Airtel India
Airtel India is the second largest provider of mobile telephony and second largest provider of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription television services. The brand is operated by several subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel, with Bharti Hexacom and Bharti Telemedia providing broadband fixed line services and Bharti Infratel providing telecom passive infrastructure service such as telecom equipment and telecom towers. Bharti Airtel Limited is part of Bharti Enterprises and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal.
Mobile services
Airtel operates in all telecom circles of India.3G
On 18 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction was completed and Airtel paid the Government of India for spectrum in 13 circles, the most amount spent by an operator in that auction. Airtel won 3G licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, and Jammu & Kashmir. Airtel also operates 3G services in Maharashtra & Goa, Kolkata, Gujarat and Punjab circles through an agreement with Vodafone Idea. This gives Airtel a 3G presence in all 22 out of 22 circles in India. Airtel is fined by DoT 3.50 billion for not stopping offering 3G Services through Roaming Pacts outside its Licensed Zones in Seven Circles.On 20 September 2010, Bharti Airtel said that it had given contracts to Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. These vendors would plan, design, deploy and maintain 3G–HSPA networks in 13 telecom circles where the company had won 3G licences. While Airtel awarded network contracts for seven 3G circles to Ericsson India, NSN would manage networks in three circles. Chinese telecom equipment vendor Huawei Technologies was introduced as the third partner for three circles.
Airtel launched 3G services in Bangalore on 24 January 2011. On 27 January 2011, Airtel launched 3G in Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. On 27 July 2011, 3G services were launched in Kerala's 3 largest cities – Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram.
Airtel 3G services are available in 200 cities through its network and in 500 cities through intra-circle roaming arrangements with other operators. Airtel had about 5.4 million 3G customers of which 4 million are 3G data customers as of September 2012. Airtel has 3G licence in all 22 circles.
In October 2017, Bharti Airtel announced its acquisition of Tata DoCoMo having roughly 40 million subscribers.
In June 2019, Airtel closed their 3G network in Kolkata. In Kolkata users can only access 4G and 2G networks. In an event, Airtel confirmed that it will shut down their 3G network all over India and re-farm the spectrum towards 4G by the year 2020. Then onwards Airtel will provide only 2G and 4G connectivity in the country.
4G
On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access or 4G spectrum auction in India ended. Airtel paid for spectrum in 4 circles: Maharashtra and Goa, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata. The company was allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency band. Airtel's TD-LTE network is built and operated by ZTE in Kolkata and Punjab, Huawei in Karnataka, and Nokia Siemens Networks in Maharashtra and Goa. On 10 April 2012, Airtel launched 4G services through dongles and modems using TD-LTE technology in Kolkata, becoming the first company in India to offer 4G services. The Kolkata launch was followed by launches in Bangalore, Pune, and Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula. Airtel obtained 4G licences and spectrum in the telecom circles of Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Mumbai after acquiring Wireless Business Services Private Limited, a joint venture founded by Qualcomm, which had won BWA spectrum in those circles in the 4G spectrum auction.Airtel launched 4G services on mobile from February 2014. The first city to get the service was Bangalore. Airtel has started their 4G services in Karnal and Yamunanagar in Haryana on 16 June 2015. Airtel 4G trials has been started in Delhi from 18 June 2015. Airtel had 95,173,000 4G subscribers as of June 2019.
As of June 2019, Airtel provides 4G coverage in all India in 22 circles. Airtel extended its 4G network to 15 km off India's coastline, following a request by the Indian Navy. Airtel started its 4G in Andaman and Nicobar on 15 January 2019. Airtel covered 96% population in Rajasthan till March 2019. Airtel's network now covers approximately 98% of the population in these geographies.
VoLTE
On 3 November 2016, The Economic Times reported that Airtel had awarded a 402 crore contract to Nokia to implement Voice over Long-Term Evolution technology on the operator's network nationwide. Airtel had previously awarded a smaller contract to Nokia for trial of VoLTE technology in select circles in early 2016. Airtel subscribers would be able to place VoLTE calls in areas covered by LTE. If LTE was not available in the area, the call will fall back to 3G or 2G. Airtel is expected to launch VoLTE services in early 2017. Airtel was to completely launch its VoLTE services in India till the end of December 2018. VoLTE service available in all India.Network
Radio frequency summary
Airtel India owns spectrum in 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz and 2300 MHz bands across the country.| Telecom circle coverage | FD-LTE 850MHz Band 5 | E-GSM / FD-LTE 900MHz Band 8 | GSM / FD-LTE 1800MHz Band 3 | UMTS / FD-LTE 2100MHz Band 1 | TD-LTE 2300MHz Band 40 |
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| Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh | |||||
| Maharashtra & Goa | |||||
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| Uttar Pradesh |
Project Leap
On 30 November 2015, Airtel announced the launch of a network transformation programme called Project Leap. Under the programme, the company will invest 60,000 crores over the next 3 years to upgrade its network across India. Airtel will deploy over 160,000 base stations nationwide, and also expand its mobile broadband coverage to over 500,000 villages. Under Project Leap, Airtel will introduce several technologies such as small cells, carrier aggregation solutions, WiFi hotspots, and several different spectrum bands to improve network coverage in indoor areas. The company will also deploy more than 5,50,000 km of domestic and international fibre, and upgrade its legacy networks and base stations over the three-year period.Airtel Broadband will also benefit from Project Leap. The ISP's maximum offered speed will rise from 16 Mbit/s in 2016 to 50 Mbit/s when after the programme is implemented.
On 14 June 2016, Airtel launched the Open Network initiative under Project Leap. The Open Network service allows users to view Airtel's mobile network coverage and signal strength across India, in addition to network site deployment status. This was first launched on a trial basis in December 2015, before its official launch in June 2016.
In February 2016, Airtel deployed LTE Advanced carrier aggregation technology in Kerala. Carrier aggregation combines the capacities of TD-LTE and FD-LTE enabling better spectrum utilisation and efficiency. The network achieved data speeds of up to 135 Mbit/s.
Airtel Money
Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money in collaboration with Infosys and SmartTrust. The platform was launched on 5 April 2012, at Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore. Using Airtel Money, users can transfer money, pay bills and perform other financial transactions directly on the mobile phone. It has an all-India presence.iPhone
The iPhone 3G was rolled out in India in 2008 by Airtel. However, high prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as successful as the iPhone is in other markets of the world. Airtel introduced the iPhone 4 on 27 May 2011 and the iPhone 5 on 2 November 2012.Subscriber base
The Airtel wireless subscriber base according to Telecom Regulatory Authority of India as of 30 April 2020 is322.54 million wireless subscribers in India with 28.06% market share.