GSM Coverage Improvements for India

India's Bharti Tele-Ventures says that it is planning a major expansion of its coverage in the Andhra Pradesh, Chennai & Tamil Nadu license circles. The company is planning to expand its coverage in Andhra Pradesh by 50% while also adding 35 new base stations in the city of Chennai and a further 453 base stations in the next six months in Tamil Nadu.

The expansion in Andhra Pradesh will have a special focus on travel zones which will ensure seamless connectivity around key cities. Mr.Manoj Kohli, President - Mobility, Bharti Tele-Ventures, said, "Andhra Pradesh has 3 million landlines while the number of mobile phones is just over a million. The scope for growth is immense. With extremely attractive tariffs and incoming free, mobililty is a value proposition for the common man."

AirTel also announced that it would employ an international billing and e-CRM system for subscribers in the state shortly. While accepting the responsibility of running project LeAP, the COO for the AP circle, Mr.K.Srinivas, said, "Our emergence as market leader in the state is a result of the key insights born of syndicated market studies, which enabled us to understand the Andhra customer. Our emergence as number one inspires us to innovate further to exceed the expectations of our subscribers and incentivise new users to grow the market. The next four months will see us reaching out to establish our leadership in new geographies across Andhra Pradesh."

With 170 base stations, AirTel's coverage in the Chennai metro circle would further be strengthened by adding another 35 base stations during the year. In Tamil Nadu circle a massive network roll out is planned taking the current number of 277 base stations to 453 base stations in the next six months."

Posted to the site on 26th May 2003