New Delhi - If ever the word Kiraanawalla was meant to mean something more than your neighborhood grocery store, IDEA has just redefined the word.

The single largest concern of the post-paid customer today is that he must pay his bill on time to avoid disconnection of his mobile service. The concern is more of when to go and pay the bill or how best to pay it. Time is almost always the single largest hurdle to timely bill payment. Keeping these considerations in mind, IDEA Cellular, India’s leading cellular service provider has introduced it’s WORLD FIRST innovation in the post paid segment through the effective use of the pre paid channel. Called Pay Easy, the service has been launched today by IDEA Cellular. IDEA is the only operator in the world to launch this service.

Vikram Mehmi, CEO, Idea Cellular Ltd, explains, “We have a large retail channel in place. We see immense benefit in extending this distribution network, for the purpose of bill paying, to our post paid customers using our flexi charge system.” He adds, “Pay Easy is simple, all the customer has to do is go to his neighborhood retailer and pay his bill amount. The retailer, using his flexi-charge system will alert the IDEA payment gateway of the payment. IDEA Cellular will then respond to the retailer and the customer through an SMS receipt that his bill has been paid.” Nothing could be simpler!

The service will be available across select retailers in its first phase and then be available across the entire retail channel. Pay Easy will be available at NO EXTRA COST to the customer. This service enables an IDEA customer to pay his bills anytime and anywhere, even while roaming within India or abroad. Earlier, customers had to deposit their payments at specified centers, with Pay Easy the payment points have increased over 50 fold from the current 1500 plus drop boxes across all our circles.

Pay Easy also enables IDEA customers two more options for easy post-paid bill payment.

• One is by paying through a bank ATM center with postpaid bill payment options, Banks will accept subscriber mobile No and payment amount for this transaction.
• Two is to transact the payment via SMS. The customer would first have to register with the bank for using this facility of paying postpaid bills via SMS. After a successful registration, the subscriber would then send an SMS request with the key word and payment amount.

• Flexi Retailer payment flow
• Postpaid subscriber walks into a retail outlet having Flexi-Charge service, and tells the retailer amount which they wish to pay for their post-paid bill and the mobile number for this payment is to be made
• Retailer selects "Post-Paid Bill Pay" option from this flexi-Charge STK enabled cell phone
• He enters the subscriber’s mobile number and amount and upon pressing OK, the application sends the request as an automatically generated SMS
• Subscriber receives a SMS back stating that his/her post-paid bill payment has been received, and should pay bill amount to the retailer
• Retailers get an SMS that his account has been debited and informs him of the amount he should collect from the subscriber
• Flexi amount for postpaid bill collection would be inclusive of Service tax - i.e. the amount credited against the subscriber's bill will be the same as that accepted by the retailer from the subscriber
• Our billing system would take care of service tax calculation along with posting.
• Post paid bill collection via Bank ATM
• Customer accesses Bank ATM, and selects postpaid bill payment option. This option is same as prepaid recharge option on ATM
• Request for "Postpaid Bill Payment" reaches the Bank switch
• The Bank switch debits the customer and sends the request for "Postpaid Bill Payment" to Euronet
• Euronet sends the "Postpaid Bill Payment" instruction to Mobile operator for Bill payment and gets the response from operator
• Euronet sends the response to the "Postpaid Bill Payment" request to Bank's switch
• Bank's switch sends appropriate message to ATM for displaying on the screen
• Post Paid Bill Collection via SMS
• Customer sends a SMS message to 147 with the Transaction Code, Bank code, Denomination, and Access code. (Ex. BP<space>SBI<space>500<space>1234) where BP is for post paid Bill payment, Bank is the code for Bank, the amount is Rs.500 and 1234 is the access code provided by Euronet as mentioned above.
• IDEA will validate the Mobile No. and forward this request to Euronet.
• Euronet upon identifying the customer belonging to Bank sends to the Bank switch for authorization and debiting the customer's account with specified amount.
• BANK switch sends a response back to Euronet, and Euronet would send this request to IDEA.
• IDEA credits the post paid account of Bank's customer
• IDEA also sends a confirmation SMS to the customer's mobile phone indicating the bill payment was successful

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 and was also the first to offer GPRS while roaming.

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.