Airtel Plans | Connectindia

After the chaos that ensued in Pune with BSNL taking corrective measures to recover its long outstanding dues from the private operators, Haryana circle is the next to suffer. Subscribers of Airtel mobile plan as well as Idea’s services have been left in lurch as BSNL has cutoff connectivity at all POI’s (Point of Interconnection). The customers availing services under the Vodafone mobile plans have also been relegated to similar circumstances. Resultantly, even the BSNL customers have suffered with no or restricted connectivity to all these networks.

Earlier, Tata Teleservices and Reliance had appealed before the telecom tribunal and had obtained relief. The tribunal had requested the state-owned telecom giant to continue providing connectivity. BSNL has argued that this ruling was applicable only to the appellant and hence others should pay up or else be ready to face these interconnectivity issues.

With Idea being backed by powerhouses like Birla and AT&T, Vodafone a worldwide telecom major and Airtel fighting on Mittal’s influence, this issue is sure to spill beyond the telecom circles and possibly into political realms. The COAI is leading negotiations with BSNL on behalf of all the private telecom players but no breakthrough is in sight as yet. BSNL insists that this was a result of lack of response from private sector to the repeated reminders requesting payment of long pending dues. Any guesses who’s been hit the most in this standoff? Unfortunately, it’s again the customer.

Bharti Airtel Ltd., known as Airtel in Indian telecom circles, has taken the pole position in 4G technology chase. For the uninitiated, 4G is a successor to 3G technology. It promises to bring in ultra fast broadband services, including live streams and gaming on-the-go.

With a switch to higher spectral and frequency bands, the telephony services will also be cheaper and it includes discounted sms packs, more concessions in Airtel mobile plans and lots more for students who want to go for cost saving mobile plan. Also in consideration is revision for inexpensive Airtel postpaid plans.

Though experts have few doubts about a genuine 4G service being implemented here since the network capacity of Airtel is restricted as it’s currently connected by microwaves and needs an overhaul, Airtel has gone ahead with ZTE as its first vendor and is expected to stage a 4G rollout in Kolkata. A lot depends on how Chinese gear supplier ZTE goes with this deal. If it goes through successfully it may clinch the LTE gear deal for other three telecom circles for Airtel as well. But the Karnataka circle battle seems to be going down to the wire with Huawei giving it a stiff competition.

Airtel is expected to go with its long time European partners Ericsson and Nokia for the western and north-western telecom circles. Reliance, meanwhile, is sneaking fast on Airtel’s heels.