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India’s Mobile Tariffs Hit the Roof

Airtel says that the mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) needs to be upwards of Rs 300 to enable a financially healthy business model for Telcos in India…reports Asian Lite News

Airtel has announced a price hike across all its pre-paid and post-paid. The change in tariff plans will go into effect from July 3rd across all circles and throughout India. The most affordable plan of Airtel will now cost Rs 199 for a validity of 28 days, with 2GB data, unlimited calling and 100 SMS per day free, earlier its cost was Rs 179.

It is important to note that the telecom provider has raised rates of all plans but plan benefits like call minutes, free data etc will remain unchanged.

The telecom service provider has announced the price hike across all plans including 3 pre-paid unlimited voice plans, 9 pre-paid daily data plans, 3 pre-paid data add-on plans and 4 post-paid plans.

According to the new tariff, an 84-day pre-paid plan costing Rs 509 will give 6GB data, 100 SMS and unlimited calling per day.

The Rs 1,999 pre-paid plan will give 24GB data, Unlimited calling, and 100 SMS/day for 365 days. The same plan was earlier costing Rs 1799.

The most affordable new 28-day pre-paid data plan will now cost Rs 299 instead of Rs 265 and will give 1 GB of data, unlimited calling and 100 SMS per day. Whereas the Rs 499 pre-paid data plan will be valid for 28 days and give 3GB, unlimited calling and 100SMS per day.

The lowest monthly post-paid plan will now cost Rs 449 instead of Rs 399. It will give one connection 40 GB data with rollover, unlimited calling, 100SMS per day and XStream Premium subscription.

SC stays Delhi HC order on Bharti Airtel claiming Rs 923 cr GST refund

The Airtel post-paid family plan will now cost Rs 1199 from Rs 999 earlier. A family plan will give 4 connections, 190 GB data with rollover, unlimited calling, 100SMS per day, an XStream Premium subscription, a Disney+Hotstar subscription for 12 months, an Amazon Prime Subscription for 6 months, and a Wynk Premium subscription.

Airtel says that the mobile average revenue per user (ARPU) needs to be upwards of Rs 300 to enable a financially healthy business model for Telcos in India.

“We believe that this level of ARPU will enable the substantial investments required in network technology and spectrum and offer a modest return on capital. In this light, we welcome the announcements in the industry to repair tariffs,” an official said.

Airtel says the new revised mobile tariffs will be applicable from July 3rd, 2024. According to Airtel, the price hike is very modest, less than 70p per day on the entry-level plans so that to eliminate any burden on budget-challenged consumers.

Jio’s Turn

Telecom service provider Jio on Thursday announced its new unlimited plans. The company said that the new plans will be available from July 3 and it will continue to provide the “best plans and best experience” to its users.

The company has raised the prices of its existing plans from monthly to annual plans. There are six monthly plans. The existing monthly plan of Rs 155 has been revised to Rs 189 and there has been revision in other plans in the category. The two-month plan of Rs 470 has been revised to Rs 579, the three-month plan has been revised from Rs 395 to Rs 479.

The annual plan of Rs 2999 has been revised to Rs 3599. The company stated that the unlimited 5G data will be available on all 2GB/day and above plans.

“The new plans will be made effective on July 3, 2024 and can be opted from all existing touchpoints and channels,” a Jio release said.

The company said that the Jio customers will continue to be the biggest beneficiaries. With Jio True 5G – the fastest-ever 5G rollout of this scale anywhere in the world, India now leads the world in 5G. Nearly 85 per cent of the total 5G cells operational in India are by Jio.

“With India’s only Stand-Alone True 5G network, Jio continues to provide superlative 5G experience with truly unlimited 5G data on its leading plans at no additional cost to its users,” the release said.

It said that even today, 250 million feature phone users in India “remain stuck in the 2G era, unable to access digital services”.

“To empower these users with a Digital Life, 4G-enabled JioBharat/JioPhone was introduced. JioBharat/JioPhone users will continue to enjoy the existing tariffs,” the release said.

Akash M Ambani, Chairman, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, said the introduction of new plans is a step in the direction of furthering industry innovation and driving sustainable growth through investments in 5G and AI technology. “Ubiquitous, high-quality, affordable internet is the backbone of Digital India and Jio takes pride in contributing to this. Jio will always put our country and customer first and will continue to invest for India,” he said.

Jio said that building on its core principle of leveraging the power of technology to deliver the best value and services to its users, it has also introduced two new applications.

“JioSafe – Quantum-secure communication app for calling, messaging, file transfer and more (priced at Rs 199 per month) and JioTranslate – AI-powered multi-lingual communication app for translating voice call, voice message, text and image (priced at Rs 99 per month).”

Jio users will get both these applications (worth Rs 298/month) free for a year.

With Jio revising tariffs, other telecom operators may also raise tariffs soon. (ANI)

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Nokia, Airtel Team Up for Next-Gen Network

Under the agreement, Airtel will utilise Nokia’s ‘1830 PSS-x OTN’ switches in its National Long-Distance Network connecting major cities across India….reports Asian Lite News

Nokia on Tuesday announced it has entered into an agreement with Bharti Airtel to deploy a next-generation optical transport network (OTN) that will provide additional capacity, higher reliability and lower cost, enabling superior services for Airtel’s customers.

Under the agreement, Airtel will utilise Nokia’s ‘1830 PSS-x OTN’ switches in its National Long-Distance Network connecting major cities across India.

“As a world leader in OTN, our technology will help Airtel to increase the capacity and features of Bharti’s optical transport network to meet growing bandwidth demand driven by the enterprise and hyperscaler segments. It will also provide the service level performance to meet the strict SLAs from Airtel customers,” Chandan Kumar, Head of Optical Network Business Centre for Nokia India, said in a statement.

The increased capacity will enable Airtel to potentially deliver faster and more reliable broadband services and be ready for new use cases, Nokia said.

According to the company, its OTN solution enables Bharti Airtel to seamlessly upgrade its legacy transport switching infrastructure across its pan-Indian network footprint to meet new transport network traffic demands while improving both the performance and reliability of its network.

Nokia noted that the launch of 5G networks and the push for broadband connectivity across India is increasing demands for Communications Service Providers (CSPs), including augmentation of backhaul transport for denser 5G mobile networks, wholesale connectivity for new segments like smart grids, data centre interconnect (DCI) and other business services.

To address this exponential growth in traffic demand, transport networks need to be upgraded to increase overall transport capacity and bandwidth efficiency using high-capacity OTN switching and utilising additional spectrum, including the L-band wavelengths of the fibre, it added.

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Sunil Mittal’s Uganda IPO flops

The demand for Ugandan government bonds maturing in 2033 exceeded the amount on sale by eight-fold in an auction last Thursday….reports Asian Lite News

Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal’s Airtel Uganda Ltd. failed to sell about half of the shares on offer in its initial public offering (IPO), as investors stayed away, preferring high-yield government bonds, a media report said.

Airtel said it managed to raise 211.4 billion shillings ($56 million) after selling 54.5 per cent of the 8 billion shares on offer. Retail investors bought just 0.3 per cent of the IPO. Shares were unchanged at 100 shillings on its debut on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported.

Government bonds in the East African country yield as much as 15 per cent. By comparison, shares of Airtel’s rival MTN Uganda Ltd. have dropped 14 per cent since its IPO in 2021. Investors have also been wary after Uganda enacted a draconian anti-LGBTQ law, prompting US President Joe Biden to withdraw the nation’s preferential trade access.

Investors may have opted for less risky government securities while disregarding the future value of the stock, the Uganda Security Exchange’s Chief Executive Officer, Paul Bwiso, said in the nation’s capital, Kampala, Bloomberg reported.

The demand for Ugandan government bonds maturing in 2033 exceeded the amount on sale by eight-fold in an auction last Thursday.

Four years ago, President Yoweri Museveni’s government had ordered wireless companies to sell 20 per cent stakes to local investors in a bid to deepen the market.

The state-controlled National Social Security Fund bought a 10.55 per cent stake, according to Airtel, Bloomberg reported.

A decision by the company to spin off its mobile-money business also played a role in the IPO’s failure, according to Centenary Bank financial markets head, Benoni Okwenje.

African telecom operators have been devising plans to capitalise on their lucrative mobile money businesses. TPG invested in Airtel’s unit valuing it at $2.65 billion in 2021, and more recently, MTN sold a minority stake of its fintech business to Mastercard valuing the business at $5.2 billion, Bloomberg reported.

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Airtel teams up with Cloud computing firm Vultr

Airtel.

The cloud solutions will be hosted in Airtel’s data centres across Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR, enabling businesses to scale their digital operations globally….reports Asian Lite News

Bharti Airtel and Cloud computing company Vultr on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership to offer cloud solutions to enterprises in India.

Airtel will offer Vultr’s cloud solutions to its enterprise customers, especially those in the digital space.

The cloud solutions will be hosted in Airtel’s data centres across Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR, enabling businesses to scale their digital operations globally.

The partnership will offer Vultr’s Cloud Compute, Cloud GPU, and Cloud Infrastructure services to India’s digital ecosystem, said Airtel.

“This partnership will help us to deliver complex cloud solutions at competitive costs which when combined with our legacy network strength and connectivity, offers an attractive proposition to our enterprise customers,” said Ganesh Lakshminarayan, CEO-Enterprise, Airtel Business.

Airtel will offer all of Vultr’s services as a part of its enterprise solutions for advanced workloads tied to AI, machine learning, HPC, analytics, visual computing and gaming use cases.

“With 30 Cloud data centre locations globally, including three locations in India in Airtel data centers, Vultr provides unrivaled price-to-performance and global reach. Vultr is an ideal platform for accelerating business transformation and digital success,” said J.J. Kardwell, CEO – Constant, the parent company of Vultr.

For enterprise customers, Airtel offers secure connectivity, cloud and data centre services, cyber security, IoT, adtech and CPaaS (Airtel IQ).

Vultr has so far served over 1.5 million customers across 185 countries.

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Airtel acquires strategic stake in Lemnisk

SC stays Delhi HC order on Bharti Airtel claiming Rs 923 cr GST refund

In future, Airtel plans to offer this service to its enterprise customers through Airtel IQ, which is the network-integrated Cloud Platform as a Service (CPaaS)….reports Asian Lite News

With an aim to build the world’s largest customer data platform (CDP), Bharti Airtel on Tuesday said it has acquired a strategic stake in Lemnisk (Immensitas Private Limited) under its ‘Start Up Accelerator Programme for an undisclosed sum.

Bengaluru-based Lemnisk offers real-time marketing automation and secure CDP, capable of providing 1-to-1 personalisation and cross-channel customer journeys at scale that increases conversions, retention, and growth for enterprises.

“Lemnisk’s real time marketing automation engine is a natural fit for us, where over 350 million customers interact with brands daily through multiple touch points,” said Adarsh Nair, CEO, Airtel Digital.

They will work together to build the world’s largest CDP platform across Airtel’s digital businesses including ad-tech (Airtel Ads), digital entertainment (Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream) and digital marketplace (Airtel Thanks App).

In future, Airtel plans to offer this service to its enterprise customers through Airtel IQ, which is the network-integrated Cloud Platform as a Service (CPaaS).

The platform will offer enterprises an opportunity to create a nimble, scalable, and omni-channel engagement for its customers, said the company.

“Airtel’s ambition aligns with our vision to offer a single frictionless platform to super large enterprises that both organizes and activates high volume and high velocity data. We are looking forward to achieving great things together,” said Subra Krishnan, Co-founder and CEO, Lemnisk.

The Airtel Startup Accelerator Programme invests in early-stage startups working on technologies that add strategic value to Airtel’s business offerings.

The programme gives startups the opportunity to deploy their technologies and applications at a massive scale, which includes more than 350 million retail customers and over one million businesses.

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Airtel, Meta team up to support India’s digital ecosystem

SC stays Delhi HC order on Bharti Airtel claiming Rs 923 cr GST refund

Both companies will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) based new-age digital solutions…reports Asian Lite News

Bharti Airtel and Meta on Monday announced their collaboration to support the growth of India’s digital ecosystem.

Airtel partners with Meta and STC (Seychelles Trading Company) to bring 2Africa Pearls to India as part of its ongoing effort to improve the nation’s infrastructure.

2Africa is the world’s longest subsea cable system and is expected to provide faster internet connectivity to nearly 3 billion people worldwide.

“With our contributions to the 2Africa cable and Open RAN, we are investing in crucial and progressive connectivity infrastructure which is needed to support the increasing demand for high-speed data in India. We look forward to working closely with Meta to deliver best-in-class digital experiences to our customers in India,” Vani Venkatesh, CEO, Global Business, Bharti Airtel said in a statement.

Both companies will jointly invest in global connectivity infrastructure and CPaaS (Communications Platform as a Service) based new-age digital solutions to support the emerging requirements of customers and enterprises in India.

“We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Airtel to further advance the region’s connectivity infrastructure that will enable a better network experience for people and businesses across India,” Francisco Varela, vice president of mobile partnerships for Meta said in a statement.

The company said that it will integrate Meta’s WhatsApp within its CPaaS platform.

With this integration, businesses will be able to use WhatsApp’s extensive features and reach to provide enterprises with unparalleled omnichannel customer engagement.

Meanwhile, the reach of digital technologies remains limited to largely male, urban, upper-caste, and upper-class households and individuals, said Oxfam India’s latest ‘India Inequality Report 2022: Digital Divide’.

The percentage of men owning phones is as high as 61 per cent while only 31 per cent of the women owned phones in 2021, according to the report.

Oxfam India has called on the Union government and state governments to ensure universal access to Internet connectivity by investing in digital infrastructure to not only make the Internet affordable but also push for greater accessibility to smartphones.

According to the report, 8 per cent of the General Caste have a computer or a laptop whereas less than 1 per cent of the Scheduled Tribes (ST) and 2 per cent of the Scheduled Castes (SC) have it. As per the Mobile Gender Gap report by GSMA, women are less likely to use mobile Internet by 33 per cent when compared to men in 20.

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Oracle modernising Airtel for larger 5G roll-out

The company promises between 20 to 30 times higher speeds than the current speed, coupled with brilliant voice experience and super-fast call connect…reports Nishant Arora

As Bharti Airtel rolls out 5G services in select cities in India, Cloud major Oracle is busy helping the telecom operator in its digital metamorphosis, internally as well as externally, to serve its stakeholders and customers better as it transitions from 4G to 5G.

Airtel has launched 5G Plus services in eight cities and users will not need to change the SIM card as the existing Airtel 4G SIM is now 5G-enabled.

Customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi will start enjoying the Airtel 5G Plus services in a phased manner, said the company, as it continues to construct its network and complete the roll out.

The company promises between 20 to 30 times higher speeds than the current speed, coupled with brilliant voice experience and super-fast call connect.

Prasad Rai, Vice President of Global Strategic Clients Group at Oracle India, told IANS that they have worked very closely with them “to modernise their organisations as they change from the 4G to the 5G worlda.

“Airtel has deployed our Fusion ERP and SCM Cloud solutions that are helping them address some of the challenges such as real-time integration, automation and less scope of collaboration, simplification and agility for the 5G era,” Rai elaborated.

In November last year, Oracle and Bharti Airtel announced new Cloud and data centre deals to help boost the digital economy and empower more than 1 million enterprise customers.

To support the increasing demand for cloud services in India, OracleAbegan expanding its India (Mumbai) region capacity with Nxtra by Airtel.

Nxtra by Airtel has the largest network of data centres in India with 12 large and 120 edge data centres across the country and will invest over Rs 5,000 crore over the next four years to expand its capacity by 3X to over 400 MW.

“With its 5G ready network and large investments in digital infrastructure including data centres, Airtel is well positioned to tap the emerging growth opportunities in the enterprise segment as businesses accelerate their digital transformation journeys,” according to Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Airtel.

Airtel Business and Oracle now jointly market Oracle Cloud solutions to enterprise customers in the private and public sectors.

With the evolution of 5G, the telcos need to hire the right kind of talent and, therefore “Airtel has deployed Oracle Fusion ERP and SCM to drive productivity and responsiveness”, Rai told IANS here on the sidelines of the ‘Oracle CloudWorld 2022’ event.

With the Cloud ERP and SCM deployments, Airtel has been able to automate manual processes, gain an on-demand 360-degree view of its financial data and streamline procurement and supply chain management.

This has helped transform Airtel’s internal operating models to enable its partners and employees to deliver better customer engagement and services as it prepares for a larger 5G roll-out in the country.

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Airtel launches 5G Plus in 8 cities

SC stays Delhi HC order on Bharti Airtel claiming Rs 923 cr GST refund

Customers who have 5G smartphones will enjoy the high-speed Airtel 5G Plus on their existing data plans until the roll-out is more widespread…reports Asian Lite News

Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched 5G Plus services in eight cities and users will not need to change the SIM card as the existing Airtel 4G SIM is now 5G-enabled.

Customers in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi will start enjoying the Airtel 5G Plus services in a phased manner, said the company, as it continues to construct its network and complete the roll out.

The company promises between 20 to 30 times higher speeds than the current speed, coupled with brilliant voice experience and super-fast call connect.

Customers who have 5G smartphones will enjoy the high-speed Airtel 5G Plus on their existing data plans until the roll-out is more widespread.

“Our solution will work on any 5G handset and the existing SIM that customers have. Our obsession on customer experience is now embellished with a 5G solution that is kinder to the environment,” said Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO, Bharti Airtel.

“Airtel 5G Plus is all set to redefine the way people communicate, live, work, connect and play for years to come,” Vittal added.

Airtel 5G Plus runs on a technology that has the widest acceptance in the world with the most developed ecosystem.

This will ensure that all 5G smartphones in India seamlessly work on the Airtel network.

Airtel 5G Plus will allow superfast access to high-definition video streaming, gaming, multiple chatting, instant uploading of photos and more.

Bharti Airtel last week showcased a 5G-connected ambulance to transform primary health care in emergency situations, along with smart farming solutions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 5G official launch in the country.

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Airtel unveils next-gen Cloud solutions

This reduces latency, costs and load on servers making it easier for enterprises to focus on app performance for OTT, ed-tech, gaming and healthcare sectors…reports Asian Lite News

Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched a new Cloud portfolio to offer specialised products for multiple business segments, as the company plnas to roll out 5G services in the country.

The new cloud offerings will fall under Edge Cloud Portfolio and will include Edge content delivery network (CDN).

Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN accelerates web and video content delivery by using its edge network to bring content as close to users as possible.

This reduces latency, costs and load on servers making it easier for enterprises to focus on app performance for OTT, ed-tech, gaming and healthcare sectors.

“Airtel has three key strengths to offer a differentiated set of cloud offerings � we have 12 large data centres and 120+ edge locations. We also have a network with comprehensive coverage across the country and to most locations across the globe,” said Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business.

Airtel is currently working with two of the largest OTT companies in India and others on this platform.

“With 5G around the corner, businesses will leverage the low latency, high bandwidth and high device density of the 5G spectrum to solve critical problems using edge computing,” said Chitkara.

Airtel said it will utilise Edge Cloud applicationd eveloper Qwilt’s ‘Open Edge Cloud’ solution for deployment.

“Our edge architecture provides a new economic model for streaming delivery, in which Airtel Cloud’s Edge CDN plays a central role in the end-to-end value chain,” said Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt.

Airtel recently became the first company to test a captive private network at the Bosch facility in Bengaluru. Airtel is also rolling out its Edge compute service to customers.

The company said there will be many targeted cloud solutions coming in for specific industry requrements soon.

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Airtel logs revenue gains

The company’s India business posted quarterly revenues of Rs 22,500 crore, up 22.7 per cent on year….reports Asian Lite News

Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel posted quarterly revenues of Rs 31,500 crore in Q4FY22, up 22.3 per cent year on year.

The sharp rise in revenues was backed by strong and consistent performance delivery across portfolios.

The company’s India business posted quarterly revenues of Rs 22,500 crore, up 22.7 per cent on year.

Mobile services revenues in India were up 25.1 per cent on year, led by increase in average revenue per user (ARPU), largely on account of flow through of tariff increase done in late 2021. Mobile ARPU increased to Rs 178 in Q4FY22 as against Rs 145 in the same period the previous fiscal.

It reported a 165 percent growth in its consolidated net profit of Rs 2,008 crore in the said quarter, as against Rs 759 crore in the year ago period.

Besides, digital TV continued to amass its strong market position.

Further, 4G customers rose by 21.5 million on year and 5.2 million on quarterly basis, thereby crossing 200+ million milestone which is 62 per cent of the overall customer base, Bharti Airtel said in filing to the exchanges.

It rolled out additional 7,000 towers in the quarter to provide ubiquitous connectivity and differentiated network experience.

“Airtel continues to have the highest ARPU at Rs 178. Our Homes and enterprise business continue to exhibit very strong growth momentum, reflecting the resilience of our overall portfolio. Our strong balance sheet and cash flows have enabled us to further repay some of our spectrum liabilities ahead of schedule and improve our leverage,” said Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, India & South Asia.

“We continue to remain optimistic about the opportunities in the coming years and believe we are well poised as a company for three reasons.”

This, he said, were firstly, its ability to execute consistently to a simple strategy of winning with quality customers and delivering the best experience to them.

Secondly, its future proofed business model with massive investments in both infrastructure and digital capabilities, and lastly, the financial prudence backed by the strong focus on governance.

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