Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd., India’s leading private telecom conglomerate today announced the completion of the amalgamation of Bharti Mobitel Limited, a company running the mobile service operations in Kolkata with Bharti Cellular Limited. Bharti Cellular Ltd., is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bharti Tele-Ventures and holds license for providing cellular mobile services in Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, U. P. (West), Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The merger petition was filed in October 2002 before the Hon’ble High Court of Delhi, which was approved in its final hearing in March 2003.

Bharti Cellular Limited had earlier acquired a 100 per cent stake of Spice Cell Ltd, in Kolkata. The deal was consummated on July 16, 2001. Bharti subsequently launched India’s largest mobile service brand, AirTel, in Kolkata, in December 2001. Since then Bharti has expanded the operations in Kolkata and today, it has over 200,000 customers.

Leveraging on Pan India benefits:
AirTel offers unique benefits to customers in Kolkata as a result of its national presence. Customers in Kolkata receive the largest roaming network across the country as a result of AirTel’s Pan India presence in over 15 circles. Also, AirTel offers customers complete incoming free from any phone for both post paid and pre paid customers in Kolkata.

Reduction of entry cost – expanding market:
Since launch of services in Kolkata, AirTel has been constantly acquiring customers. Today AirTel has over 2 lakhs of customers registering a growth of 100 % since February 2002 till February 2003 as per COAI figs. Due to its unique initiative of reduction in entry cost in Prepaid to Rs. 299/-, AirTel is expanding the market and category.

World Class Services
AirTel Kolkata has a 24x7 hrs dedicated call centre within customer care department to service both postpaid and prepaid customers. It is formed by a team of executives who are armed with certain specialized skill sets in order to interact professionally with customers and disseminate correct information on methods of usage and services and in the process resolve problems instantly. Supported by state-of-the-art infrastructure, AirTel Kolkata maintains a high degree of customer satisfaction levels amongst it customers.

Innovative products and services
AirTel customers are provided with the powerful 32K simcard with customized menu and internet-like browsing facility. AirTel further provides customers in Kolkata a wide range of value-added services such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging) and Mobile Office on GPRS. AirTel even offers customers MMS facility while roaming. Other AirTel services include SMS services with Yahoo! alongwith services as Vernacular SMS, AstroTel or Live Astrology, M-greeting, MovieTel, Floritel, Taxi conversion service, M-Panji, and Traffic updates are offered for customers in Kolkata. Only AirTel offers the convenience of downloading ringtones on mobiles alonwith receiving instant news, cricket, stock, horoscope etc by simply asking for it on 646. Customers can select from array of choices as Bengali, Indian, International, Rahman tunes and thereby send it to another AirTel number.

World Class Network
Today AirTel customers in Kolkata are provided with the next generation of cellular technology – the hi-sensitive 2.5G network with 50% more powerful BTSs that offer seamless coverage, connectivity and enhanced voice clarity. This GPRS network allows customers to send and receive pictures along with normal text thereby enabling faster downloads and transmission.

About Bharti
Bharti Tele-Ventures is India's leading private sector provider of telecommunications services based on an aggregate of approximately 3.34 million customers as of February 28, 2003 consisting of approximately 2.99 million mobile and 3,54,000 fixed-line customers. The Company through its subsidiaries also provides fixed-line, VSAT, Internet services and network solutions. The Company has also commenced offering national and international long distance services.

The company seeks to capitalize on the growth opportunities that it believes are available in the Indian market and consolidate its position to be an integrated telecommunications service provider, with a focus on mobile services.

The Company today offers mobile services in Fifteen out of 22 circles in India. Bharti Tele-Ventures was the first private sector operator to provide fixed-line services in India when it commenced providing services in the Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh circle in June 1998. BTVL recently launched its fixed-line services in the license areas of Haryana, Delhi, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and thus became the first private sector service provider to provide fixed-line services in all its licensed areas.

Bharti Tele-Ventures has always believed in creating strong partnerships with its joint venture partners. Today, SingTel and Warburg Pincus are its leading partners. The other partners include leading international financial investors such as International Finance Corporation, Asian Infrastructure Fund Group and New York Life Insurance.