bharti-airtel

Govt. Issues Show-Cause Notices To TelCos For Under – Reporting Revenue: Demanding Its Slice Of The Pie?

by Paul Joseph February 2, 2012 Featured

India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has issued Show Cause Notices to India’s five private operators, including Bharti Airtel , Vodafone and Reliance Communications, for under reporting revenues. As per a special audit report conducted for the period between 2006 to 2008, gross discrepancies about the actual revenue generated & the one reported, were found. This was allegedly done in order to pay much lower license fees. This has resulted in a loss of over Rs. 1600 Crores (US$ 330 Million) that is now being sought from the TelCos. Communications Minister Mr. Sibal confirmed the same yesterday & his department has put forth a condition to deposit about 1000 Crores immediately & only after that the companies will get to meet the Minister face-to-face to explain their side of the story. Though this feels kind of a dictatorial attitude, the news, if true will have serious bearing for the Telcos who are already reeling under the pressure of the 2G Scam & 3G fiasco . How does the Under-Reporting work? Telecom Companies have multiple Licenses depending on the service they provide. Unified Access Service License (UASL), National Long Distance (NLD), International Long Distance (ILD) and Internet Service Provider ( ISP ). Now, the UASL (basic and mobile) telephony has a license fee in the range of 6 – 10 per cent whereas NLD, ILD, ISP and Internet Protocol has only 6%. Guess, Govt. wants to promote Internet Penetration & this serves as an incentive for the companies. However, all the accused service providers were showing more revenue in segment that carried lower license fee. This operators’ scope to arbitrage of shifting revenue from higher license fee to the lower side has caused a huge los to the exchequer claims DoT. Surprisingly, this complaint was reported way back in 2009. Is our government waking up too soon? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts To 3G Or Not 3G? Vodafone Wants to Triple Data Services Revenue Private Players Airtel & Vodafone Accused By The CBI In 2G Scam India Is Turning Out To Be An Expensive Affair For Vodafone; £2Bn Investment Still Not Paying Off Recap 2010 : The Great Telecom Saga(s)!

Tagged as: bharti-airtel, dot, kapil sibal, mobile, news, reliance, revenue, vodafone

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Softbank To Enter India Through Airtel

by Paul Joseph October 24, 2011 Featured

Bharti Enterprises & SoftBank Corp (Japan) have formally launched a 50:50 Joint venture Bharti Softbank Holdings Pvt. Ltd . Drawing on Bharti’s expertise with Mobile markets for India, SoftBank aims to make new inroads in the mobile internet ecosystems , with a focus on three key specific areas: Social Media , Gaming & e-Commerce . With over 865 Million [TRAI Aug 2011] mobile subscribers & counting, India’s Mobile Internet market is a hotbed for new avenues of revenue generation. The venture is headed by Atsushi Taira (CEO- BSB) who has vast experience with companies such as Coca-Cola, DoCoMo AOL, MySpace Japan and also Yahoo! Japan. In September 2010, he was appointed an as advisor to the CEO’s office and SVP of international business development at SoftBank Corporation to develop mobile Internet opportunities for Asian countries. Commenting on the JV, Kavin Bharti Mittal (inducted last year as an employee at Bharti Airtel’s Dutch subsidiary), BSB’s head of strategy & new product development said “I ndia, which has emerged as the second largest mobile market in the world, stands at the cusp of another revolution – mobile internet , We are delighted to partner with SoftBank whose vast experience in this area will help us build and invest in services for India ”. Third generation (3G) services have already been launched by all major telecom players, including Bharti Airtel . It seems with such a high saturation in the voice telephony, telecom companies are progressively focusing on data services to boost revenues. What are your views? Author: Alap Naik Desai Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: advertising, bharti-airtel, news, social-media, softbank, technology, web

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TRAI Issues Notice To Vodafone, Airtel For 3G Sharing; Is The Government Right In Doing So?

by Paul Joseph September 28, 2011 Featured

Stuck in a city where your Telecom Provider has no 3G License? Using MNP  and porting to a network which does own a license may now be your only option. For instance, Tata Docomo users in Mumbai are unlikely to every get 3G through bilateral sharing of 3G Spectrum between providers. Yesterday, the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) issued notices  to Vodafone  and Bharti Airtel . The reason for issuing a notice was that they were providing 3G Services to their customers in states where they did not own their own spectrum for offering 3G services. According to the TRAI, when a telecom operator won a license for 3G services in a state, they are allowed to offer 3G services there. It is an independent license. This means that they cannot offer 3G services in a state where they have no spectrum, no matter what. Bilateral Sharing of 3G Spectrum will not be allowed. The Vigilance or TERM Cell of the  Department of Telecommunications informed them that 3 operators are already doing so. “This will cause considerable monetary loss the Government, said one official. “If the three operators become pan-India 3G players through roaming agreements, the government will lose about Rs32,000 crore that it would have got as spectrum price. Moreover, if this is permitted, it will encourage formation of cartel in bidding for all future auction of spectrum,”  However, the 3 operators in question: Vodafone, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular do not seem to agree with the TRAI. Spokesmen of Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular insisted that they were in fact following the license terms and conditions and it was all as per the agreement. We think the Government is getting a bit too greedy and only thinking of their pockets. The 3G Spectrum was already sold at a ridiculously high rate, with 1000′s of Crores of Rupees entering the Government’s pockets. By not allowing operators to share spectrum, the only real loser is the average consumer. They are deprived of using 3G services and are forced to switch providers. What do you think? Is the Government right in doing so or are they just aiming for more revenue?

Tagged as: airtel, bharti-airtel, events, india, networking, technology, web, yahoo

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Airtel To Be The Title Sponsor For Indian Formula One Grand Prix

by Paul Joseph August 19, 2011 Featured

World’s fifth largest telecom firm Bharti Airtel on Thursday made an announcement that will send motor racing fans in India into a tizzy. They came forward as the title partner for Formula One’s (F1) India foray, thereby joining the likes of SingTel (Singapore) and Allianz Life (Korea) , who are currently credited with the highest class single seater auto racing in some Asian countries. This move comes about taking into consideration that nearly half of Indian population is under the median age of 25. Bharti Airtel is betting big on connecting with the youth through this association. The 80-year old Bernie Ecclestone, president and CEO of Formula One Management said he expects motor racing to pick up in 2-3 years time in India, though he does not see it matching the hype generated by ‘cricket’ any time soon. World over, F1 races are associated with economic activity running into millions of dollars. A billion US dollars are generated in Australia, Canada and the UK in the Formula One season. In Malaysia and Bahrain, the first F1 races saw around $ 300 million of economic activity being generated. As part of its association with Airtel Grand Prix of India, brand Airtel will leverage several exciting entitlements  that other prominent global brands associated with Formula One have enjoyed thus far. Formula One enthusiasts can look forward to a host of innovative offerings and initiatives by Airtel, which will be rolled out and announced in weeks to come. Bharti airtel CEO – India and South Asia Sanjay Kapoor and Formula One Group CEO Bernie Ecclestone together unveiled the official logo of the Airtel Grand Prix of India and flagged-off the Indian edition of F1 glory. Recently, Airtel gained market share in Indian Telecom Sector along with Vodafone and it also launched video online service along with BigFlix . Bharti had dropped out of Championship League Twenty20 as title sponsor. Do you think the move to associate them with F1 will provide the customer engagement that a brand like Airtel ideally expects?

Tagged as: author, bharti-airtel, Indian, management, opera, social-media, technology, web

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There Are 851.7 Million Mobile Phones In India, Reveals a Survey

by Paul Joseph August 10, 2011 Featured

Every day we read and hear from various sources on how India has a large base of mobile phone users. Well, the fact is proven now as according to a recent official data released on Monday, India with 1.2 billion people , now has 851.7 million mobile phone subscribers, with 11.41 million connections added in June itself. According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) , the wireless user base grew 1.36 percent , from 840.28 million in May. The data revealed that the broadband subscriber base grew 1.64 percent from 12.12 million in May to 12.32 million in June 2011. Therefore the total number of telephone subscriber base touched 885.99 million , registering a substantial growth of 1.29 percent. “ However, of the total 851.70 million wireless subscribers in March, only 594.77 million were active subscribers on the date of peak visitor location register (VLR). VLR is an impermanent database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR, hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time ,” —-IANS So what is causing such a mammoth rise in mobile phone usage in India? According to Parul Mehta, Senior Executive at Micromax the availability of cheap handsets and affordable calling plans has ensured that everyone owns a handset. “ Especially in smaller towns and rural areas where landlines is still scarce, mobile phones have come as a savior ”, she added. This could be true as since the divide of urban subscribers declined to 66 percent from 66.02 percent , the share of rural subscribers slightly increased from 33.98 percent to 34 percent, the report revealed. So who are the leading service providers? The growth in this category was initiated by telecom ruler Bharti Airtel , which added 2.12 million users to take its subscriber base to 169.19 million users. Reliance Communications followed next with an addition of 2.1 million new subscribers, taking its subscriber base to 143.27 million. Vodafone added 2.1 million subscribers to take its total number of customers to 141.5 million. Idea Cellular added 1.36 million subscribers, increasing its subscribers count to 95.1 million while Uninor added 9,43,924 million subscribers to have 26.33 million subscribers. Do you think figures will increase in the next couple of months or has the market for mobile phones will soon hit saturation point? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: author, bharti-airtel, facebook-shine, india, million-mobile, mobile, news, social-media, vodafone, wireless

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Airtel, Vodafone Gain Market Share In The Indian Telecom Sector

by Paul Joseph July 19, 2011 Featured

2011 has been an extremely eventful year in the Indian Telecom Sector. Two factors have come into play that have forced most operators to pull up their socks and innovate. Firstly, Mobile Number Portability or MNP has ensured that no provider can get away with exploitative plans because customers are free to switch without giving up their number. Secondly, the launch of 3G  in India had operators scrambling for key licenses to offer 3G services. They then had to successfully deploy the services over the areas. Then they had to sign agreements between themselves to share their 3G spectrum. The efforts of the operators can be seen in this month’s  Cellular Operators Association of India  (COAI) Report on the state of the Indian Telecom Sector  which can be downloaded from here . [Compilation Courtsey:  www.pluggd.in ] As you can see, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone  top the list with 28.26% and 23.63% Market Shares . Vodafone, however, grew at a faster rate, with an increase of 1.50% compared to Airtel’s increase of 1.27% . Idea Cellular seems to have an idea of what they are doing and they narrowly trump over state run BSNL for 3rd place . While every provider will have some hiccups, a general standard of superior network coverage, better plans and easy availability have ensured both Airtel and Vodafone have a comfortable lead, and no one seems close to catching up with them. What remains to be seen is if one of them becomes the obvious leader and grabs a significantly larger share of the pie than the other. With 598779674 customers up for grabs, it is anyone’s game! What do you think will happen in the coming months? Will we see increased duopoly or will any one provider reign over the others?

Tagged as: bharti-airtel, india, Indian, indian-telecom, mnp, mobile, news, over-the-areas, over-the-others, services

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IBM Clinches 10 Year IT Pact From Airtel In Africa

by Paul Joseph July 13, 2011 Featured

Bharti Aritel , world’s fifth largest telecom company has awarded a 10 year contract to IBM for providing IT solutions to its employees in 16 countries in Africa. This is the second 10 year contract from Bharti for IBM. Last year in September IBM was awarded $1.5 billion contract for managing its IT requirements across 16 countries in Africa. Incidentally, Bharti recently tied-up with Comviva to manage the telecom giants VAS operations across 16 countries in Africa. Outsourcing of major operational functions has been key to Bharti Airtel’s low-cost, high-volume business model that has helped it to build a subscriber base of over 140 million customers in India . Replicating this model in African operations will be the key to the profitability of Bharti’s loss-making African operations, which it bought from Kuwaiti telco Zain in a $10.7-billion deal . Bharti Airtel and IBM’s relationship began in 2004, when the telecom operator selected IBM to handle IT and applications for its entire network in India. The recent development follows a series of changes outlining Airtel’s intent to establish itself as a global brand. The company feels recent partnership with IBM will help it manage its operations effectively while focusing on customer service. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Bharti Ties Up With IBM In Africa Comviva Ties Up With Bharti Airtel To Manage VAS In Africa Airtel Continues To Reign The Indian Telecom Scene, Albeit Fall Of Profits Bharti Airtel Buys The African Story: Invests $600 million In Nigeria Bharti Secures Funds For Zain Acquisition

Tagged as: africa, airtel, bharti-airtel, bharti-secures, bharti-ties, comviva-ties, international, it solutions, tie ups

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AIIMS Starts E-Book Facility For Doctors And Students

by Paul Joseph June 28, 2011 Featured

AIIMS , the sixty nine year old finest health institute in the country just set a new example by starting an e-book facility for all resident doctors and students. The service will be accessible via Wi-Fi . Apparently, the concept was in discussion since last year. “ We have finally got an e-book facility. We have given the list of e-books and journals to the administration. The list was submitted in May 2010, and at last we got a few e-books for us ,” said Dr Debjyoti Karmakar, president, Resident Doctors Association (RDA), AIIMS. Incidentally, the latest buzz in market pertains to the possible entry of Amazon in India. Although, a comparatively low PC penetration of around 35% in Indian households and a mere 9% of the overall internet population form a relatively poor base towards forming a target segment for e-books in India , Amazon’s entry may rightfully change the current scenario. Similar inclination have been shown by Flipkart , a Bangalore based start-up with over 1 lakh books available in its store . Although the e-book facility is a great initiative on part of AIIMS but many students feel that the other foreign universities have access to all essential portals through which they can access medical and health information, probably what AIIMS needs at this stage is an adoption of the most innovative practices being adopted worldwide . For instance, the advent on mobile based health services like the one launched by Bharti Airtel is surely going to help future doctors and medical professionals. The most predominant rise in mobile app industry pertains to the inclination of companies towards the development of health specific mobile apps, for example, Sugar Free’s new mobile app which keeps a count of calories. Although AIIMS still lacks on this front but the start of an e-book facility is surely a step taken in the right direction. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Is Amazon Entering India? Flipkart Raises $20 Million From Tiger Global Bharti Airtel Announces 14 SMS-Based Health Packs UP Students To Get Their Own Web Pages Comviva Ties Up With Bharti Airtel To Manage VAS In Africa

Tagged as: amazon, amazon-entering, bharti-airtel, comviva-ties, flipkart, flipkart-raises, health, Indian, media, social, students, technology, tiger-global, web, wi-fi

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Bharti Airtel Announces 14 SMS-Based Health Packs

by Paul Joseph June 22, 2011 Featured

Health information are now available on our fingertips over via mobile phones. Simply by sending an SMS health related information could be easily discovered . Airtel Bharti have introduced it’s new 14 SMS- based health packs for all it’s customers. Currently, Airtel have 160 million subscribers in India. The SMS- content is powered by mDhil Health Info Service Pvt Ltd and Zyebo . Following are names of some SMS- based health packs offered by Bharti Airtel Categories Women Health Pack Female Teen Health Women Sexual Health New Mothers Health Men Health Pack Men Teen Health Disease Specific Packs Cardiac Care Diabetes Tuberculosis Dengue Fever Swine Flu Typhoid Blood Pressure Lifestyle Pack Stress Management Weight & Diet Beauty & Skin Care In the past we reported about ‘Wellness World ‘ which was launched by Uninor dedicated in providing health related information to all the subscribers of Uninor across different platform. These different platforms were IVR and SMS platform . Another health service called ‘Call a Doc’ was introduced by pinkWhale providing health related valuable information just like a health clinic. pinkwhale also performed other activities like collecting blood & urine samples for diagnostic test from home users as well as they also offer privacy for patients who did not intend to reveal their identity. Airtel mobile subscribers can SMS ‘Health’ to 54444 and select their category which is mentioned above. The subscription can cost anywhere around Rs. 30/- or Rs.49/- per month or Rs. 1/- per day . After Uninor and now Airtel we need to wait and watch how many other telecom company foray into giving out health information to their customers. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts ‘Wellness World’, A Health Tool For All Uninor Subscribers Uninor Garners More Than 25 Million Subscribers Comviva Ties Up With Bharti Airtel To Manage VAS In Africa Bharti Airtel With Zoomin.com Launches Airtel Photos Now Transfer Talk Time To Friends & Family Using Uninor

Tagged as: africa, airtel, bharti-airtel, comviva-ties, friends, health, health information, media, sms, sms platform, social, uninor-garners, wellness world, zyebo

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Comviva Ties Up With Bharti Airtel To Manage VAS In Africa

by Paul Joseph May 27, 2011 Featured

Back in the year 2009, Comviva ,provider of VAS services tied up with Nuance Communication released an app ‘ Song Search ‘ to provide better voice access that will allow greater intake  VAS content in India. Recently , Comviva have signed a five-year deal with Bharti Airtel to manage the telecom service operators VAS in Africa. Comviva is believed to manage all VAS nodes of Airtel across 16 operation centers in Africa. Formerly known as Bharti Telesoft , Bharti Group owns 75% stake in Comviva. Interestingly, Bharti Airtel is the first telecom service in Africa to manage services for VAS. Some of the customer services outsourced by Airtel Africa are call centers and back offices to companies like IBM , Tech Mahindra & Spanco . The company also selected IBM to manage it’s IT systems to power the mobile communication network across the continent. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Bharti Ties Up With IBM In Africa Airtel Continues To Reign The Indian Telecom Scene, Albeit Fall Of Profits Bharti Airtel Buys The African Story: Invests $600 million In Nigeria Bharti Secures Funds For Zain Acquisition Mobile Round-up: Bharti Airtel Africa Foray, Mobile Transactions 50K Limit; Tata Photon Prepaid Services

Tagged as: airtel, bharti, bharti telesoft, bharti-airtel, bharti-secures, communication, customer, india, indian-telecom, photon-prepaid, social, song search, vas content

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