First Aircel came up with a special Dialer Tunes card offering unlimited changes of dialer tunes. Now, Airtel is upto something similar and has brought in a special festive offer. No card, no recharge and no voucher, all Airtel users across India can now enjoy unlimited change of their Hello Tunes for the next one month. But be careful while using this service as the Hello Tune download is free but calling to choose your Hello Tune attracts a charge of Rs 3/min. Airtel subscribers can call 543211 to avail this offer.

When we talked about ‘Simply Reliance’ and IDEA ‘Diwali voucher’, we knew that the other big operators will soon follow and bring in similar tariff vouchers; here comes one from Airtel. Airtel’s new tariff voucher is called RC 62 and is focussed on reducing call rates for local and STD calls made across non-Airtel network.

This voucher is priced at Rs 62 and comes with an airtime of Rs 40 along with a validity of 180 days. This voucher will allow subscribers to make local and STD calls across Airtel network for 50 paise/min and across non-Airtel network for 60 paise/min. SMS and roaming tariffs will be standard. Although the voucher looks good, it suffers in front of RCom’s killer plan ‘Simply Reliance’.

In times when the global slowdown is gradually recovering, Bharti Airtel Ltd. expects to add 3 million subscribers every month. When asked the firm’s CEO Manoj Kohli, he says that their franchise Airtel is unaffected by rising competition. He added, “Bharti would not respond to rivals’ moves and has its own strategies. We are very clear; we will maintain, if not enhance, market leadership.”

So is Airtel not even affected by the ongoing price war and the entry of new players in the market? To this he responds that, “New players have nothing but tariffs to offer.” Sounds like a confident reply. We wish them All the Best.

At the IndiaOn conference held in New Delhi, Bharti Airtel CEO Manoj Kohli said they’re planning to launch their 3G service in October next year provided everything goes as planned.

“If everything goes well on time with regard to spectrum auction, by February or March we will have spectrum allocation. By next Diwali (2010), we will have commercial launch of 3G services in India.”

Government recently fixed the base price of the 3G spectrum at Rs. 3,500 crore and the auction is expected to be completed by November.

This information has just arrived and it’s good to see, there’s no stopping the Indian telecom sector. TRAI let loose the data for the month of July and we’ve got a subscriber reach of 441.66 million from 427.28 million in June. It’s a good increase of almost 3.36 percent.

Amongst the operators, Airtel took the crown for the most new customers – about 2.8m subscribers while Reliance came in second for almost 2.4m and Vodafone with 2.23m subscribers.

Here it is fellas. As expected, HTC and Airtel have announced Magic, India’s first widely awaited Android phone. You know, I am excited about its arrival but on the other hand, somewhat sad too because of its price. Airtel and authorized HTC resellers will be selling for a whopping Rs. 29,900. Ok, it may not sound more comparing iPhone’s cheapest model but Magic’s price could be costlier than iPhone 3G when operators decide to decrease the price in the wake of iPhone 3GS launch in August.

Anyways, keeping the iPhone-Android comparison aside, the good things Magic features are free data access of up to 100MB for the first six months for Airtel users, different Airtel applications, 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen, 3,2MP camera, Exchange support and much more.

It seems Airtel has struck a double deal. First the iPhone and now they are being tagged as an exclusive operator for HTC’s Android phone that will be unveiled today, which for the record will also be India’s long awaited Android offering.

The price is expected to be around Rs. 25,000 and I think it is in line with iPhone 3G’s price that will be after the launch of iPhone 3GS. Let’s hope HTC releases Magic and Airtel has decent data plans to support the phone.

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Airtel and Vodafone, who jointly account for over 170 million of the 400 million cell phone users in the India, are all set to bring Apple’s latest iPhone, called the iPhone 3Gs to India. Apple which has exclusive tie-ups with Bharti and Vodafone has confirmed that their latest gadget will hit the Indian shores this August, however, they still haven’t given a word about its launch date or the pricing. Continue Reading…

Ok, we don’t know how consumers think about Airtel but one company does reckon they are the best service provider, not in India but the whole Asia-Pacific region. Frost and Sullivan, a US based telecom research and consultancy firm recently bestowed India’s largest telecom operator with this tag.

In a company statement this Tuesday, Bharti Airtel’s chief executive and joint managing director Manoj Kohli said, “Our company has been recognized for its overall service quality and has been adjudged the service provider of the year in the “Best of the Best” category. The awards recognise Bharti Airtel’s commitment to technology and business innovation, and globally benchmarked quality of services.”

Amongst others, Vietnam’s telecom major Viettel has been named as the best emerging markets’ service provider. Unfortunately, no other Indian telecom service provider made it to these awards.

This could spell some trouble for four of India’s biggest telecom operators. India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT), has ordered a special financial audit into the books of four telecom operators, including the country’s largest mobile phone service provider Bharti Airtel Ltd. and other big names like Tata Teleservices Ltd., Vodafone-Essar Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.

The purpose behind this audit to check these operators’ revenue sharing with the government and to confirm if prescribed revenue sharing norms are being practiced. Telecom service providers in India are required to share between 6% and 10% of their annual revenue as license fees and 2% to 6% of their domestic and international long-distance telephony service revenues.

DoT has decided to appoint special auditors, who will be given up to three months to submit a final report. A similar special audit had earlier been ordered for RCom Ltd., and the auditor’s report is expected later this month. DoT has also ordered that if these operators are found guilty than they would be strictly penalized. The fiscal penalty will depend on the variation in shared revenues.

As of now, these four companies have not spoken to the media and Tata Teleservices and Vodafone-Essar claim to not have yet received an official communication on this matter.

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