Aircel - Innovating to Grow

Aircel proves to be the most sought after and unbeatable telecom operator when it comes to offering innovative and customer driven schemes for subscribers; and the fastest pan-India launch of GSM services.

Aircel has fast moved from a mere spoke in the wheel to a company to watch out for in the telecom arena and retained the 8th position in the annual V&D100 survey. Aircel has grown to `5,392 crore in terms of revenue in FY11 (from `3,743 crore in FY10) showing a remarkable growth of 44.1%. It captured a market share of 2.9%.

On the subscribers front, Aircel added over 48 mn subscribers in FY11 as compared to 36.86 mn in FY10.

Aircel, last fiscal, aggressively launched its GSM operations in all its circles and completed its pan-India footprint. Aircel currently operates in all 23 telecom circles. With a subscriber base of over 48 mn, Aircel extended its services across Rajasthan, its 23rd circle.

Aircel acquired 3G licenses for 13 telecom circles and plans to launch 3G services in other circles through strategic alliances. The operators expects 30% of their subscribers to shift to 3G platform in the next 3-4 years.

In terms of investment, Aircel's commitment to the market is underlined by the investment of over $8 bn that it has already been made and plans to spend a further $3 bn in the next 3 years' time frame. The operator is already following planned promotion model for its 3G services in India. Aircel launched a 3G experience zone in Chennai for consumers to get a first-hand feel of 3G mobile telephony and its wonders.

Aircel tied up with INQ Mobile last year and launched social mobile INQ CHAT 3G and INQ MINI 3G which offers social experience of being connected with friends, family and loved ones 24x7. INQ on Aircel offers Facebook and Twitter experience as it is deeply integrated in the handset. It's not Facebook 'ON' your phone , but its Facebook 'IN' your phone, the application is always on and always connected. INQ CHAT 3G and INQ MINI 3G is now available in 55 cities and is sold from Aircel retail outlets.

Aircel positioned itself as the company which connects with the youth in innovative ways such as offering INQ-the first social mobile in the country, Aircel unlimited dialer tunes, etc. Aircel smartly targeted this community which comprises 51% of the total population, increasing its market share significantly in a short span.

Apps Store

Operators commercially launched the mobile application store dubbed as 'Pocket Apps Store' for its postpaid and prepaid subscribers across India in the last fiscal. The apps store is a centralized hub for mobile applications developed specifically for mobile phones.

Aircel also tied up with Blyk, a UK based organization and launched 'Blyk on Aircel' in India. Blyk sends the content by way of messages (SMS and MMS) across categories like entertainment, sports, lifestyle comprising travel, fashion, wellness, gadgets etc, and other activities such as city specific events, dating and relationship tips, comics and career advice.

Strengthening its hold on data services, Aircel introduced the first telehealthcare delivery on mobile in association with Apollo Hospitals Group. This service is providing a structured medical advice and a disposition based on the symptoms and is available round-the-clock from qualified Apollo Clinicians.

Among new applicatons, the company launched a detective mobile series-Kriminal Kaun-introduced by New Media,the digital entity of Balaji telefilms Ltd. This series or 'audiosodes' are available in both, Hindi and Tamil language.

Aircel, Huawei complete LTE field trial in India

NEW DELHI: Telecom operator Aircel and telecom equipment maker Huawei announced to complete field trial of LTE-TDD technology in combination with two existing wireless technology namely GSM and UMTS using chipset from Qualcomm.

"Aircel is pleased to be the first telecom service provider to have successfully experienced LTE-TDD functionality using multimode devices based on Qualcomm chipset in our GSM,UMTS, LTE-TDD network provided by Huawei at Hyderabad," Mallikarjun Rao, CTO of Aircel said.

Aircel is a pan India operator. It has 3G spectrum in 13 circles and BWA spectrum in eight circles.

GSM, UMTS and TDD LTE come under category of 2G, 3G and 4G technology, respectively.

Huawei spokesperson told PTI that during trial peak data transfer speed of 245 megabyte per second during was achieved.

"The peak rate was achieved both in fixed and mobile condition of device moving at speed between 3 to 5 kilometer per hour," Suresh Vaidyanathan, spokesperson, Huawei India said.

This means that a person moving at speed of 3 to 5 km per hour can download content of compact disc like a bollywood movie in 3 seconds. A compact disc can generally store 700 to 800 megabyte of data.

After completion of this trial, Huawei said it is now ready to deploy commercial LTE-TDD network for GSM and UMTS mobile operators for mobile broadband in India.

"This first inter operability test on an existing UMTS network will stimulate the mobile broadband market in India, and show the way forward for the LTE industry," Deng Taihua, the president of Huawei's WiMAX, TD-SCDMA and LTE-TDD product line.

In India, most telecom operators have indicated to adopt Long Term Evaluation (LTE) Technology for rolling out Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services.

Though FDD version of LTE is available in some countries, Indian telecom operators for some technical reason can only deploy Time Division Duplex (TDD) version of LTE.

However, non-availability of TDD LTE chipsets and equipments commercially had kept roll-out of BWA services by private telecom companies on hold in the country, even though BWA spectrum was allocated to companies in October, 2010.