Reliance Infocomm, which launched its fixed wireless terminal services in 10 cities last month, is now set to launch fixed wireless phone services next week.

Though company officials did not divulge the subscriber base for FWT, industry sources said the response has been above expectation of the company because of cheap internet services being offered through this service in all ten circles.

A new subscriber has to wait for at least three days before getting an FWT connection in Ahmedabad.

"Reliance is offering internet services through FWT connections at a cheaper rate than internet service providers. The add on of free calls is an additional lure," said an industry expert.

Under the three FWT schemes, Reliance is offering internet at the rate of Rs 28 per hour during peak hours (between 6.30 am and 10.30 p.m.), while the rate comes down to Rs 12.60 per hour between 10.30 p.m. and 6.30 a.m.

"People are saving money as they do not need to pay for telephone charges while using the Net and if one even gets a dial-up connection at Rs 10 per hour, the user will end up paying around Rs 40-45 for one hour of surfing. Another thing is that most of the high-end Internet users prefer surfing late at night and the Reliance FWT connection offers one hour of night surfing only at Rs 12.60 and that too within the comfort of one's house," said the expert.

The company is offering this service in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi.

"We are now gearing up for FWP services which is expected to be launched by August 25 and already a demonstration of the handset and services have been conducted in some of the Reliance Web Worlds, the exclusive telecom stores of the company. But we have not started enrolling subscribers as the company is yet to announce the tariff structure which is expected by next Monday," said an executive of Reliance Infocomm in Ahmedabad.

He hinted that the entry-cost is being kept lower than that of Tata Teleservices, which already is operating in eight circles.

"Not only that, from the day one we will also offer SMS, call forwarding, call barring, CLIP, voice-mail and various other Value-Added Services to our FWP subscribers," said the executive.

Meanwhile, Tata Teleservices, which had earlier in July announced that it will offer SMS to its FWT and FWLT customers from August 1, is yet to commercially launch its SMS services.

"Under the starter scheme of Rs 500, a subscriber gets 450 free local calls of three minutes, while for the high-end users, Reliance has schemes like Rs 1,500 as monthly commitment fee, which will offer 1,750 free calls. But for the internet connection, I had to pay Rs 1,200 in addition to Rs 800 security deposit for the Internet cable to be attached with my computer and the phone set," said Shrenik Patel, a resident of Paldi, who is working as a stock broker.