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Hughes ties with Navin Mail for voice messaging

BS Corporate Bureau

Hughes Tele.com India has tied up with the Sabeer Bhatia-promoted NavinMail Services (India) Pvt to launch voice messaging services in June 2002. The basic service provider will offer the service at Rs 6 a minute.

A Hughes customer can send voice message, just like SMS, to the US and Canada at a cost much lower than an international phone call and the service does not require an ISD connection. The communication becomes convenient across time zones.

Sabeer Bhatia, entrepreneur and co-chairman, Navin Communications Inc said, "Voice messaging becomes another communication platform by which subscribers of basic telephony can communicate other than real time calls. We do not intend to replace basic telephony but supplement it."

"Our strategy is to tie up with all telecom operators in the country so that it creates a platform for subscribers to use voice messages," Bhatia said.

Though this is the first partnership for NavinMail Services, the company has opened dialogue with other telecom operators to form a network of providers for voice messaging.

"Once it is successful in the US and Canada, we would like to enter the UK, which also has a large Indian community," he said.

Telivoice, which was launched more than 18 months back in India, however, could not increase its subscriber base.

Bhatia said that Telivoice could not expand as there was no direct billing relationship with its customer.

"There is no direct marketing relation with the customer. We thought of pre-paid cards but the distribution cost of them is prohibitively high".

George Varghese, president and chief executive officer, Hughes Tele.com said, "It is our constant endeavour to provide value-added services to our customers. Voice messages is part of this endeavour. We are the first basic telephony provider to offer such a service to our customers".

Varghese said that voice messages are expected to bridge the gap between e-mail and conventional voice telephony services.

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