The Matrix Telecom group of Australia holds minority equity stakes in these firms which claim a total paging subscriber-base of about 1.23 lakh in circles where they operate. Easycall India will retain the controlling stake in the merged entity, though it may see some additional capital infusion in phases.

Confirming this, Easycall India group president and chief operating officer K Chandrasekaran told eFE that a detailed business plan about the merger is being worked out soon. "Since we have completed five-and-half-years of service in the country, the group will not face any problem related to the lock-in-period for the paging industry," he added.

The rationale behind the merger of paging firms is to bring down cost and avoid duplication of work in 25 cities. Since paging industry is witnessing some growth, the Easycall official thinks this is the right time to pump funds to expand its activities. Over the past few years, Easycall's total investment was to the tune of about Rs 100 crore.

Industry analysts say that this would be the first merger to take shape in the ailing paging industry. The merger, once it happens, will pave way for other overseas to review their decisions. The dismal performance of paging division had forced Hutchison Max Telecom Ltd, which is currently promoting the Orange mobile brand, to surrender its licence to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The merged entity will invest Rs 10 crore in each city to introduce two-way Easycall to merge its four paging firms into one entity paging services in a phased manner. "Initially, we will launch this service in Mumbai and New Delhi. However, the government is yet to frame guidelines on frequency issues," Chandrasekaran added.

Recently, Easycall diversified to set up call centres in the country to meet the growing need of corporate for help desk facility to serve its customers better. Under the name of EasyCall Teleservices, the call centre offers a gamut of services for the corporate clients including inbound call handling, outbound telecalling services and management consultancy for third party call centre.

"EasyCall's 25 cities are equipped with the latest EPABX's with an in-built ACD (automated call distribution) facility and sophisticated CTI (computer telephony interface). CTI integrates the EPABX with call management software to enable the calls to land on a predefined cluster of operators and simultaneously activate the subscribers' details," he said.