Company Press-Release:
        IDEA Presents ‘Telecom Grandmasters Quiz 2005’

New Delhi - July 18, 2005: To take forward its endeavour of associating with challenging and mentally stimulating events, IDEA Cellular, the leading cellular operator of the country is presenting, for a second year in succession, the Telecom Grandmasters Quiz being organized by Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management at the Symbiosis Vishwabhavan Auditorium, Pune on August 5th 2005.
 
This is a one of its kind contest in the country, which sees students, and corporates pit their knowledge and skills against one another.  Five teams will make it to the finals rounds, comprising of three student teams and two corporate teams. The winners will walk away with prizes worth more than Rs.2 lakhs. This year the scope of participation has been further broadened with online tests being conducted at various Hughes Direct Way Services Centers across the country.

The preliminary rounds will be conducted on July 29th and July 30th across 16 cities in India besides Pune. Participants will be required to register themselves at the nearest Hughes Direct Way Service Centers in their city for the online elimination rounds starting from July 18th. The Service Center in-charge will assist them in registering and obtaining password to appear for the eliminations.  The online rounds will be conducted in New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Coimbatore, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur, Nashik, Trivandrum, Bhopal, Indore and Mohali at 11:00 am, 12:15 pm, 3:30 pm, 5:30 pm, and 6:45 pm, depending on the capacity of the Service Center.

Students and Corporates seeking to register for the contest can visit www.sitm.ac.in for more details.


About Idea Cellular:
As India’s leading GSM Mobile Services operator, IDEA Cellular has licenses to operate in 11 circles. With a customer base of over 5 million, IDEA Cellular has operations in New Delhi, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Uttranchal, Haryana, UP- West and Kerala. IDEA Cellular’s footprint currently covers approximately 45% of India’s population and over 50% of the potential telecom-market.

Customer Service and Innovation are the drivers of this Cellular Brand. With GPRS currently available on all its’ networks, for both pre and post paid customers, IDEA Cellular is the first company to demonstrate and commercially launch next generation EDGE technology (a 3G technology) for its Delhi circle.

As a leader in Value Added Services, Innovation is central to IDEA’s VAS Factory. It is the first cellular company to launch music messaging with ‘Cellular Jockey’, ‘Global SMS’ in over 540 networks across all technology platforms, a voice portal with ‘Say IDEA’. A frontrunner in introducing revolutionary tariff plans, offering maximum savings to its customers, IDEA Cellular has the distinction of offering the most customer friendly and competitive Pre Paid offerings, for the first time in India, with ‘Eco Talk’, ‘Flexi-charge’ and other segmented offerings. The most recent offering - ‘Lifetime Idea’ is the first and only loyalty program, for pre paid customers, introduced by a Cellular brand.

Idea has many milestones to its credit, mainly – scoring the highest percentage in Metros and Circle B & C in Customer Satisfaction and the highest percentage in Value Added Service and Overall Sales satisfaction as per the Voice and Data - Customer Satisfaction Survey in December 04. The largest M&A deal in India INC, through its acquisition of Escotel in 2004 and its Rs. 5000 crore financial closure, both being largest ever in the history of Indian telecom.

IDEA Cellular Ltd. is headquartered in Pune.