Bharti Airtel sets off 3G services in Karnataka

Thanks to the consideration of DoT on video calling over 3G mobile network extended on January 13th 2011 until July 31st 2011 for demonstrating infrastructure capabilities to abide by security guidelines. Bharti Airtel rolls out 3G mobile services in India. Bharti Airtel has commercially launched 3G mobile services in Karnataka on January 24th. After BSNL, MTNL, TTSL and RCom now Bharti Airtel spins its 3G era and enthralls its 150 million mobile customers in India with high speed multimedia services. The operator will launch 3G services across 13 telecom circles in 40 cities by March 2011. The company has shelled out Rs.12,300 crore for 3G spectrum licenses in 13 circles out of 22 telecom circles in the auction held by government in 2009.

Apparently 3G has a greater impact on both telcos and subscribers. “The mature market is all set to reap positive benefits with the enhancement of value chain, perfect marketing mix and by building apt customer network. It is not about price wars but about technology optimization to pave the way for the voice to data revolution. Data usage will increase to a larger extent. Customers experience on voice will enhance. 3G will drive voice and non-voice component to heights.“ pointed out Atul Bindal, President, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel. "We expect 3G to have a significant impact on our data ARPUs (average revenue per user) as there is less competition plus the government has given licenses to a few players out of 14 operators.'' he added. Airtel aims to partner with other operators to offer the service to customers in 1,500 cities by March 2012.

Karnataka has set the stage as it is the largest circle by revenue market share, of around 46 per cent. And the region has pulled in one and half crore subscriber base across the country. 3G-HSPA (third generation, high speed packet access) network across 13 circles will be designed and deployed by three vendors — Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies.
Sanjay Kapoor, CEO - Bharti Airtel Ltd (India and South Asia) said, “It is indeed the start of a new era when 3G services in India roll out on airtel's network. World over 'Data traffic' on the back of high speed internet and use of social networking has already exceeded the 'Voice traffic'. India is ushering in the domain — though later than most of the world - but no doubt we will catch up at a much faster speed. 3G is much more than a technology migration - it is a transformational shift - and airtel's focus would be to bring to its customers an enriched user experience on the back of a world class delivery network."

Tariffs

Bharti Airtel's 3G mobile services caters to all key segments of data users — light or occasional users, medium users and heavy or regular users. Light users are being offered sachet packets, in which billing will be on a timed basis with a price range between Rs.9 and Rs.60. Medium users can choose monthly packages costing Rs.103 to Rs.750. Heavy users are offered monthly packages starting at Rs.675 for 1.25 gigabytes (GB) of usage, and can go up to Rs.2,000, rising at 10 paise per megabyte. Users will be able to download content at speeds up to 21 megabytes per second. Airtel 3G services provides customers to manage their 3G data usage alert and prevents bill shock with personalized and timely data usage alerts.

malinin@cybermedia.co.in