MAJOR CELLULAR SERVICES – THE PRESENT SCENARIO

“A lot of people think that the new economy is all about internet. I think that
it’s being fueled by the internet-as well as by cell phone, digital assistants, and
the like- but that it’s really about customers.”
- Patricia Seybold

The study aims at understanding the Marketing strategies of BSNL,

Airtel and Vodafone and their impact on the perception of Cellular Service
users. Research has demonstrated conclusively that it is far more costly to win
a new customer than it is to maintain an existing one. And there is no better
way to retain a customer than to exceed his expectations. For this purpose it is
essential to know the level of customer satisfaction. The focus of this research
was the measurement of customer satisfaction level for the services provided
by BSNL, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone. The research was done for the clients of
these cellular services. This study is not only to represent the Corporate Sales
Departments and collect the feed back from the clients but also to get the major
complaints resolved through internal counseling. There can be no better
opportunity to interact with the external as well as the internal customers of an
organization. Finally the results of the research verify the fact that keeping the
customer satisfied is the best strategy not only to retain the existing customers
but also to expand the business to new horizons.

2.1 Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is an Indian state-owned

telecommunications company. It is the largest provider of fixed telephony and
fourth largest mobile telephony provider in India, and is also a broadband
services provider allover India. However, in recent years the company's
revenue and market share pull down into heavy losses due to intense

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competition in Indian telecommunications sector (Special Correspondent, The
Hindu, 15-06-2012).

BSNL is India's oldest and largest communication service provider. It

had a customer base of 12.1 crores as of Oct 31, 2012. It has footprints
throughout India except for the metropolitan cities of Mumbai and New Delhi,
which are managed by Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) (FTTH Network
on Revenue Share Basis).

2.2 History of BSNL

BSNL known as the Department of Telecommunications had been one

of the monopoly Government organisation during the socialist period of the
Indian economy. During this period, BSNL was the only telecom service
provider in the country, whereas, MTNL was present only in Mumbai and New
Delhi. During this period BSNL operated as a typical state-run organization,
inefficient, slow, bureaucratic, and heavily unionised. So the subscribers had to
wait for long time to get a telephone connection. When the Indian economy
was libaralised for the first time in 1991, the telecom corporation tasted
competition from the private telecom service providers. Then BSNL has
subsequently tried to increase efficiencies itself.

BSNL was born in 2000 after the corporatization of department of

telecom, and it was undertaken by an external international consulting team.
Then the BSNL was probably the most complex corporatization exercise of its
kind ever attempted anywhere because of the quantum of assets and over half a
million directly and indirectly employed staff. Under the Chairmanship of
Vinod Vaish the Telecom Commission made a very bold decision to promote
younger talent from within the organisation to take up a leadership role and
promoted the older leaders to a role in licensing rather than in managing the
operations of BSNL. Later the efficiency of the company has since improved,

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and the performance level is nowhere near the private players (BSNL Story,
2012)

The corporation remains heavily backwardness and is comparatively

slow in decision making and its implementation, which largely acts according
to the decisions of unions without bothering about development of the
organisation. Management observes the competition from the private operators
and it has been reactive to the schemes of private telecom players. Though it
offers services at lowest tariffs, the private players continue to notch up better
numbers in all areas, years after year. BSNL has been providing connections in
both urban and rural areas. Pre-activated mobile connections are available at
many places across India. BSNL has also unveiled cost-effective broadband
internet access plans (DataOne) targeted at homes and small businesses. At
present BSNL posses around 60% of market share of ISP services (The Hindu,
March 28, 2007).

In the year 2007 the BSNL introduced Broadband service and was
declared as "Year of Broadband" in India, and announced different plans for
providing more than 5 million broadband service connections by the end of that
year. BSNL upgraded Dataone connections for a speed of up to 2 Mbit/s
without any extra cost. This 2 Mbit/s broadband service was provided by
BSNL at a cost of just 600 Rs/- per month (as of 21 July 2008 and at a limit of
2.5GB monthly limit with 02.00-08.00 hrs as no charge period). Further, BSNL
is rolling out new broadband services such as triple play. BSNL plans to
increase its customer every year with its frantic activity in the communication
sector in India. With this, BSNL is a pioneer of rural telephony in India, and
recently it has bagged 80% of 2,500 crores from rural telephony project of
Government of India (BSNL users flee).

On 20 March 2009 BSNL advertised the launch of BlackBerry services

across its telecom circles in India. The corporation has also launched 3G
services in select cities across the country. Presently, BSNL and MTNL are the

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only players to provide 3G services, as the Government of India has completed
auction of 3G services for private players.

As of December 2011, many other private operators have started rolling

out their 3rd Generation (3G) services alongside and they are enjoying some
success in their campaigns to get market share. While BSNL still maintains its
connectivity standard and expands its services to many more areas including
rural areas with their 3G services. Also the network infrastructure has been
upgraded to provide 3.6 Mbit/s to 7.2 MBits/sec. It is enjoying a slow rate but
somewhat steady with success in gaining market share in this regard.

The introduction of MNP (Mobile Number Portability) which is a

service that lets the consumer can change wireless service providers while
retaining their actual mobile number, BSNL has seen many customers opting
for this service to move away from this services to other operators. Despite this
as the Indian wireless market grows BSNL still has a loyal base of subscribers
and many more subscribers being added to it every day. This provides
customer services for 95 million as of June 2011.

2.3 Services provided by BSNL

BSNL provides almost every telecom service in India. Following are

some of the main telecom services provided by BSNL:

Universal telecom services: Fixed wireline services and landline in local loop
(WLL) using CDMA Technology called bfone and Tarang respectively. As of
oct 31, 2012 BSNL had 79% marketshare of fixed lines.

Cellular mobile telephone services: BSNL is major provider of Cellular Mobile

Telephone services using GSM platform under the brand name Cellone &
Excel (BSNL Mobile). As of oct 31, 2012 BSNL has 11% share of mobile
telephony in the country (Sancharnet Dialup Packages, 2011).

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WLL-CDMA telephone services: BSNL's WLL (Wireless in Local Loop)
service is a service giving both fixed line telephony & Mobile telephony.

Internet: BSNL provides Internet access services through dial-up connection as

Prepaid, Net One as Postpaid and ADSL broadband as BSNL Broadband
BSNL held 55.76% of the market share with reported subscriber base of 9.19
million Internet subscribers with 7.79% of growth at the end of March 2010.
Top 12 Dial-up Service providers, based on the subscriber base, It Also
Provides Online Games via its Games on Demand.

Intelligent network: BSNL offers value-added services, such as Free Phone

Service (FPH), India Telephone Card (Prepaid card), Account Card Calling
(ACC), Virtual Private Network (VPN), Tele-voting, Premium Rae Service
(PRM), Universal Access Number (UAN).

3G: BSNL offers the '3G' or the'3rd Generation' services which includes
facilities like video calling, mobile broadband, live TV, 3G Video portal,
streaming services like online full length movies and video on demand etc.
Recently, it is expanded to land line users also all over the country at an
affordable price.

IPTV: BSNL also offers the 'Internet Protocol Television' facility which
enables watch television through internet.

FTTH: Fibre To The Home facility that offers a higher bandwidth for data
transfer. This idea was proposed on post-December 2009

Helpdesk: BSNL's Helpdesk provide help desk support to their customers for
their services.

VVOIP: BSNL, along with Sai Infosystem - an Information and

Communication Technologies (ICTs) provider - has launched Voice and Video
Over Internet Protocol (VVoIP). This will allow to make audio as well as video

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calls to any landline, mobile, or IP phone anywhere in the world, provided that
the requisite video phone equipment is available at both ends.

WIMAX: BSNL has introduced India's first 4th Generation High-Speed

Wireless Broadband Access Technology with the minimum speed of 256kbit/s.
The focus of this service is mainly rural customer where the wired broadband
facility is not available.

2.4 Administrative structure

BSNL has been divided into a number of administrative units which are
termed as telecom circles, metro districts, project circles and specialized units.
These administrative units are distributed as 24 telecom circles, 2 metro
districts, 6 project circles, 4 maintenance regions, 5 telecom factories, 3
training institutions and 4 specialized telecom units.

2.5 Present performance and future plans

BSNL's nearest competitor Bharti Airtel which is standing at a customer

base of more than 60 millions. However, despite impressive growth shown by
BSNL in recent times, the fixed line customers of BSNL are declining. In order
to increase its fixed-line customers BSNL has brought down long distance
calling rate under OneIndia plan, however, the success of the scheme is not
much effective.

Presently there is an intense competition in Indian Telecom sector and

various Telcos are rolling out with attractive schemes and are providing good
customer services to the subscribers. At this stage BSNL is the third largest
service provider and No 1 access operator among the country. As TRAI Report
2011-12 indicates BSNL became the most trustworthy brand due to its loyalty
towards customers and its rule.

BSNL has started its 3G services in 760 cities and acquired more than 9
Lakh customers during 2010-11, and it has planned to roll out 3G services in

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some more cities across the country in 2011-12 (TechShout, 2012). According
to users and big sources it has found that BSNL's 3G data speed is much higher
than other operator and also it is competitively cheaper than other operators.

2.5.1 Broadband services

The shift in demand from voice to data has revolutionized the very
nature of the network. BSNL is poised to cash on this opportunity and has
planned for extensive expansion of the Broadband services throughout the
country. The BSNL planned to be increased its broadband customers to 16.00
million by March 2014.

2.5.2 BSNL - MTNL merger plans

In the beginning of 2011 the Department of Telecommunications (DoT)

wanted to revive a proposal for the merger of state-owned operators BSNL and
MTNL. In its proposal BSNL and MTNL should be merged as they have
complimentary operations and can combine their strengths for synergies.
However the staff and unions of BSNL opposed this merger tooth and nail
realising that MTNL is in dire state and need help of its big brother, BSNL, to
alleviate itself from getting into red balance sheet. MTNL in spite of having its
operations in two big metro cities i.e. New Delhi and Mumbai is realising
cascading fall in revenue and profits for the past 10 successive years.
Therefore, the department recommended the telecommunication operators to
focus on enterprise business, services to government and the public sector,
install value-added services and technologies like 3G, to increase revenue
(website).

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2.5.3 3G services

BSNL has the largest 3G network in India. Additionally, BSNL 3G

services usually cover not only the main town/city but also the adjoining
suburbs and rural areas as well. As of now BSNL has 3G services in 826 cities
across India. While it did not participate in the 3G auction, BSNL paid the
Indian government Rs. 10,187 crores for 3G spectrum in all 20 circles it
operates in. State-owned and MTNL operates in other 2 circles - Delhi and
Mumbai (Lobo, Sharon, 2012). Both these state-owned and MTNL operators
were given a head start by the government in the 3G space by allotting the
required 3G spectrum, on the condition that each will have to pay an amount
which will be equivalent to the highest bid in the respective service areas as
and when the 3G auctions take place. BSNL recently launched a 3G wireless
pocket router named Winknet Mf50 for 5800 rupees. It was released in
collaboration with another telecom service provider Shyam networks. Winknet
Mf50 enables the customer to connect multiple devices to the internet using a
single SIM card (The Times of India, August 29, 2012).

2.5.4 BSNL Tablet

BSNL initially launched three tablets manufactured by Pantel. Now

fourth tablet (T-Pad IS701C) is also available. The tablet's brand name is Penta.
The tablet is available for pre-order online (Dream Bloggers, February 28,
2012).

2.6 Competitors

The Brand Trust Report published by Trust Research Advisory ranked

BSNL in the 65th position of the list of most trusted brands. BSNL competes
with more than ten mobile operators throughout India. They are Aircel, Airtel,
Idea, Loop Mobile, Reliance Communications, Tata DoCoMo, Uninor,
Videocon, Virgin Mobile, Quadrant, Sistema shyam and Vodafone.

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2.7 Quality of service

BSNL goes by the motto "Connecting India, faster" and displays the
same at their homepage. The service quality of BSNL has been severely
criticized as very poor. The mobile services provided by BSNL in almost every
part of the country were and still are criticized for network outages and
frequent call drops. Despite the criticism there is very negligible or no amount
of work being carried out by the authorities to improve the performance and
quality of the network (Varun Chadha, 2012). BSNL claims to offer seamless
coverage in almost all forest areas of India in collaboration with state forest
department.

2.8 Marketing strategies of BSNL

The sale of India Telephone Card (ITC) and Bharat Mobile Card
coupons has doubled in the recent years made a change in marketing strategy
by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL). This has been done to face the
competition in telecom market with other competitors. The higher authorities
of BSNL chalked out a strategy to allow five percent commission to marketing
agents for the sale of Bharat Mobile Card (BMC) coupons. The new marketing
strategy was adopted, and a marketing cell was opened in the BSNL. Since
then, the sale of BMC coupons has been increased more than two times than
earlier sales. Similarly, sale of India Telephone Cards (ITCs) also increased
more than two times with its earlier sale after the launching of the new
commission scheme. However, the new scheme was opposed by different
telecom employee‘s unions, which organised demonstrations against the
management maintaining that the marketing strategy was expensive. The
management met the office-bearers of different unions and associations and
explained the advantage of the new marketing policy and profit achieved
during the period. According to the interests of the management it sought
cooperation of the BSNL employees to expand telecom services in rural areas
by expanding the wireless in local loop (WLL) for village telephony.

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 BSNL should have clear technology strategy in line with its mission of
providing services with world class State-of-art technology at affordable prices.
Since the Telecom Industry is undergoing frequent technological revolutions
the product cycles are very short. BSNL should go in for innovative products
based on convergent technology in order to acquire dominant market position.

Table – 2.1: BSNL Customer Population at Indian Metropolitan Cities

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

Metro Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Delhi 1.48 16,753 2,594,760 1,581,934 41,76,694
Mumbai 0.44 12,478 2,710,133 1,871,920 4,582,053
Kolkata 1.48 4,573 2,310,820 941,904 3252724
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

Table – 2.2: BSNL Customer Population at State Circles

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

State/UT Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Maharashtra 310.83 101,353 6,622,665 2,127,182 8,749,847
Gujarat 196.63 60,969 4,237,939 1,559,055 5,796,994
Andhra Pradesh 275.07 84,666 9,198,690 1,881,432 11,080,122
Karnataka 191.79 61,131 7,072,101 1,710,975 8,783,076
Tamil Nadu 130.36 73,383 9,435,356 2,434,317 11,869,673
Kerala 38.90 33,452 7,572,207 2,989,469 10,561,676
Punjab 50.48 28,759 4,461,317 1,051,207 5,512,524
Haryana 44.21 25,353 3,050,144 518,982 3,569,126
UP West & East 294.41 209,698 15,222,661 1,695,005 16,917,666
Rajasthan 342.24 68,621 5,912,368 972,823 6,885,191
MP 443.44 98,138 4,976,663 834,491 5,811,154
WB & A & N 103.91 87,762 3,624,639 588,634 4,213,273
HP 55.67 6,857 1,571,182 288,385 1,859,567
Bihar 173.88 136,771 6,036,421 543,028 6,579,449
Odisha 155.71 41,947 4,474,124 384,032 4,858,156
Assam 78.44 31,169 1,222,059 194,483 1,416,542
N.E 176.65 13,811 1,740,775 220,255 1,961,030
J&K 101.39 12,549 1,167,203 199,772 1,366,975
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

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2.9 Bharti Airtel

Bharti Airtel Limited, commonly known as Airtel is an Indian

telecommunications Service Company headquartered at New Delhi. It operates
in 20 countries across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. Airtel has
GSM network in all countries in which it operates, providing 2G, 3G and 4G
services depending upon the country of operation and always raises call tariffs.
Airtel is the world's fourth largest mobile telecommunications company with
over 261 million subscribers across 20 countries as of August 2012. It is the
largest cellular service provider in India, with 183.61 million subscribers as of
November 2012. Airtel is the third largest in country mobile operator by
subscriber base, behind China Mobile and China Unicom (NDTV Gadgets,
2012).

Airtel is the largest provider of mobile telephony and second largest

provider of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband
services and subscription based television services. It offers its telecom
services under the Airtel brand, and is headed by Sunil Bharti Mittal. Bharti
Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve Cisco Gold
Certification (Express India, 2010). It also acts as a carrier for national and
international long distance communication services. The company has a
submarine cable landing station at Chennai, which connects the submarine
cable connecting Chennai and Singapore.

2.10 History of Airtel

Sunil Mittal founded the Bharti Group in 1983, and he was in an

agreement with Germany's Siemens to manufacture push-button telephone
models for the Indian market. In 1986, he incorporated Bharti Telecom Limited
(BTL), and his company became the first in India to offer push-button
telephones, establishing the basis of Bharti Enterprises. By the early 1990s,
Sunil Mittal had also launched the country's first fax machines and its first

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cordless telephones. In 1992, he won a bid to build a cellular phone network in
Delhi. In 1995, he incorporated the cellular operations as Bharti Tele-Ventures
and launched service in Delhi. The cellular service was extended to Himachal
Pradesh during 1996. and in 1999, Bharti Enterprises acquired control of JT
Holdings, and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
In 2000, Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications, in Chennai. In
2001, the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta. Bharti
Enterprises went for public issue in 2002, and the company was listed on
Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003, the
cellular phone operations were rebranded under the single Airtel brand. In
2004, Bharti acquired control of Hexacom and entered Rajasthan. In 2005,
Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar. This expansion allowed
it to offer voice services all across India. In 2009, Airtel launched its first
international mobile network in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Airtel acquired the African
operations of the Kuwait based Zain Telecom.In March 2012, Airtel launched a
mobile operation in Rwanda. Today, Airtel is the largest cellular service
provider in India and the fourth largest in the world (Bharati Airtel Story,
2012).

2.11 Administrative structure

Airtel's initial corporate structure concentrated on the hierarchy of the

operations inside the company as a whole. The structure depicted the
corresponding operation/region of different in-charges and it didn't hold anyone
responsible for each of its services. So, the company found it better to
restructure its corporate hierarchy. The transformed organisational structure has
two distinct Customer Business Units (CBU) with clear focus on B2C
(Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business) segments. Bharti
Airtel's B2C business unit will comprehensively service the retail consumers,
homes and small offices, by combining the erstwhile business units - Mobile,
Telemedia, Digital TV, and other emerging businesses (like M-commerce, M-
health, M-advertising etc.). The B2C organization will consist of Consumer

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Business and Market Operations. The organisation has changed the style of the
company as the company do not have any brand logo till the time.

2.12 Mobile services offered by Airtel

Airtel operates in all telecom circles of India. At present its network

expand in 5,121 census towns and 457,053 non-census towns and villages,
covering approximately 86.6% of the country‘s population, and Airtel is the 6th
most valued brand according to an annual survey conducted
(Brandirectory.com, 2012).

2.12.1 3G services

Airtel won 3G licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai,

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West
Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, and Jammu & Kashmir.
Airtel also operates 3G services in Maharastra & Goa and Kolkata circles
through an agreement with Vodafone and in Gujarat through an agreement with
Idea. This gives Airtel a 3G presence in 15 out of 22 circles in India
(Teletechnology.in.2012).

Bharti Airtel had given contracts to Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens

Networks and Huawei Technologies to set up infrastructure for providing 3G
services in the country. These vendors would plan, design, deploy and maintain
3G–HSPA (third generation, high speed packet access) networks in 13 telecom
circles where the company had won 3G licences. While Airtel awarded
network contracts for seven 3G circles to Ericsson India, NSN would manage
networks in three circles. Chinese telecom equipment vendor Huawei
Technologies was introduced as the third partner for three circles.

Airtel has launched 3G services in Bangalore and Karnataka with its

largest circle by revenue. With this the Airtel became the third private operator
(fifth overall) to launch its 3G services in the country following Tata Docomo

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and Reliance Communications. Airtel also launched 3G in Chennai and
Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, and in Kerala's 3 largest cities - Kochi, Kozhikode
and Thiruvananthapuram. Now Airtel 3G services are available in 200 cities in
India through its network and in 500 cities through intra-circle roaming
arrangements with other operators., and it has about 5.4 million 3G customers
of which 4 million are 3G data customers as of September 2012.

2.12.2 4G services

The broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum was allotted to

Airtel for spectrum in 4 circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata.
The company was allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency
band. Airtel's TD-LTE network is built and operated by ZTE in Kolkata,
Huawei in Karnataka, Ericsson in Punjab and Nokia Siemens Networks in
Maharashtra. Airtel launched 4G services using TD-LTE technology in
Kolkata, becoming the first company in India to offer 4G services. After 4G
services launched in Kolkata Airtel extended its 4G services to Bangalore,
Pune and Chandigarh (Telecomtalk.info.2012).

Airtel announced an agreement to acquire a 49% stake in Qualcomm

Asia Pacific (India). Qualcomm holds 4G spectrum and licenses in Delhi,
Haryana, Kerala and Mumbai. As per the agreement, Airtel will assume full
ownership and financial responsibility for 4G operations in these 4 circles at
the end of 2014. At present Airtel had 3180 4G subscribers (Times of India,
September 18, 2012).

2.12.3 Airtel Money

Airtel has started a new mobile commerce platform called Airtel Money
in collaboration with Infosys and SmartTrust (now Giesecke & Devrient). The
platform was launched at Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore. With the help of
Airtel Money technology, users can transfer money, pay bills and perform

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other financial transactions directly on the mobile phone (Airtel.in. June 28,
2012).

2.12.4 SmartDrive

SmartDrive is navigation app exclusive to Airtel customers. The app

features voice-based turn by turn navigation, real time information update on
traffic, approximate time of the travel on the basis of the traffic situation on the
various routes and also lets users see their location on the map and plan the
journey accordingly. It also suggests the subscriber an alternate route in case of
traffic congestion on the normal route. According to Airtel, SmartDrive
calculates the traffic on the basis of the number of GPS devices used on a
particular road, their average speed, as well as historical trends of traffic on that
route. SmartDrive also allows users to search for points of interest like
restaurants, theatres and shopping malls. The app also allows users to keep a
record of all trips they make when using voice navigation for later reference
through the 'Trip Recorder' feature, and the ability to add frequently visited
locations to favorites, in addition to weather information about the place.

Airtel will offer navigation at 10 per day or 99 per month. Live traffic
will be cost 3 per day or 49 per month. Search and map viewer are available
for free. The costs do not include data charges. Airtel states in SmartDrive's
FAQ that data is only used when the user performs searches or calculates
routes.

The app is developed by Wisepilot, a mobile navigation solutions

provider and uses Navteq Maps for location and traffic info. It was launched on
12 September 2012. At that time it was available only in Bangalore, Mumbai
and NCR. The services are currently available in Chennai, Pune and Hyderabad
(Suneel, 2012).

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2.12.5 Network Experience Centre

Airtel has a Network Experience Centre (NEC) which observes end to

end customer experience, in near real time, along with the standard network
elements on Airtel's operations. The NEC is located in Manesar, Haryana and
went live on 31 October 2012. In India it is the first such facility and will be
able to monitor Airtel's network performance across mobile, fixed line,
broadband, DTH, M-Commerce, enterprise services, International Cable
Systems and internet peering points from a single location. It will monitor all
Airtel and partner NOCs. In case of an emergency, the NEC will enable the
operator to prioritize actions to restore normalcy and reduce resolution time.

2.12.6 iPhone

The iPhone 3G was rolled out in India in 2008 by Airtel. However, high
prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as successful
as the iPhone is in other markets of the world. Airtel introduced the iPhone 4
on 27 May 2011 and the iPhone 5 on 2 November 2012 (website).

2.12.7 Telemedia

Under the Telemedia segment, Airtel provides broadband internet access

through DSL, internet leased lines as well as MPLS (multiprotocol label
switching) solutions, as well as IPTV and fixed line telephone services. Until
18 September 2004, Bharti provided fixed line telephony and broadband
services under the Touchtel brand. Now Bharti provides by itself all telecom
services including fixed line services under a common brand airtel.

Airtel Broadband provides broadband and IPTV services both capped as

well as unlimited download plans to its customers. However, Airtel's unlimited
plans are subject to free usage policy (FUP), which reduces speed after the
customer crosses a certain data usage limit. In some plans, Airtel provides only
256 kbit/s beyond FUP, which is lower than the TRAI specified limit of half

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the subscriber's original speed. The maximum speed available for home users is
16Mbit/s (Times of India, Airtel, May 17, 2012).

2.12.8 Mobile data service

The different services under mobile data are called BlackBerry services.
A web-enabled mobile email solution working on 'Push Technology‘, USB
modem that helps in getting instant access to Internet and corporate
applications, Airtel Data Card that gives the liberty to access the internet
anytime, Easy Mail is a platform that provides access to personal / corporate e-
mails independent of handset operating system and application services that
shorten the queues at the billing section, off-load the pressure on the billing
staff and bring convenience to the user.

2.12.9 Android-based tablet

Beetel Teletech Ltd., a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd., launched a 7inch

tablet in India based on Google Inc.'s Android operating system. The offering is
intended to capitalize on the expected demand for cheap computing devices in
the world's fastest-growing and second-largest mobile phone market.

2.13 Subscriber base for Airtel

Bharti Airtel has about 243.336 million subscribers worldwide, whereas,

in India and South Asia it has 232.95 million subscribers and 50.949 million in
Africa. The numbers include mobile services subscribers in 19 countries and
Indian Telemedia services and Digital services subscribers (Business Line,
January 20, 2012). Therefore, it shows that Airtel is the market leader in India
with about 183 million wireless subscribers and 20.62% of market share at the
end of November 2012. The Brand Trust Report published by Trust Research
Advisory, places Airtel as the only mobile operator in the top 10 most trusted
brands in India (Rediff.com.2012).

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2.14 Airtel global services

One Network is a borderless mobile phone network across all its

operating countries of Airtel. It enables customers to move freely between the
countries in which Airtel operates, and be treated as ―virtual‖ local customers
of the visited network in terms of pricing, while retaining their home network
service functionality. It is the world‘s first free intercontinental incoming
roaming service. Airtel customers in Africa not need to register for the One
Network service or buy new SIM cards as the is enabled automatically. One
Network allows customers traveling to One Network countries to make
outgoing calls/SMS at the same rates as local customers and recharge with
local top-up cards or with home network top up cards while using the same
number and SIM, where receiving incoming calls are free.

Airtel Africa is the collective name given to the African operations of

Indian telecommunications company Airte (Tech News, ibn.livein.com). Its
operations took place at Burkina Faso, Demographic Republic of Congo
(DRC), Ghana, Kanya, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia like that it operates in 17 countries of
Africa. More over Airtel offers the service to its African customers travelling to
any of these countries Viz. Bangladesh, Chad, Channels islands (Jersey and
Gumsey) Goban, India, Madagascar, Srilanka, Bahrain (Zain), Iraq (Zain),
Jordan (Zain), Kuwait (Zain), Saudi Arabia (Zain), Sudan (Zain), South Africa
(Cell-c), Egypt (Mobinel).

Airtel offers service currently to its Africa customers traveling to any of

these countries. Among 8 of these countries, One Network is operated in
partnership with other mobile operators. Airtel plans to extend this service to
its South Asia customers soon.

Airtel is the sixth mobile phone carrier to enter the Bangladesh market,
and launched commercial operations on May 10, 2007. Warid telecom

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international LLC, an Abudhabi based consortium, sold majority 70% stake in
the company to India‘s Bharati Airtel Ltd for 300 million American dollars (R.
Jai Krishna and Prasanta Sahu, 2010). Then it rebranded the company‘s
services under its own Airtel Brand from 20th December 2010. Airtel
Bangladesh had 5.045 million subscribers as of June 2011.

2.15 Joint Venture of Airtel-Ericsson

As per a five-year managed services agreement signed that Ericsson will

manage and optimize Airtel‘s mobile networks in Africa. Ericsson will
modernize and upgrade Airtel‘s mobile networks in Africa with the latest
technology including its multi standard RBS 6000 base station. As part of the
modernization, Ericsson will also provide technology consulting, network
planning & design and network deployment. Ericsson has been the managed
services and network technology partner in the Asian operations.

2.16 Marketing strategies of Airtel

The Airtel lagged behind its competitors as far as customer service and
availability is concerned. The maximum number of people who use the mobile
is in the age group of 20 to 28. Cash cards are the most popular type of mobile
connections, as they are consumer friendly and recharging the connection is not
a problem. Maximum number of people spends RS 500 on their connections.
As Airtel is the only company having the maximum no of mobile connections
so it must seriously look into the loop holes of the existing customer service
department. The Airtel launched product with logo ―Aisi azaadi aur kahan‖ has
already became popular in market. So shows that in spite of so many
competitor in the market Airtel is having a good position just because every
time, it tries its best to understand the need of its important customers.

From the comparison and deep analysis of every aspect of business

among the companies it can be concluded that Bharti Airtel has to work more
in every field of communication business. It is the time not only to survive but

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 to sustain in the market for a longtime. For this Airtel has to work on its all
marketing strategies, marketing, promotion, brand image etc. Airtel has to take
Reliance info. Very seriously and update its own strategies from time to time
and when the need arises. With aggressive marketing strategies Airtel has to
target rural India as 70% of population living in these areas. The other segment
may be costumers of all age groups.

Now, cellular service operators could drop their prices and target new
customer segments. As SEC B became part of the catchment area, Airtel's
communication changed from "power" to "touch tomorrow". Therefore, the
focus now was on the endless possibilities of technology to make life good and
advertising became two-pronged: a product-driven communication that
showcased new offerings like the Magic prepaid card, and an emotional
communication that showed younger people.

Table – 2.3: Bharti Airtel Customer Population at Indian

Metropolitan Cities

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

Metro Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Delhi 1.48 16,753 9,083,718 1,081,545 10,165,263
Mumbai 0.44 12,478 3,494,074 331,593 3,825,667
Kolkata 1.48 4,573 3,606,616 93,864 3,700,480
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

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 Table – 2.4: Bharati Airtel Customer Population at State Circles

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

State/UT Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Maharashtra 310.83 101,353 9,849,973 70,284 9,920,257
Gujarat 196.63 60,969 6,927,459 55,375 6,982,834
Andhra Pradesh 275.07 84,666 18,041,904 125,620 18,167,524
Karnataka 191.79 61,131 16,044,964 491,545 16,536,509
Tamil Nadu 130.36 73,383 13,442,758 485,655 13,928,413
Kerala 38.90 33,452 3,393,868 55,883 3,449,751
Punjab 50.48 28,759 6,851,338 105,879 6,957,217
Haryana 44.21 25,353 2,267,166 23,928 2,291,094
UP West & East 294.41 209,698 21,661,507 74,828 21,736,335
Rajasthan 342.24 68,621 14,385,762 39,346 14,425,108
MP 443.44 98,138 9,675,239 241,676 9,916,915
WB & A & N 103.91 87,762 9,084,371 - 9,084,371
HP 55.67 6,857 1,915,405 - 1,915,405
Bihar 173.88 136,771 18,527,460 - 18,527,460
Odisha 155.71 41,947 6,696,681 - 6,696,681
Assam 78.44 31,169 3,809,218 - 3,809,218
N.E 176.65 13,811 2,551,134 - 2,551,134
J&K 101.39 12,549 2,300,268 - 2,300,268
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

2.17 Vodafone

Vodafone India, formerly Vodafone Essar and Hutchison Essar, is the

second largest mobile network operator in India after Airtel. It is based in
Mumbai, Maharashtra and which operates nationally. It has approximately
153.17 million customers as on October 31, 2012.

In the middle of 2011 the Vodafone Group agreed terms for the buy-out
of its partner Essar from its Indian mobile phone business. The UK firm paid
$5.46 billion to its Indian counterpart to take Essar out of its 33% stake in the
Indian subsidiary. It will leave Vodafone owning 74% of the Indian business,
while the other 26% will be owned by Indian investors, in compliance with
Indian law (BBC News, 2012). At the beginning of 2012 Vodafone agreed to
acquire the controlling interest of 67% held by Li Ka Shing Holdings in Hutch-

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Essar for US$11.1 billion, pipping Reliance Communications, Hinduja Group,
and Essar Group, which is the owner of the remaining 33%. The whole
company was valued at USD 18.8 billion. It has offered both prepaid and
postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage throughout India with good presence in
the metros (CNN Money, 2012).

2.18 History of Vodafone

Hutchison Essar (1992-2007)

In 1992, Hutchison Whampoa and its Indian business partner – Max

Group, established a company. In 1994 was awarded a licence to provide
mobile telecommunications services in Mumbai and launched commercial
services as Hutchison Max in November 1995. In Delhi, Uttar Pradesh (East),
Rajasthan and Haryana, Essar Group was the major partner, but later Hutch
took the majority stake.

By the time of Hutchison Telecom's Initial Public Offering in 2004,

Hutchison Whampoa had acquired interests in six mobile telecommunications
operators providing service in 13 of India's 23 licence areas and following the
completion of the acquisition of BPL Mobile that number increased to 16. In
2006, it announced the acquisition of a company (Essar Spacetel – A subsidiary
of Essar Group) that held licence applications for the seven remaining licence
areas.

Initially, the company grew its business in the largest wireless markets
in India in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. In these densely populated
urban areas it was able to establish a robust network, well-known brand and
large distribution network – all vital to long-term success in India. Then it also
targeted business users and high-end post-paid customers which helped
Hutchison Essar to consistently generate a higher Average Revenue Per User
(ARPU) than its competitors. By adopting this focused growth plan, it was able

73
to establish leading positions in India's largest markets providing the resources
to expand its footprint nationwide.

In February 2007, Hutchison Telecom announced that it had entered into

a binding agreement with a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc to sell its 67%
direct and indirect equity and loan interests in Hutchison Essar Limited for a
total cash consideration (before costs, expenses and interests) of approximately
$11.1 billion.

Hutch was often praised for its award winning advertisements which all
follow a clean, minimalist look. A recurrent theme is that its message "Hi"
stands out visibly though it uses only white letters on red background. Another
successful ad campaign in 2003 featured a pug named Cheeka following a boy
around in unlikely places, with the tagline, "Wherever you go, our network
follows." The simple yet powerful advertisement campaigns won it many
admirers. Ads featuring the pug were continued by Vodafone even after
rebranding. The brand subsequently introduced ZooZoos which gained even
higher popularity than was created by the Pug. Vodafone's creative agency is
O&M while Harit Nagpal was the Marketing Director during the various
phases of its brand evolution.

Various phases of Vodafone evolution in India are Hutchison Whampoa

and MAX group established Hutchison Max in 1992. Acquisition of Delhi
operations and entry into Kolkata and Gujarat markets through Essar. This
acquisition was done in 2000. During 2001, They won auction for licences to
operate GSM services in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chennai In 2003,
They Acquired AirCel Digilink, An ESSAR Subsidiary which is operated in
Rajastan, Uttar Pradesh East and Haryana telecom circles and rebranded it as
'Hutch'. During 2004, They launched in three additional telecom circles of
India namely Punjab, Uttar Pradesh (West) and West Bengal. They acquired
BPL Mobile operations in 3 circles during 2005. This left BPL with operations
only in Mumbai, where it still operates under the brand 'Loop Mobile'. After

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that in 2007, Vodafone acquires a 67% stake in Hutchison Essar for $10.7
billion. The company is renamed Vodafone Essar. 'Hutch' is rebranded to
'Vodafone'. During 2008, Vodafone acquires the licences in remaining 7
circles and has starts its pending operations in Madhya Pradesh circle, as well
as in Orissa, Assam, North East and Bihar. Finally in 2011, Vodafone Group
buys out its partner Essar from its Indian mobile phone business. It paid $5.46
billion to take Essar out of its 33% stake in the Indian subsidiary. It left
Vodafone owning 74% of the Indian business.

2.19 Administrative structure

Under the new structure, the company has created two new roles at the
top level — the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Commercial Officer. Mr
Sunil Sood – who is currently Director Business Operations, for South and
West – will be the COO while Mr Sanjoy Mukerji, currently Director Business
Operations for North and East, will be the Chief Commercial Officer. Both will
report to CEO Mr Marten Pieters.

In addition, the company will have another new role of Director

External Affairs who will be responsible for corporate communication, public
affairs and Vodafone foundation.

2.20 Vodafone acquisitions

On March 31, 2011, Vodafone Group Plc announced that it would buy
an additional 33% stake in its Indian joint venture for $5 billion after partner
Essar Group exercised an option to sell the holding in the mobile-phone
operator. The deal will raise Vodafone‘s stake to 75%. Essar will exit the
company after it implemented a put option over 22% of the venture. Vodafone
exercised its call option to buy an 11% stake (News Release, 2012).

The final shareholding pattern post this deal was not provided by the
company as it was not clear whether Vodafone's stake would exceed the 74 per

75
cent FDI limit. Indian laws don't allow foreign companies to own more than
74% in a local mobile-phone operator. Vodafone has assured it will comply
with local rules. Vodafone will have to sell that 1% to some Indian entity, or
they‘ll have to consider an initial public offering. Vodafone also said that final
settlement is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2011. The completion of
the deal would be subject to meeting certain conditions which include Reserve
Bank of India's permission as well as valuation of the deal (Facts-at-a-Glance,
2011).

2.21 3G services

In 2010 the Vodafone entered for 3G spectrum in 10 circles. These

circles are Delhi, Kanpur, Gujarat, Haryana, Kolkata, Maharashtra & Goa,
Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (East) and West Bengal. Latter Vodafone
operates 3G services in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (West)
through an agreement with Idea and in Karnataka through an agreement with
Airtel. This gives Vodafone a 3G presence in 13 out of 22 circles in India.
(Guardian, 2013)

2.22 Competitors

Vodafone competes with 14 other mobile operators throughout India.

They are Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Reliance
Communications, S Tel, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom, Uninor, Videocon and
Virgin Mobile.

2.23 Marketing strategies of Vodafone

The name Vodafone comes from Voice data fone, chosen by the
company to reflect the provision of voice and data services over mobile
phones. Vodafone in India came with acquiring Hutchison Essar Limited.
Vodafone was launched officially on 21st September 2007.

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 Marketing strategy is direction and scope of an organization over the
long term, which achieves advantage for the organization through its
configuration of resources within a challenging environment to meet the need
of markets and to fulfill stakeholder expectations. Marketing strategy is a key
part of overall corporate strategy, which is concerned with developing plans for
finding out what customers want and then efficiently meeting their
requirements. Vodafone‘s strategy is customer focused and product led; the
company is continually developing new products and services which utilize the
latest technological advances. To keep its leading edge, Vodafone is
continually looking to add value to the services it provides and to the packages
it offers to customers. ZooZoo, the new brand ambassador of Vodafone, has
created a furors in the advertising industry.

Marketing strategies of Vodafone has given birth to the Zoozoo: a

special character created specifically to convey a value added service (VAS)
offering in each of the newly released commercials. Vodafone has come with
creative advertising campaign for its various plans. This strategy has captured
the imagination of millions. The strategy is a buzz that lives up to the brand
image of great creative's and clever marketing. In the first 10 days of IPL
(Indian Premier League) it has reached a cumulative of 89 million people. This
is a wonderful strategy adopted by Vodafone.

This has helped the company to raise not only its profits through sales
but also tremendously increased its brand value. Zoozoos have become so
popular that Vodafone has succeeded in its effort of viral or buzz marketing.
Their add campaign has gained so much popularity all over the world. The
viewership for the add is highest among all the adds. What‘s interesting is that
there are some 25 such commercials planned under this campaign, 10 of which
are already on air. The aim is to release approximately one ad a day, to sustain
interest till the end of the IPL. Zoozoos have been successful in giving
Vodafone a makeover and establishing maximum brand presence. The charm
of the Zoozoo was itself a great self-marketing strategy and they were instant

77
 success among masses. Within few days, Zoozooz created a huge audience for
them, giving a boost to the Vodafone brand.

As a part of their business strategy Vodafone has formulated the themes

for advertisement. These themes are Magic box, Stock alerts, International
roaming, Bhakti Saagar, Dating tips, Voice SMS, Fashion tips, Recharge
anywhere, Ringtone, Group SMS, Call divert, Background music, Exam
results, Beauty tips, Phone backup, IPL commentary, Cricket alerts, IPL
contests, Chotta credit, Maps live, Live games, Musical greetings, etc,.
Vodafone becomes India‘s 3rd biggest telecom company after Airtel and
Reliance, within a very short period.

Low cost ads made a very good impact on the marketing strategies of
Vodafone. Zoozoo concept highlights the presence of Vodafone in India very
dominantly. The strategy of strong advertising not only saves lots of money but
also creates a positive impact in society regarding their brand. Advertises more
relate to common man, leads to more customers. Within a very short period
they acquire 3‘rd place in communication market.

Table – 2.5: Vodafone Customer Population at Indian Metropolitan Cities

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

Metro Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Delhi 1.48 16,753 8,597,114 7,530 8,604,644
Mumbai 0.44 12,478 6,102,494 6,540 6,109,034
Kolkata 1.48 4,573 4,105,830 1,230 4,107,060
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

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 Table – 2.6: Vodafone Customer Population at State Circles

Area („000 Population Wireless Wireline

State/UT Total
sq.km) („000) Connections Connections
Maharashtra 310.83 101,353 13,162,555 2,550 13,165,105
Gujarat 196.63 60,969 16,096,118 210 16,096,328
Andhra Pradesh 275.07 84,666 6,308,390 5,340 6,313,730
Karnataka 191.79 61,131 6,745,251 2,760 6,748011
Tamil Nadu 130.36 73,383 12,009,346 1,290 12,010,636
Kerala 38.90 33,452 6,049,633 - 6,049,633
Punjab 50.48 28,759 4,397,213 240 4,397,453
Haryana 44.21 25,353 4,513,229 - 4,513,229
UP West &East 294.41 209,698 23,920,417 360 23,920,777
Rajasthan 342.24 68,621 9,104,803 240 9,105,043
MP 443.44 98,138 4,427,716 60 4,427,776
WB & A & N 103.91 87,762 11,437,821 - 11,437,821
HP 55.67 6,857 486,105 - 486,105
Bihar 173.88 136,771 6,510,831 - 6,510,831
Odisha 155.71 41,947 2,884,090 210 2,884,300
Assam 78.44 31,169 2,251,641 60 2,251,701
N.E 176.65 13,811 977,476 - 977,476
J&K 101.39 12,549 676,982 - 676,982
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

2.24 Relative Comparison between BSNL, AIRTEL and VODAFONE

Subscribers base
Being the major cellular services BSNL, Airtel and Vodafone are doing
well in all Indian metros and state circles by competing with each other. The
existing customer population of these three operators and relative comparison
among them can be seen from the tables.

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 Table – 2.7: Comparison between Subscriber Statistics of BSNL, Airtel
and Vodafone at Metropolitan cities

Total BSNL Airtel Vodafone

Metro
Subscribers Subscribers Subscribers Subscribers
Delhi 43,904,541 4,176,694 10,165,263 8,604,644
Mumbai 35,354,959 4,582,053 3,825667 6,109,034
Kolkata 24,766,453 3,252,724 3,700,480 4,107,060
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

Table – 2.8: Comparison between Subscriber Statistics of BSNL, Airtel

and Vodafone at State circles

Total BSNL Airtel Vodafone

Metro
Subscribers Subscribers Subscribers Subscribers
Maharashtra 70,581,726 8,749,847 9,920,257 13,165,105
Gujarat 53,997,694 5,796,994 6,982,834 16,096,328
Andhra Pradesh 68,535,324 11,080,122 18,167,524 6,313,730
Karnataka 57,256,088 8,783,076 16,536,509 6,748011
Tamil Nadu 78,578,482 11,869,673 13,928,413 12,010,636
Kerala 36,074,643 10,561,676 3,449,751 6,049,633
Punjab 31,073,638 5,512,524 6,957,217 4,397,453
Haryana 20,961,132 3,569,126 2,291,094 4,513,229
UP West &East 125,374,349 16,917,666 21,736,335 23,920,777
Rajasthan 49,561,291 6,885,191 14,425,108 9,105,043
MP 54,047,485 5,811,154 9,916,915 4,427,776
WB & A & N 45,566,135 4,213,273 9,084,371 11,437,821
HP 7,262,048 1,859,567 1,915,405 486,105
Bihar 62,374,970 6,579,449 18,527,460 6,510,831
Odisha 25,403,308 4,858,156 6,696,681 2,884,300
Assam 14,652,784 1,416,542 3,809,218 2,251,701
N.E 9,128,094 1,961,030 2,551,134 977,476
J&K 7,018,051 1,366,975 2,300,268 676,982
Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics of respective state Government
by Central Statistics Office @ constant price as on 14-08-2012.

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2.25 Other operators of cellular services
2.25.1 Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications was formerly known as Reliance Infocomm

and commenced its operation on 28 December 2002. It has a high-capacity,
convergent (voice, data and video) and integrated digital network in wireless
and wireline. It offers various applications for individuals and consulting.
Reliance Communications belongs to Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).
Over the years it has established a pan-India presence and boasts above 55
million customers. It began its operations in CDMA division but since January
12 2008. It has also started offering GSM operations.

Reliance Communications Ltd. is an Indian broadband and

telecommunications company headquartered in Navi Mumbai, India. RCOM is
the world's 15th largest mobile phone operator with over 150 million
subscribers and India's 2nd largest telecom operator in India, only after Bharti
Airtel. It ranks among the top 5 tele communications companies (rcom.co.in,
2012) in the world by no. of customer in a single country. The company has
five segments: Wireless segment includes wireless operations of the company;
broadband segment includes broadband operations of the company; Global
segment include national long distance and international long distance
operations of the company and the wholesale operations of its subsidiaries;
Investment segment includes investment activities of the Group companies, and
Other segment consists of the customer care activities and direct-to-home
activities.

Reliance mobile offers several value added services like voice mail
service, call waiting, call hold, call divert, 3 way call conferencing, CLIP (Call
Line Identification Presentation), CLIR (Call Line Identification Restriction),
Itemized Billing, caller tunes, value roaming, voice mail, games, astrology,
handsets in collaborations with handset manufactures like Nokia, LG, Kyocera,
Samsung etc. Price of these handsets ranged from lower end to higher end,

81
offering multiple choices to customers as per their affordability and
convenience factor.

2.25.2 Idea

The IDEA cellular service was founded under chairmanship of Kumar

Mangalam Birla in 1995. The Tata Cellular company was providing mobile
services in Andhra Pradesh during 2000. When Birla-AT&T brought
Maharashtra and Gujarat in to the single table, these two entities was merged.
Thus Birla-Tata-AT&T, popularly known as Batata, was born and was later
rebranded as IDEA. The head quarters of idea located at Santacruz East,
Mumbai, India (About us/ Idea cellular).

Then Idea set sights on RPG‘s operations in Madhya Pradesh which was
successfully acquired, helping Batata have a million subscribers, and the
licence to be the fourth operator in Delhi was clinched.

In 2004, Idea bought over the Escorts group‘s Escotel gaining Haryana,
Uttar Pradesh (West) and Kerala and licences for three more states UP (East),
Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. By the end of that year, four million Indians
were on the company‘s network. In 2005, AT&T sold its investment in Idea,
and the year after Tatas also bid good bye to pursue an independent telecom
business. And Idea was left only with one promoter, the AV Birla group.
Adding Punjab and Karnataka circles, Modi‘s joint venture partner, Telekom
Malaysia, invested for a 14.99% stake in Idea. Just around then, Idea‘s
subsidiary, Aditya Birla Telecom sold a 20% stake to US-based Providence
Equity Partners and Ideas subscriber base is totally to 16.09% of the total
mobile connecting in India (COAI, 2012). Idea leads all other telecom
operators in India in the Mobile Number Portability race, with a net gain of
nearly 11 lakhs subscribers (MNP data, 2012).

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2.25.3 Tata Tele services

Tata Teleservices was incorporated and established its cellular services

in 1996. It was the first ever company to launch CDMA mobile services in
India and started its operations with Andhra Pradesh circle. It offers multiple
services and products in 19 circles spread all over India. Tata Teleservices is
credited to introduce CDMA 1X technology platform in India. It also has a
reliable 3G ready telecom infrastructure that ensures quality and effectiveness
in its services. It has also collaborated with several telecom giants like
Motorola, Erisson, Lucent and ECI Telecom for the purpose of establishing
superb and reliable networks.

Tata Mobile service has plenty of value-added services include BREW

games, voice portal, picture messaging, polyphonic ring tones, interactive
applications like news, cricket, astrology, voice mail, 3 way conferencing,
itemized bill, CRBT, etc. One of the most affordable mobile service in India, it
offers both prepaid and postpaid services through its congestion free networks.

Tata Indicom offers widest range of CDMA mobile handsets at

reasonable prices. Indicom‘s connections are bundled with these handsets of
Samsung, Huawei, Haier, ZTE, Nokia and MotoQ etc. Tata was also
instrumental in launching India‘s first ever dual sim handset in collaboration
with Spice telecom.

Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL) is an Indian broadband and

telecommunications service provider based in Mumbai and Maharashtra. It is a
subsidiary of the Tata Group, an Indian conglomerate. It operates under the
brand name Tata DoCoMo in various telecom circles of India. Its revenues
reached to 31.91 billion rupees during 2011 (money control.com, 2012).

In November 2008, Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo picked up a

26 per cent equity stake in Tata Teleservices and in February 2008, TTSL
announced that it would provide CDMA mobile services targeted towards the

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youth, in association with the Virgin Group on a franchisee model basis.
Therefore, Tata Teleservices provides mobile services under Tata DoCoMo
(CDMA & GSM mobile operator, wireless broadband), Virgin Mobile (CDMA
& GSM mobile operator) and T24 Mobile (GSM mobile operator).

2.25.4 Aircel

Aircel group is an Indian mobile network operator headquartered in

Chennai, that provides wireless voice, messaging and data services in India. It
is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and
Sindya Securities & Investments Private Limited, whose current shareholders
are the Reddy family of Apollo Hospitals Group of India, with Maxis
Communications holding a majority stake of 74% (The star, 2009). Aircel
commenced operations in 1999 and today the leading mobile operator in Tamil
Nadu, Assam, North- East and Chennai. The key people of administration are
Sandip Das (Director), K. Heerjee (CEO) (Aircel business solutions website),
Anoor Vikal (CFO) (Aircel business solutions website), Jean Pascal (Head)
(indiatimes.com, 2012).

It is India‘s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider & seventh largest
mobile service provider (both GSM and CDMA) with a subscriber base of over
66.79 million, as of November, 2012. It has a market share of 7.13% among the
GSM operators in the country (TRAI telecom subscription data, 2012).

Additionally, Aircel has also obtained permission from Department of

Telecommunications (DoT) to provide International Long Distance (ILD) and
National Long Distance (NLD) telephony services. It also has the largest
service in Tamil Nadu.

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2.25.5 Uninor

Uninor is an Indian mobile network operator based in Gurgaon. The

company holds Unified Access Service (UAS) licences to offer mobile
telephony services in each of India‘s 22 telecom circles, and has received
spectrum to roll out services in 21 of these (excluding Delhi). The company is a
joint venture between Telenor Group, a telecommunications company
headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and Unitech Group, an Indian real estate
company. Telenor owns a controlling majority stake in the company (67.25%),
which has been branded Uninor in the Indian market.

Uninor offers mobile voice and data services based on the GSM
technology, currently on a 5.4 MHz spectrum. Uninor services are
commercially available in 13 circles across India. With a ‗value for money‘
proposition in the market, Uninor targets youth and other communities within
the Indian mass market. Now Uninor has more than 36 million customers and a
total workforce of 14,700 people. The company has more than 22,000 partners
in India, and its products and services are available from a more than 490,000
retail outlets serviced by 1,800 distributors all over the country.

2.25.6 Sistema Shyam

It is also known as Mobile Tele Systems (MTS) is the Indian

subdivision of Russian mobile tele systems telecom company having
headquarters at New Delhi. The previous holding pattern in this company is
Sistema (56.68%), Shyam group (23.96%) and Russia (17.14%). Sistema
Shyam TeleServices (SSTL) is a joint venture company between Sistema
{LSE-SSA} of Russia and Shyam Group of India. Now Sistema is the majority
share holder in this joint venture with a 73.71% equity stake, along with the
Shyam Group, holding a 23.79% stake and the rest 2.5% being public partake.
SSTL has the spectrum to provide mobile telephony services in all the 22
circles across the country. Presently SSTL offers mobile telephony services in

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the Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Bihar as well as the Kolkata
circles. In a recent development, SSTL tied up with Mobile TeleSystems OJSC
of Russia to bring the globally acclaimed telecom brand-MTS-to India. MTS is
the 8th largest telecom brand in the world and has recently been voted the 71st
ranked brand out of the 100 top global brands in the world by Millward Brown
(Times of India).

2.25.7 Videocon

Videocon Telecommunications Limited is a Videocon Group company

that offers GSM mobile services under the brand name Videocon, in India. It is
headquartered at Gurgaon, Haryana. It launched its saving on 7th April 2010 in
Mumbai. The Videocon Group is a global business conglomerate with a strong
presence in Household Consumer Goods, Oil & Gas, Retail, Telecom, DTH
and the Power sector.

At its peak, Videocon held licences to provide mobile services in 18 out

of 22 telecom circles of India. However, Videocon launched commercial
services only in 11 out of the 18 circles it held licences in. Following the 2G
spectrum scam, the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licenses issued by the Indian
Government in 2008, including 21 licences belonging to Videocon. In the 2012
spectrum auction, Videocon won back licences in 6 circles (telecom.talk.info).
Now Videocon is operating in 7 circles. These are Bihar (includes Jharkhand),
Gujarat, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh (includes Chattisgarh), Punjab (under brand
sharing agreement with HFCL Infotel Ltd.), Uttar Pradesh (East) and, Uttar
Pradesh (West) which (includes Uttarakhand)

2.25.8 Loop Mobile

Loop Mobile started its services in 1995. It has more than one million
subscribers and its primary operation zone is Mumbai. It has won several
awards in customer satisfaction surveys across Mumbai city. Loop mobile has
constantly strived to improve its technology and provide the customers the best

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of service and network. That also explains its good coverage and appreciative
clarity. Its technological improvement reflects in unique network design, camel
phase 2 intelligent network (IN) platform, the qualnet, GRPS and MMS
services.

It also boasts of various value added services that include; unlimited

email on GRPS enabled handsets, voice sms, Black Berry smart phone, Mobile
contests and numerous wallpapers, ring tones, games mini movies etc. Other
facilities are itemized billing, clip caller ID, call conference and CLIR.

It also provides M-commerce, missed call alerts, mobile tracker,

voicemail and other value enabled services like jokes, astrology, news, movies,
music and images. Facilities like Sim replacements, handset sales and service
enquiries also come handy to its customers. Loop Mobile has several galleries
spread all across the Mumbai city and that makes it very convenient for its
subscribers.

Loop Mobile, usually referred to as LOOP and formerly known as BPL

Mobile, is a mobile phone service provider in India under leadership of Sandip
Basu (CEO). It offers both prepaid and postpaid GSM cellular phone coverage
in Assam, Kolkata, North East, Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Orissa,
Punjab, Rajasthan after receiving a license to operate across 21 telecom circles
by DoT (medianama.com, loop mobile website).

BPL Mobile Communications, established in 1994, was the India‘s first

mobile network operator (telecomtalk.info). It began its operations in 1995.
However, BPL Mobile was renamed to Loop Mobile in March 2009, following
the expiry of its brand-use agreement with the TPG Nambiar-owned BPL
Group (businessstandard.com). Having consistently met and exceeded TRAI
benchmarks, Loop Mobile is now ISO 9001:2008 certified (telecomtalk.info).
The Khaitan Holding Group took ownership control in 2005. Loop Mobile has

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completed over 16 years of service and today has over 3 million subscribers
(telecomtalk.info).

Being the country's oldest telecom service provider, Loop Mobile is the
first operator in the country to offer services like MMS, GPRS and Caller Ring
Tunes (telecomtalk.info). Other VAS include Reply-All, Roaming on Prepaid,
Intelligent network, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Multimedia
Messaging Service(MMS), Missed Call Alert, Caller Ring Tune, Mobile
Tracker, Doctor-on-Call, "1 paise per sec" prepaid plan, Karaoke Messaging
among others (About loop mobile). Apart from Mumbai, it is among the new
mobile services companies to be awarded licenses to operate across 21 circles
by DoT. Loop Mobile uses the latest NGIP (Next Generation Internet Protocol)
and EDGE (Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution) technology
(darkwap.mobi).

As a part of the expansion, 1,200 new cell sites were added in Mumbai
under Loop Mobile and making its network one of the strongest in the city. The
next generation Software-defined radio (SDR), were installed for the first-of-
its-kind GSM deployment across any metro in India. The SDR-based next-
generation IP (NGIP) network upgrade is environment-friendly which will
considerably reduce carbon foothold. This up-gradation instantly added
network quality, crystal clear voice clarity and high-speed data.

2.25.9 Quadrant

It is a public limited company incorporated on 20/8/1946 and having

head quarters at Mohali of Punjab. The investment trust of India (ITI), is
managed by Chairman cum Managing Director Sri B.K. Kothari. During 2002-
03, the name of the company changed to HFCL infotel Ltd., as part of
company‘s diversification and restructuring programme, HFCL infotel Ltd., a
telecommunication company operating in the Punjab‘s circle merged with the
company through a scheme of amalgamation. During 2003-04, the company

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launched its prepaid mobile product and a complete range of innovative value
added services and data products. The company is offering many services
under brand name ―Connect‖.

Quadrant Televentures Limited is a Unified Access Services Licensee in

the Punjab Telecom Circle, which consists of Punjab, Chandigarh and the
Panchkula town of Haryana. The Company provides telecommunication
services, which includes voice telephony, both wireline and fixed wireless,
code division multiple access (CDMA) Mobile Services and global system for
mobile communications (GSM) based mobiles, Internet services, broadband
data services and a range of services namely, centrex, leased lines, virtual path
number (VPNs), voice mail, etc. Quardrant televentures reports net loss of
33.66 crores in the quarter ending December 2012. The Company with its optic
fiber cable network of over 3,800 kilometers provides services in 52 of the 55
short distance charging areas (SDCA). As of March 31, 2012 , the Company
had a total subscriber base of 16,64,575 telephony customers, including
2,00,044 fixedline customers, 1,15,538 Broadband customers 27,768 CDMA
mobile customers and 13,21,225 GSM mobile customers.

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