CALCUTTA, May 22: Modi Telstra will take a decision by June-end on whether to go in for a second cellular phone licence in West Bengal or enter into a joint roaming facility with Reliance Telecom.

Modi Telstra CEO Simon Beresford Wylie told The Financial Express that ``the ball is in Modi Telstra's court. We are in serious talks with the Reliance and a decision on whether we enter into a joint roaming facility with them or go in for a second licence in the state will be decided by the end of June.''

Reliance Telecom, the telecommunications arm of the Reliance group, has a joint roaming pact with Usha Martin Telekom Ltd, the other cellphone operator in Calcutta. But Beresford said this will have no bearing on Modi Telstra's decision. If Modi Telstra goes solo, it will have to invest additional funds in the state. However, Wylie was not willing to divulge the estimates that they are looking at. ``We are in the process of negotiating and arriving at our estimates,'' he said.

Meanwhile Modi Telstra is going to ``significantly and aggressively step up'' its customer-oriented value-added services. And towards this, the company will invest up to Rs 20 crore by July this year, Wylie added.

About Rs 2.5 crore of the investment would go towards the installation of an intelligent information services platform including an intelligent voice mail system. And the first of these services, the Helpline, will be launched in Calcutta on Wednesday.

On punching 99911, the Helpline will give the Modi Telstra user the emergency numbers of the police, ambulance, fire brigade, pharmaceutical stores and the like.

Apart from merely giving the information, the service will identify the location of the caller and then inform him/her on the nearest available location of the service that the customer was looking for.

Following close on the heels of Helpline will be other services like the Citiline, Traveline and Sportsline, among others. ``These services were introduced in keeping with the requirements of customers.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.