(23 October 2007 9:25 pm)

BANGALORE: Mobile Service provider Spice Telecom (Spice) announced the launch of The Spice eBerry (eBerry) suite in Bangalore today. eBerry extends the Push Mail technology through a regular GPRS enabled cell phone, according to Spice officials.

The service supports about 240 phones from major manufacturers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Windows Pocket PC. Efforts are on to enable compatibility with cell phones manufactured by other manufacturers such as Motorola, Spice officials said.

Presently, the eBerry service is available in two editions – Enterprise and Internet with tariffs starting from a monthly rental of Rs 249 in the case of prepaid customers and Base Plan I for postpaid customers to Rs 599 for the High end Plan III. Since the service is provided across a CS2 network, speeds are limited to about 22 kpbs. Spice is looking at Datacards and Edge connectivity next, with Mobile TV still a long way off, according to company sources.

Spice is present in two circles in India – Punjab and Karnataka. Spice Telecom is the brand name of Spice Communications (SCPL), the flagship company of MCorp Global. Telecom Malaysia holds a 39.2 per cent stake in SCPL.