OMH SIMs give CDMA Services a Boost

Ajay Mathur, Senior Vice President and Head Consumer Marketing, Tata Teleservices Limited, the country’s fastest-growing dual-technology telecom service provider, said, “The OMH initiative is critical from a consumer point of view and this platform will give a tremendous boost to the high-end smartphone category with rich data downloads and video-streaming capabilities in India and competitive pricing. In a short span, we have seen around 15-20% growth from the open market initiative.”

Vikas Jain, Business Director, Micromax Informatics Limited, the leading Indian mobile handset manufacturer, said, “We will launch six more OMH handsets in next six months in the sub-Rs 6,500 price segment and these will include high-end multimedia and EVDO capabilities (E360 with high-speed internet access, E500 a full touch EVDO handset and a dual smart phone with a Android operating system).”

Atul Joshi, Chief Sales Officer, MTS India, the mobile telephony services brand of Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited (SSTL), said, “Open Market Handsets in the Indian market has provided a great platform for the CDMA operators. OMH handsets and EVDO enabled smart phones will change the profile of the CDMA technology operators in India. The aspirational class will be onward with CDMA blurring the gap between competition and CDMA players.

Deval Parikh, Chief Officer of Handsets, VAS and Procurement, Virgin Mobile, India’s first national youth focused mobile service brand, said, “For OMH, the biggest opportunity is in the handset segment in the price range of Rs 2,500-Rs 9,000, with a focus on the youth category. With OMH expanding as a global initiative, larger device volumes across geographies will play a critical role in lowering handset prices.”

OMH is an industry initiative led by CDMA Development Group (CDG) to enhance the CDMA ecosystem by offering a greater selection of devices through multiple distribution channels. The CDG is working with over 50 CDMA operators, device and R-UIM/SIM card manufacturers and distributors worldwide to bring more OMH devices to market and assist operators to configure their networks to support OMH.

OMH enables operator-specific network configuration, service provisioning and subscriber-identity data to be moved from the handset’s internal memory onto a next-generation OMH SIM card. By doing so, the handset becomes a generic device that can be sold on the “open market” and used by multiple operators, providing consumers a greater selection of CDMA devices and the flexibility to select the operator and mobile data services they desire. The open market model also improves device time-to-market, expands distribution channels, and reduces inventory risk for manufacturers and operators.