Chaudhary Group to partner with LifeCell for digital and telecom services

Chaudhary Group, the top business house of Nepal partners with a Turkish company Turkcell for the digital services. As known, Binod Chaudhary will also perform partnership between CG Telecom and Turkish LifeCell company for Telecommunication services. They will call digital service collaboration and Telecom Operator as CG Lifecell.

CG has signed the partnership with Turkcell at Mobile World Congress 2019, Barcelona. As per the tweet of CG’s Chairman Binod Chaudhary, Turkcell and CG will build the CG life cell operations soon. Honorable Minister for Communication and Information technology Mr. Gokul Baskota was also present during the signing.

LifeCell is a subsidiary and digital brand of Turkcell for Internet-based services including the Internet and other digital services. At first, CG will provide true and advanced digital services to Nepalese customers with a difference.

They also had the slogan of “Doing it together in Nepal” for CG LifeCell partnership. Mr. Binod Chaudhary believes this partnership has a vision of contributing to the digital transformation of Nepal. They aim to provide better and digitalized operator service for Nepali Citizens.

The global ceo of turkcell showing the hon’ble minister baskota of nepal the world of turkcell worldwide!! pic.twitter.com/eQLwWPW6Y7

— Binod Chaudhary (@BinodKChaudhary) February 26, 2019

According to Binod Chaudhary, “LifeCell Digital was the best partner that we could work with because of its broad experiences, wise strategy and impressive vision”.  With that scope, they will launch digital products first and then plan further to establish CG LifeCell a telecom operator in the future. He believes the cooperation will create a great success story.

Lifecell is providing following digital services.

• Mobile internet service.
• Music streaming
• Video, Sports and TV
• Storage
• Online magazine
• Social media pack
• Online payment

LifeCell Do 1440 Strategy

LifeCell has showcased its new approach to the telecom sector with their Do vision and 1440 strategy in MWC 2019. The strategy as such changes the trend of telecom industry by combining Telecom and OTT (Over the Top). The digitalization of Telecom operators will enable the interaction of customers with telcos for 1440 minutes a day. As per the average, customers interact with telcos for 32 minutes a day. But with the digital operator (DO) vision providing digital services having the best customer experience enables to be with customers for 1440 minutes a day.

CG LifeCell is also known to adopt DO 1440 strategy to grow high, once it’s services come into operation.

CG forays into telecom sector by buying 80 percent stake in a rural satellite-based Telecom company called STM.  Their telecommunication subsidiary CG Telecom had got the unified license on Jestha 14, 2074 from Cabinet led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda. CG telecom had ramped up their effort for technical and financial management required for the operation of Mobile service. But their operation could not start due to license and frequency approval from NTA (Nepal Telecommunication Authority).

Once, CG Telecom stopped the spectrum auction process with a petition. Where Supreme Court also instructed NTA not to bar CG telecom for the operation of their mobile service. That paved the way for CG telecom’s 4G mobile service in 2019 itself. But with series of Stay orders from SC, the residual spectrum auction has moved ahead now, averting their instant operation of 4G services.

4G only operator?

As per the current scenario, CG Telecom could not get spectrum in 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz (residual spectrum auction). Even if they get a license approved by NTA, their operating frequency bands will not be in those bands. NTA is mulling to do another round of spectrum auction in 700 MHz and 2600 MHz. Hence CG telecom is likely to get some spectrum in those bands. The current ecosystem does not have 2G, 3G in those spectrum band. So, CG Telecom (we do not know if it comes under that name) or CG LifeCell will be a 4G only telco. We can expect CG Telecom to be the telecom company while CG lifecell being the brand name.

Jio Model

Jio in India has a 4G only network with a wide range of digital OTT services. They also provided free data and internet services to Indian people for more than six months. People expect CG to bring Jio like Model or approach in Nepal to bring affordable internet and digital services. They also expect to bring down the internet prices heavily along with the free data and voice calls for six months.

Let’s see how the CG and Turkcell/LifeCell partnership unfold. Please comment on what do you expect of this partnership.