Virgin Mobile has launched GSM services in five circles in south India – Chennai, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka – in South India. Calls within the circles will be charged at the rate of 20 paise for STD.

The call charges will be 40 paise per minute for local and 50 paise per minute for STD calls to other circles. Virgin Mobile’s GSM services come in three attractive offers viz vMingle Service, vGenie Service and vBelong Service.

In a related development Virgin Mobile has signed up Rocket Singh aka Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D’Souza as its brand ambassadors. The company is known for its whacky advertising, the telecom operator will feature the duo mainly in television commercials.

Virgin is already offering services using CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology through Tata since 2008.

Virgin did not disclose the number of CDMA subscribers it has in the country.

Tata, a CDMA player, started last year also offering services on the GSM standard under the Tata DoCoMo brand, to take advantage of the booming GSM market. NTT DoCoMo is a key shareholder in Tata Teleservices.