Airtel expands network infrastructure

Move to keep pace with roll-out plans and traffic increase

Airtel has announced an expansion in infrastructure in Tamil Nadu in the wake of its plans to almost double the towns covered by its network this fiscal besides an increase in traffic between customers in Chennai and the rest of Tamil Nadu following regulatory changes.

Airtel's cell sites in Tamil Nadu by March 2006 would stand at 2,000 covering about 600 towns as compared to 1,200 cell sites covering about 350 towns at present, P Swaminathan, chief executive officer of Bharti Cellular in Tamil Nadu, said on Monday at a press conference.

Airtel recently commissioned its third switch in Chennai (it can handle about 3 lakh customers). This will be followed by another switch in Madurai next month. Swaminathan, however, declined to disclose the investment that Airtel plans to make to achieve its expansion targets.

The expansion has been driven partly by Airtel's fast rollout of its network in Tamil Nadu over the last few months. For instance, in May and June this year, Airtel's network was rolled out in 63 towns, an expansion of about 20 per cent.

Its subscriber base in the Tamil Nadu telecom circle (excluding Chennai) has grown by around 16 per cent in the first quarter of 2004-05 to stand at 3.99 lakh subscribers.

Swaminathan said that with the government allowing inter-service area connectivity in May between Chennai and Tamil Nadu telecom circles, traffic had doubled between the two areas.

Based on its experience in other telecom circles, Airtel's estimate is that traffic increase can be as high as five-fold once regulations that restrict inter-circle connectivity are eased.

Swaminathan stressed on the relatively high realisations from Airtel's operations in the state. For instance, the average revenue per user (ARPU) of the network's Chennai circle was Rs 450 (January-March 2005). Airtel claimed its ARPU here is about 47 per cent higher than that of its nearest competitor in the circle. The ARPU for private GSM players in the country during the period was Rs 400.

Airtel's realisations are influenced by the high postpaid subscribers that its Chennai operation has. Swaminathan said that over 40 per cent of the Chennai subscribers are postpaid ones (generally around 30 per cent of a circle's subscribers are postpaid ones).

Airtel's ARPU in Tamil Nadu telecom circle was Rs 300 (January-March 2005). The postpaid base in the Tamil Nadu circle is between 25 per cent and 30 per cent, said Swaminathan.

Rings in new scheme

Airtel has introduced a new scheme wherein a long distance call, to both mobile phones and landlines of any network, can be made at a flat rate of Rs 2 per unit for a fixed charge of Rs 30 per month.

At present, the network charges Rs 2.65 per unit for calls to landlines and other networks. A long distance call to another Airtel subscriber costs Rs 2.

It has also launched the puzzle game Sudoku as part of its Airtel live portal.