. The company says it is the largest retail network set up by any operator in India during the launch phase.

The marketing campaign revolves around the communication message ‘Ab mera number hai’ and is mainly targeted towards the youth segment.

Uninor claims its launch is the largest Greenfield GSM launch across the globe.

“With launch in 7 circles and roaming agreements in place for the rest, we have started our service in India on day one as a pan-Indian national operator-the first GSM service to have done so. This is a proud achievement of a committed and talented organization. While our launch today is indeed a milestone in longer journey to become a significant operator in India, we are delighted to have made such a strong start,” said Stein-Erik Vellan, MD, Unitech Wireless.

“The launch of Uninor mobile services marks a significant milestone for the Unitech Group-mobile services being a major diversification for the Group beyond the real estate. I am confident that our long term ambitions from the business will be realized. I have full faith in the Uninor team and will like to assure them of continued support from Unitech in whichever way required,” said Sanjay Chandra, MD, Unitech Ltd.