Tata Teleservices is now making Web access available to every Indian, through an exclusive agreement with Opera Software. The agreement will see the commissioning of Opera Mini, the world's most popular mobile Web browser, on Brew–enabled handsets. The new-age browser is designed to provide mobile users a true Web experience at speed three-to-four times faster than GPRS, with access to all websites in regional languages—all this on a stylish multimedia device from Huawei at an affordable price of Rs 1999.
This is a milestone achievement for Opera and Tata Teleservices Ltd—being the first delivery of Opera Mini on a BREW-enabled handset, a move that marks Opera's entry into the Indian market. Tata Teleservices has empowered Indian mass market customer to access the Internet in local languages on mass market phones.
"We are bringing one the world's best Web browsing experiences to India with a unique local flavor. We believe that the Indian market will widely accept the product as it provides consumers with the information they wish on their mobile phones, in the language they understand. Tata Indicom's superior CDMA capabilities and continued innovation, together with Opera Mini's intuitive and unique capabilities, bring a complete and user-friendly browsing experience to our customers," said Pankaj Sethi, President-Value Added services Business Unit, Tata Teleservices Ltd. "This innovation is an important step in breaking the language barrier and extending the power of the Internet to everyone," he added.
The Huawei C2900i comes with a 'Go Active' connection that offers incoming facility for a year and free 1,000-minutes Tata-to-Tata calling at no extra cost. Additionally, Tata Indicom customers also have the option to select their own tariff plan from various consumer-friendly and attractive pricing options.
"India continues to be an important market for Opera and we are excited to partner with Tata Teleservices to bring the full Web to mobile users in India. Opera's belief in innovation is what differentiates us in the market today. The new Opera Mini on BREW solution clearly demonstrates our vision and commitment to providing an outstanding Web browsing experience to customers in India," said Jon von Tetzchner, Chief Executive Officer, Opera Software.
Opera Mini uses a remote proxy server to pre-process Web pages before sending them to mobile phones. Web content is compressed to reduce the size of data transfers, enabling faster browsing experience. Bringing the desktop experience to mobile phones, Opera Mini's Small Screen Rendering (SSR) reformats the Web page to fit inside the screen width, automatically eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling.
Alternatively, a new 'Desktop mode' gives users a wider view of the page. Opera Zoom functionality allows users to drive into the page offering dynamic navigation of the page content. Like other Opera browsers, Opera Mini is built for speed and has been clocked at more than double the speed of competing mobile browsers, thereby ensuring an ultimate Web browsing experience.
Mobile Web Access comes at easy prices—ranging from Rs 10 per day to Rs 99 for a month, with unlimited Internet access. The new browser will allow Tata Indicom customers' access to the full Web, enabling them to surf their favorite websites, enjoy mobile blogging and social networking—all on the go. Opera Mini will also support local language websites such as BBC Hindi, Dainik Bhaskar and others. In addition to bringing Web content to everyday mobile phones, Opera Mini includes bookmarks, secure access to e-mail and online banking.
Easy price plans provide for Unlimited Internet Access over a day, a week or a month.
