Bharti rolls out plan to connect NE

The North-east will no longer be a low connectivity zone. Bharti will invest Rs 120 crore to connect all the capitals of northeastern states on its cellular network by the end of this fiscal.

Bharti will also launch a broadband wireless service in the region.

The chairman and managing director of Bharti group, Sunil Bharti Mittal, declared these plans here today at the launch of the Airtel mobile phone service in Guwahati.

He flagged off Airtel in Guwahati by making a call to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

At present, BSNL is the only other cellular service provider in the region, with a presence in all the seven state capitals in the North-east.

Mittal said he was optimistic that the size of the market Assam and other states in the region for cellular services would double in the next one year owing to better services and increased penetration.

Bharti will roll out a cellular service in the region through Bharti Televentures in the Assam circle and Bharti Hexacom in North-east circle.

Incidentally, the NE circle encompasses all the states except Assam in the region.

Mittal said the Airtel service would be rolled out to Shillong in the NE circle and Jorhat, Tezpur, Naogaon, Tinsukia and Dibrugarh in Assam circle by May 31 of this year.

"After the monsoon of 2005, Airtel will connect the rest of the state capitals and important towns. This will include Agartala, Itanagar, Dimapur and Imphal," he said.

Commenting on the prospect of offering a landline-based phone service in the region, Mittal said that a fixed line service appeared to be unviable owing to difficult terrain.

Instead, Bharti was actively exploring the possibility of launching its wireless broadband telephony service in the region. "Bharti could offer high speed internet services and wireless services available through broadband network. This could change the face of the whole region," he added.

Mittal said he felt the launch of the Airtel service in Guwahati will mean better deals and greater choices for customers in the region.

The director of the east regional hub of Bharti, Rajan Swarup, said Bharti was starting with 50 base stations in Guwahati.

It was planning to set up another 150 base stations in Assam circle and 100 in the NE circle.

"Even in Delhi, Airtel started with 50 base stations in 1995," Swarup pointed out.

Commenting on the tariff structure, Swarup said initially, the rates offered by the Airtel base package of Rs 150 would be around 15 per cent more expensive than BSNL.

BSNL and Reliance Telecom were the other two service providers in the region.

3G held up by spectrum

Bharti was flag off its 3G cellular services in the country once it received the necessary spectrum allocation from the regulatory authorities and government agencies, company chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said at the sidelines of the launch ceremony of Airtel in Guwahati.

According to Mittal, Bharti was ready to invest the Rs 5,000 crore required for 3G network once it received the necessary allocation.

"Once Bharti gets the allocation, it could start the service within 18 months. The 3G service is widely available in the world so starting the service will not be a problem," he added.

At present, 2G and 2.5G services were available in India. Mittal said Bharti was adding 4,000 customers every day at present in the country.