MUMBAI: Telecom service provider Hutch has announced the first of its kind phone back up service for its customers. Hutch customers subscribing to this service no longer have to worry about losing their contacts and phone numbers if they lose their mobile phone.

This service will not only help Hutch customers save critical phone book data, but also preserve SMS, MMS, ringtones, games, photos, videos, etc and also help switch phones seamlessly plus restore data on a new phone and a lot more.

Hutch customers can take their phone back up in two ways – through GPRS enabled phones as well as through SMS on non-GPRS phones. Hutch customers need to SMS BACKUP to 52585 and receive a service message to activate and use this service.

Once installed, the application automatically backs up data from the customer’s phone to a server and the customer can access this data with the help of a username/ password generated by the application. This application is currently supported by 84 different GPRS enabled handsets. Details of the handsets can be got by logging on to www.hutch.in.

The Hutch Phone Back-up service works on all other non-GPRS phones through SMS. The cost of subscribing to the phone back-up is Rs.50/- per month for GPRS users, while it is Rs.30/- per month for non-GPRS users, who access this service through SMS. GPRS users can create a back-up for their phone book as well as SMS, MMS, ringtones, games, photos and videos etc., whereas non-GPRS users can only back up their phone book data.

When the customer switches to a new phone, they will just have to send Restore to 52585 and all the information on their contact numbers will be sent to the new handset. Hutch customers can additionally restore applications, tones, wallpapers, photos, videos etc. from the web interface. To unsubscribe from the service, Hutch customers will need to send UNSUB Backup to 52585 and the data will be deleted after being preserved for seven days. 52585 will be a toll-free number and customers will not have to incur any cost to send messages to this number.

Hutch marketing director Harit Nagpal said, “The facility that Hutch customers can now save critical phone data despite losing their handsets is a first in the industry. This service will offer tremendous convenience to our customers in situations where their handsets get lost or damaged, leading to loss of phone numbers, contact details and other critical data."