Another reason for Indians to be proud of; India’s largest private telecom company, Bharti Airtel has crossed the 75 million customer mark to become the fourth largest in-country mobile operator in the world.

The subscriber base includes customers from all business units of Airtel–mobile services, telemedia services and enterprises services. The mobile services division has a customer base of 72.07 million as of July, 2008.

Bharti Airtel is now behind China Mobile, China Unicom and American AT&T in terms of subscriber base. China Mobile has 414.5 million customers as on June 2008 followed by China Unicom with 170.7 million subscriber base.

Our sleuth hiding in one of the Airtel offices has discovered something important which we all had been waiting for the past 2 weeks. In a short breath he spilled some juicy details on iPhone 3G pricing as well as on other things. The 8GB iPhone 3G will cost in a price bracket of Rs. 15,000 ($350) – Rs. 18,000 ($420) and 16GB will be close (mostly under) to Rs. 30,000 ($700). So let us please trash the previous pricing rumors. However, the contractual details are still unclear.

The iPhone 3G’s monthly rent will be under Rs. 1000 (~900). That’s expensive but worthy to give you one of the best browsing experience. Unlike normal Airtel users visiting Airtel Live!, iPhone users will have an exclusive portal. We just hope it’s not an optimized version of Airtel Live! though.

Lastly, on a marketing note, Airtel will pitch the 16GB more by luring people with some enticing offers. The 8GB does not get this benefit.

After giving some relief to the prepaid users with its Independence Day offer, Airtel turn themselves in to satisfy postpaid users. And this time it’s not plagiarised. The Super Value 499 plan is aimed at customers who have high local usage. The plan’s monthly rent is Rs. 499 in which the user gets a monthly free limit of 1000 local minutes to any mobile. And if these 1000 minutes still seem insufficient then the local calls to Airtel number will cost 30 paise/minute or 40 paise to any other mobile and Re. 1 to a local landline number.

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Airtel today announced their way of celebrating the 61st Independence anniversary. If you scream ‘copy cat’ like we did then don’t think yourself as insane because they are offering a modified version of recently announced recharge by Tata Indicom. Airtel’s prepaid recharge will only be available in Delhi and NCR region and will be available in a denomination of Rs. 1947.

So after recharging, a user will enjoy full talktime without being charged for processing or any other taxes and also enjoy STD at Re. 1 for a month. However, the STD activation can be done via SMS which can be done by sending 1947 to 170 (toll free).

mChek a service which allows users to pay bills online and also to recharge their low balances doesn’t seem to have caught up with the users. Now, to lure users to opt for this mode of payment and recharge, Airtel is providing some very cool offers. Here they are:

• For Postpaid Uers: Pay bills of over Rs.500 and get Rs.100 waived off your next payment.
• For Prepaid Users: Recharge yout number for Rs.255 and get talktime worth Rs.355

It is quite simple and straight. These offers are too good. But it seems that people are not so comfortable with using the online system of payment. Just as an update on the same, mChek has now started accepting Debit Card payments. The offer is available upto 14th of August.

We say: We think that the offer is quite cool and one must try a shot at it. We know of people who have used it once and have stuck to it. Try it out.

Good news Airtel users. If you were waiting for iPhone then the wait ends on August 22 to the nearest Airtel Relationship Center. The pricing and plan details are still a mystery but it will be unveiled in the coming days.

Ironically the iPhone page on Airtel hasn’t been updated yet.

With people calling more and bills getting heavier, there is always some plan which comes to the rescue. This one is for the Airtel users who have bills going off the roof. Here are the details:

• Monthly Rental: Rs.399
• CLIP cahrges: Rs.75
• Local calls to all phones: 60paise
• STD calls to all phones: Rs.1.5
• Local SMS: 60paise
• National SMS: Rs.1.5
• 1000 minutes of calling and 1000 SMS to Airtel free
• First 1000 minutes of STD to Airtel network only for Re.1

We say: This plan is very close, or a twin of the Vodafone 399+ Plan. The free stuff is only towards Airtel network, which is one bad aspect about the plan. This would be a definite hit if it weren’t restrictive. The CLIP charges adds to the monthly cost and this might be another limiter to its success. Overall, if you have calling and SMS to Airtel networks, this one is for you.

Most of us over here wouldn’t be aware of this postpaid plan by Airtel because it has not been publicly disclosed. The Good Value 199 Plan does not come under the category of official plans which are listed on their website nor it comes under the Corporate banner. It is in fact a REQUEST based plan. The good ol’ Red and White guys use this as their last resort to keep you under postpaid section or you can ask them yourself and they’ll do the needful. The plan details are:

• Monthly Rent: Rs. 199
• CLIP: Free
• Free Local Mins: 199 minutes
• Free Local SMS: 199
• Airtel 2 Airtel Local: Rs. 0.30/minute
• Airtel 2 Mobile Local: Rs. 0.50/minute
• Airtel 2 Landline Local: Re. 1/minute
• SMS: Rs. 0.50/SMS (all over India)
• National calls: Rs. 1.50/minute

We’ve heard of 299, 399 999. But this one is a bit different. This one is a 333 Plan by Airtel, with the number signifying the monthly rental you will have to shell out each month. Let’s have a look at the plan details:

• Monthly Rental: Rs.333
• Local calling to Airtel networks: 50paise
• Local calls to other networks: 75paise
• STD calls to all networks: Rs.1.5
• Local SMS: 50paise
• National SMS: Rs.1.5
• Free 111 local minutes to Airtel
• Free 111 Local minutes to all mobiles 
• Free 111 Local SMS

We say: It gives us great pleasure to see free calling and SMS to all networks being provided by Airtel. Though it doesn’t seem much, it would be beneficial when it comes to paying your bill. This one passes our test and gets a thumbs up, thanks to affordable calling and messaging rates.

Some anonymous source for TechTree have spilled the beans regarding the launch date and pricing for iPhone 3G in India. It may come as a shock for many people but the source reckons the phone to be priced around Rs. 12,000 range but only 8GB variant will be available. Vodafone will be the first player to get the phone here because of its global presence and has a 15 days advantage than Airtel.

> Model: Initially, the 8GB version only
> Price: Rs. 11,500 to Rs. 12,000 (note: U.S. price of the 8GB iPhone 3G is $199)
> Applications: App Store will be available
> App prices: Application prices may see a revision to suit Indian market
> 3G: No fixed date for 3G availability; expected sometime later this year
> GPS: Present on the Indian version as well

The news has definitely opened up a new discussion for everyone waiting for the mighty iPhone to come over here but we cannot trust it until we hear it from the horse’s mouth.

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