Bharti Airtel Ltd. history, profile and corporate video
Bharti Airtel Ltd. engages in the business of providing telecommunication systems and services, passive infrastructure services, and direct to home services. The company operates its business through the following segments: Mobile Services India and South Asia, Mobile Services Africa, Telemedia Services, Digital TV Services, Airtel Business, Tower Infrastructure Services, and Others. The Mobile Services India and South Asia segment covers voice and data telecom services provided through wireless technology in the geographies of India and South Asia. The Mobile Services Africa segment covers provision of voice and data telecom services offered to customers in Africa continent. The Telemedia Services segment covers voice and data communications based on fixed network and broadband technology. The Digital TV Services segment includes digital broadcasting services provided under the direct-to-home platform. The Airtel Business segment covers end-to-end telecom solutions being provided to large Indian and global corporations by serving as a single point of contact for all telecommunication needs across data and voice, network integration and managed services. The Tower Infrastructure Services segment includes setting up, operating and maintaining wireless communication towers in India. The Other’s segment comprises of mobile commerce services, and also includes administrative and support services. Bharti Airtel was founded by Sunil Bharti Mittal on July 7, 1995 and is headquartered in New Delhi, India.“
“Bharti Airtel History
Sunil Bharti Mittal founded the Bharti Group. In 1983, Mittal was in an agreement with Germany’s Siemens to manufacture push-button telephone models for the Indian market. In 1986, Mittal 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 cordless telephones. In 1992, Mittal won a bid to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. In 1995, Mittal incorporated the cellular operations as Bharti Tele-Ventures and launched service in Delhi. In 1996, cellular service was extended to Himachal Pradesh. 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 public 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.
Airtel launched “Hello Tunes”, a Caller ring back tone service (CRBT), in July 2004 becoming to the first operator in India to do so. The Airtel theme song, composed by A.R. Rahman, was the most popular tune on that year.
During the 2009–10 financial year, Bharti negotiated for its strategic partner Alcatel-Lucent to manage the network infrastructure for the tele-media business. On 31 May 2012, Bharti Airtel awarded the three-year contract to Alcatel-Lucent for setting up an Internet Protocolaccess network (mobile backhaul) across the country. This would help consumers access internet at faster speed and high quality internet browsing on mobile handsets.
On 26 February 2013, Airtel announced that it had deployed Ericsson‘s Mobile Broadband Charging (MBC) solution and completely modernised its prepaid services for its subscribers in India. As a part of the deal, Ericsson‘s multi service MBC suite allows prepaid customers to have personalised profile-based data charging plans. Prepaid customers will be able to customise their data plans across mobility, fixed line and broadband by cross bundling across multiple domains (2G, 3G, 4G/LTE & Wi-Fi). It will also offer flexible multi service charging in geographical redundant mode, making Airtel the first operator to implement geographical redundancy at such a large scale. In May 2013, Bharti Infotel paid Rs 50,000 as compensation to a customer “for unfair trade practices”. The customer alleged that the company continued to aggressively demand payment despite customer requests for disconnection of service.”
*Information from Forbes.com and Wikipedia.org
**Video published on YouTube by “ infoondemand“