Bharti Airtel

1. Bharti Airtel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bharti

Type Public company
Traded as BSE: 532454NSE: BHARTIARTL
BSE SENSEX Constituent
Industry Telecommunications
Founded 7 July 1995
Founder(s) Sunil Bharti Mittal
Headquarters New Delhi, India
Area served South Asia, Africa and
the Channel Islands
Key people Sunil Bharti Mittal
(Chairman) and (MD)
Products Fixedline Telephony
Mobile Telephony
Broadband Internet
Digital Television
IT services

2. Revenue 416.03 billion (US$7.53
billion)(2012)
[1]

Profit 57.3 billion (US$1.04
billion)(2012)
[1]

Total assets 1,007.85 billion (US$18.24
billion)(2011)
[1]

Employees 20,675 (December 2011)
[1]

Parent Bharti Enterprises (52.7%)
[2][3]

SingTel (15.57%)
[2][3]

Vodafone (4.4%)
Subsidiaries Airtel Africa
Airtel Digital TV
Airtel Sri Lanka
Airtel Bangla
Website www.airtel.com

Bharti Airtel Limited (NSE: BHARTIARTL, BSE: 532454), commonly known
asAirtel, is an Indian telecommunications company that operates in 20 countries
across South Asia, Africa and the Channel Islands. It operates a GSM network in
all countries, providing 2G, 3G and 4G services depending upon the country of
operation. Airtel is the world's third-largest mobile telecommunications
company with over 246 million subscribers across 20 countries as of March
2012.
[4]
It is the largest cellular service provider in India, with over 187.30 million
subscribers at the end of June 2012.
[5]
Airtel is the third largest in-country mobile
operator by subscriber base, behindChina Mobile and China Unicom.

3. Airtel is the largest provider of mobile telephony and second largest provider
of fixed telephony in India, and is also a provider of broadband and subscription
televisionservices. 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 CiscoGold Certification.
[6]
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.
It is known for being the first mobile phone company in the world to outsource all
of its business operations except marketing, sales and finance. Its network—base
stations, microwave links, etc.—is maintained by Ericsson, Nokia Siemens
Network andHuawei,
[7]
and business support is provided by IBM,
[8]
and
transmission towers are maintained by another company (Bharti Infratel Ltd. in
India).
[9]
Ericsson agreed for the first time to be paid by the minute for installation
and maintenance of their equipment rather than being paid up front, which allowed
Airtel to provide low call rates of 1/minute (US$0.02/minute).
[10]
During the last
financial year (2009–10), 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 Protocol across the country.This would help consumers
access internet at faster speed and high qualiy internet browsing on mobile
handsets.
[11]

4. 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.
Today, Airtel is the largest cellular service provider in India and the third largest in
the world.

Organisational Structure
The organisational structure that existed until recently concentrated on the
hierarchy of the operations inside the company as a whole. The structure depicts
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 organizational chart. The transformed organisational structure will have two

5. 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 Business and Market Operations. It is
the largest telecommunication company in India.

Worldwide presence


Coverage map of Bharti Airtel across 20 countries
Airtel is the third largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base
and has a commercial presence in 20 countries and the Channel Islands.

Its area of operations include:
 The Indian Subcontinent:
 Airtel Bangla, in Bangladesh
 Airtel, in India
 Airtel Sri Lanka, in Sri Lanka
 Airtel Africa, which operates in 17 African countries:
 Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the
Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria,
Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
 The British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey, under the
brand name Airtel-Vodafone, through an agreement withVodafone.

6. Airtel operates in the following countries:
Country Site Remarks
Bangladesh
Airtel
Bangladesh
Airtel Bangladesh had about 5.1 million
customers at the end of June 2011.
[12]

Burkina Faso
Airtel
Burkina Faso
Airtel Burkina Faso is the dominant
player with 1,433,000 customers
representing 50% market share.
[13]

Chad Airtel Chad
Airtel Chad is the #1 operator with 69%
market share.
[13]

Democratic Republic of the Congo Airtel DRC
Airtel is the market leader with almost 5
million customers at the end of 2010.
Gabon Airtel Gabon
Airtel Gabon has 829,000 customers and
its market share stood at 61%.
[14]

Ghana Airtel Ghana
Airtel Ghana had about 1.76 million
customers at the end of 2010.
[15]

India Airtel
Airtel is the market leader with almost
152.5 million customers at the end of
2010.
[15]

Kenya Airtel Kenya
Airtel Kenya is the second largest
operator and has 4 million customers.
[16]

Madagascar
Airtel
Madagascar
Airtel holds second place in the mobile
telecom market in Madagascar, has a
39% market share and over 1.4 million
customers.
[13]

7. Malawi
Airtel
Malawi
Airtel Malawi is the market leader with
a market share of 72%.
[13]

Niger Airtel Niger
Airtel Niger is the market leader with a
68% market share.
[13]

Nigeria
Airtel
Nigeria

Republic of the Congo
Airtel Congo
B
Airtel Congo is the market leader with a
55% market share.
[13]

Rwanda
Airtel
Rwanda
Airtel launched services in Rwanda on
30 March 2012.
[17]

Seychelles
Airtel
Seychelles
Airtel is the leading comprehensive
telecommunications services providers
with over 55% market share of mobile
market in Seychelles.
[18]

Sierra Leone
Airtel Sierra
Leone
Sri Lanka
Airtel Sri
Lanka
Airtel Sri Lanka commenced operations
on 12 January 2009. It had about
1.8 million mobile customers at the end
of 2010.
[15]

Tanzania
Airtel
Tanzania
Airtel Tanzania is the market leader
with a 38% market share.
[13]

Uganda
Airtel
Uganda
Airtel Uganda stands as the #2 operator
with a market share of 38%.
[13]

8. Zambia
Airtel
Zambia

Channel Islands : Jersey and
Guernsey
†

Airtel
Vodafone
Airtel operates in the Channel Islands
under the brand name Airtel–Vodafone
through an agreement with Vodafone.

†Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies. They are not independent
countries. Therefore, Airtel's countries of operation is considered to be 20.

India

Mobile
Airtel has nationwide presence, and is the 6th most valued brand according to an
annual survey conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in
2010.
[19][20]

On 19 October 2004, Airtel announced the launch of a BlackBerry Wireless
Solution in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures
Limited and Research In Motion (RIM).
The Apple iPhone 3G was rolled out in India in 2008 by Airtel and Vodafone.
However, high prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as
successful as the iPhone is in other markets of the world. The Apple iPhone 4 was
introduced on May 27, 2011 by Airtel and Aircel.

3G
On May 18, 2010, 3G spectrum auction was completed and Airtel will have to pay
the Indian government 122.95 billion (US$2.23 billion) for spectrum in 13
circles, the most amount spent by an operator in this auction. Airtel won 3G
licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (east), Rajasthan, West Bengal,

9. Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, and Jammu & Kashmir.
[21]
Airtel
also operates 3G services in Maharastra, Goa,Kanpur and Kolkata 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.
On September 20, 2010, Bharti Airtel said that it has given contracts to Ericsson
India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies to set up
infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. These vendors will plan,
design, deploy and maintain 3G–HSPA (third generation, high speed packet
access) networks in 13 telecom circles where the company has won 3G licences.
While Bharti Airtel has awarded network contracts for seven 3G circles to Ericsson
India, NSN would manage networks in three circles. Chinese telecom equipment
vendor Huawei Technologies has been introduced as the third partner for three
circles.
[22]

On January 24, 2011, Airtel launched 3G services in Bangalore, Karnataka—its
largest circle by revenue. With this launch, Airtel became the third private operator
(fifth overall) to launch its 3G services in the country following Reliance
Communications and Tata Docomo.
[23]
On January 27, 2011, Airtel launched 3G in
Chennai and Coimbatore.
On July 27, 2011 Airtel launched 3G in three major cities in Kerala (Trivandrum,
Cochin and Calicut).
[24]

Airtel plans to cover 1,500 cities across 13 circles by the end of March 2012. The
company, which has 3G licences for 13 circles, is also in talks with other service
providers to roll out the services in the remaining 10 circles as part of its roaming
offerings.
[25]

Airtel had about 3 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011.
[26]


4G
On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum auction in
India ended. Airtel paid 33.1436 billion for spectrum in 4
circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata.
[27]
The company was
allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency band.

10. Airtel's TD-LTE network is built and operated
by ZTE in Kolkata, Huawei in Karnataka, Ericsson in Punjab and Nokia Siemens
Networksin Maharashtra.
[28]

On 10 April 2012, Airtel launched 4G services using TD-LTE technology in
Kolkata, becoming the first company in India to offer 4G services. Airtel launched
4G in Bangalore on 7 May 2012.
[29]
It will launch services next
in Pune and Chandigarh.
[30]

On 24 May 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, by the end of 2014,
Airtel will assume full ownership and financial responsibility for 4G operations in
these 4 circles.
[31]


Airtel Money
Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money with
collaboration with Infosys. It is launched on April 5, 2012, in Infosys Campus of
bangalore. with the help of Airtelmoney,users can transfer money,pay bills and
other financial transactions using mobile phone.
[32]


VAS Fraud
There has been lot of criticism about Airtel for its unauthorised VAS activation.
Many of its services were activated automatically according to a complaint forum.
Several thousands of users were falsely billed, for example downloading wallpaper
or ringtones. In return Airtel launched STOP/START 121 services for such
issues.
[33][34]
Alternatively, you can sign up on the "Do Not Disturb" list to avoid all
telemarketing calls and SMSes.
[35]


Controversy
Bharti Airtel (India), along with Loop Mobile, Idea Cellular, Reliance
Communications and Vodafone, was issued notices by Telecom Regulatory
Authority of India (TRAI) for violation of Mobile number portability (MNP)
regulations. According to TRAI, they had received complaints from customers

11. regarding unwarranted rejection of porting requests by telecom operators and 10
had been charged for a message requesting porting code through number 1900.
[36]


Telemedia
The Telemedia business provides services in 89 Indian cities and consists of two
brands.
Airtel Broadband provides broadband and IPTV services. Airtel provides both
capped as well as unlimited download plans (extremely reduced speeds at
unlimited data are implied (256kbit/s beyond FUP which is lesser than the TRAI
specified limit of half of your original speed)).
[37][38]
The maximum speed available
for home users is 16Mbit/s.
Airtel Broadband had about 1.36 million subscribers at the end of April
2012.
[39]
Airtel has about 3.16 million wireline customers, of which 42.6% are
broadband internet subscribers as of August 2010. Until 18 September 2004, Bharti
provided Fixedline telephony and broadband services under the Touchtel brand.
Bharti now provides all telecom services including fixedline services under a
common brand "Airtel".
Airtel Broadband filters your internet requests and on many occasions they are
known to block file sharing websites such
as vimeo.commegavideo.com, thepiratebay.se etc. with out any legal information
given to the customers.
[40]



Airtel Broadband Blocking TPB

12. Digital Television
Main article: Airtel digital TV
The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services across India
under the brand name Airtel digital TV. It started services on 9 October 2008 and
has about 32.44 million customers as of August 2010.
[41]


Enterprise
The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate
customers and national and international long distance services to telcos through its
nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile
circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and
landing stations. It has two sections under it.

Mobile data service
The different services under mobile data are 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.

Enterprise business solutions
There are two kind of solutions offered by Airtel. One is GPRS Based Solutions
like mobile applications tools for enterprise, TrackMate, automatic meter reading
solutions etc. and the other is SMS Based Solutions like interactive sms, bulk sms,
inbound call center solutions.

Android-based tablet
Beetel Teletech Ltd., a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd., on 18 August launched a
9,999 ($220) 7-inch tablet in India based on Google Inc.'s Android operating
system. The offering is intended to capitalize on the expected demand for cheap

13. computing devices in the world's fastest-growing and second-largest mobile phone
market.
[42]


Rest of the World

Africa
Main article: Airtel Africa
Bangladesh
Main article: Airtel Bangla
Sri Lanka
Main article: Bharti Airtel Lanka
Channel Islands: Jersey and Guernsey
Main article: Airtel-Vodafone
On 1 May 2007, Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel, both wholly owned
subsidiaries of the Bharti Group, announced they would launch mobile services in
the British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey
[43][44]
under the
brand name Airtel-Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone. Airtel-
Vodafone operates a 3G network in Jersey and Guernsey.
Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies. They are not independent
countries. Therefore, Airtel's countries of operation is considered to be 19.

Subscriber Base
Bharti Airtel has about 243.336 million subscribers worldwide—232.95 million in
India and South Asia and 50.949 million in Africa as of the end of December 2011.
The numbers include mobile services subscribers in 19 countries and Indian
Telemedia services and Digital services subscribers.
[4]

14. India
The Airtel subscriber base according to Cellular Operators Association of India
(COAI) as of April 2012 was:
Metros
 Delhi – 8,818,153
 Mumbai – 3,738,188
 Kolkata – 3,882,463
 Chennai – 3,388,379
"A" Circle
 Andhra Pradesh – 18,539,788
 Gujarat – 7,062,371
 Karnataka – 15,468,507
 Maharashtra – 9,968,936
 Tamil Nadu – 10,094,293
"B" Circle
 Haryana – 2,472,639
 Kerala – 3,574,844
 Madhya Pradesh – 9,728,966
 Punjab – 6,973,022
 Rajasthan – 14,546,216
 Uttar Pradesh (East) – 14,886,051
 Uttar Pradesh (West) – 6,666,880
 West Bengal – 9,202,693
"C" Circle
 Assam – 3,759,878
 Bihar – 17,732,686
 Himachal Pradesh – 1,861,569
 Jammu and Kashmir – 2,112,537
 North Eastern States – 2,351,038
 Orissa – 6,460,022

15. Airtel is the market leader in India with about 181 million subscribers in India or
about 27.22% market share at the end of March 2012.
The Brand Trust Report
[45]
published by Trust Research Advisory, places Airtel as
the only mobile operator in the top 10 most trusted brands in India.

Acquisitions and Mergers
MTN
In May 2008, it emerged that Bharti Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying
the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with
coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Financial
Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US$45 billion for a 100%
stake in MTN, which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian
firm. However, both sides emphasize the tentative nature of the talks, while The
Economist magazine noted, "If anything, Bharti would bemarrying up," as MTN
has more subscribers, higher revenues and broader geographic
coverage.
[46]
However, the talks fell apart as MTN group tried to reverse the
negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company.
[47]

In May 2009, Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it is in Talks with MTN and
companies have now agreed discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31
July 2009.
[48]
Bharti Airtel said in a statement "Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to
announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN
Group".
[49]

Talks eventually ended without agreement, due to the South African government
opposition.
[50]


Zain
In March 2010, Bharti struck a deal to buy the Kuwaiti firm's mobile operations in
15 African countries, in India's second biggest overseas acquisition after Tata
Steel's $13 billion buy of Corus in 2007. Bharti Airtel completed its $9 billion
acquisition of African operations from Kuwait's Zain, making the firm the world's
No. 5 wireless carrier by subscribers.Airtel has reported that its revenues for the
fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 53% to US$3.2 billion compared to the previous

16. year, newly acquired Zain Africa division contributed US$911 million to the
total.However, net profits dropped by 41% from US$470 million last year to
US$291 million this year due to a US$188 million increase in radio spectrum
charges in India and an increase of US$106 million in debt interest.
[citation needed]


Telecom Seychelles
On August 11, 2010, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire 100% stake
in Telecom Seychelles for US$62 million taking its global presence to 19
countries. Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 and operates 3G, Fixed
Line, ship to shore services satellite telephony, among value added services like
VSAT and Gateways for International Traffic across the Seychelles under the
Airtel brand. The company has over 57% share of the mobile market
of Seychelles.
[51]
Airtel announced plans to invest US$10 million in its fixed and
mobile telecoms network in the Seychelles over three years, whilst also
participating in the Seychelles East Africa submarine cable (SEAS) project. The
US$34 million SEAS project is aimed at improving the Seychelles‘ global
connectivity by building a 2,000 km undersea high speed link to Dar es Salaam in
Tanzania.
[52]


Joint Ventures

Airtel-Ericsson
As per a five-year managed services agreement signed recently
[when?]
, 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.
[citation needed]

17. Rebranding
On 18 November 2010, Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global
rebranding strategy. The company unveiled a new logo with 'airtel' written in lower
case. Designed by London-based brand agency, The Brand Union, the new logo is
the letter 'a' in lowercase, with 'airtel' written in lowercase under the logo.
[53]

On 23 November 2010, Airtel's Africa operations were rebranded to 'airtel'. Sri
Lanka followed on 28 November 2010 and on 20 December 2010, Warid Telecom
rebranded to 'airtel' in Bangladesh.

One Network
One Network is a borderless mobile phone network across all Airtel operating
countries which 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.
One Network allows customers travelling 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. Incoming calls however are charged at between $0.03 - 0.15 depending on
the country the call is received from.
Airtel offers the service currently to its Africa customers travelling to any of the
following 27 countries.In eight of these countries, the One Network is operated in
partnership with other mobile operators. They are also listed below.
S. No. Country Network
1 Burkina Faso Airtel
2 Bangladesh Airtel
3 Chad Airtel

18. 4 Channels Islands: Jersey and Guernsey Airtel
5 Democratic Republic of the Congo Airtel
6 Gabon Airtel
7 Ghana Airtel
8 India Airtel
9 Kenya Airtel
10 Madagascar Airtel
11 Malawi Airtel
12 Niger Airtel
13 Nigeria Airtel
14 Republic of the Congo Airtel
15 Sierra Leone Airtel
16 Seychelles Airtel
17 Sri Lanka Airtel

19. 18 Tanzania Airtel
19 Uganda Airtel
20 Bahrain Zain
21 Iraq Zain
22 Jordan Zain
23 Kuwait Zain
24 Saudi Arabia Zain
25 Sudan Zain
26 South Africa Cell C
27 Egypt Mobinil
It will be extended to Airtel's operations in Asia as well as in Seychelles soon.

Sponsorship
On 9 May 2009 Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United. As a result of
the deal, Airtel gets the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its
customers.
Bharti Airtel signed a five-year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title
sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 crickettournament. But now the deal
is terminated and Nokia is sponsoring Champions League Twenty20 cricket."
[54]

20. Airtel, also signed a deal to be title sponsor the inaugural Formula One Indian
Grand Prix during the 2011 season.
[55]


Signature tune
The signature tune of Airtel is composed by Indian musician A. R. Rahman. The
tune became hugely popular and is the world's most downloaded mobile music
with over 150 million downloads.
[56]
A new version of the song was released on 18
November 2010, as part of the rebranding of the company.
[56][57]
This version too
was composed by Rahman himself.
[57]


Green initiative

GreenTowers P7 program
As of today,Bharti Infratel is the only telecom tower company, which has installed
almost 3 MWT of solar capacity on their network, generating more than 5 mn units
of electricity every year.The Green Towers P7 program is scoped for 22,000 tower
sites (primarily rural areas having low or no Grid Power availability) out of which
5,500 sites have already been implemented in the first year as a part of this 3-year
program. Once completed, the initiative will reduce diesel consumption by 66 mn
litres per year with a significant carbon dioxide reduction of around 1.5 lac MT per
year. Bharti Infratel bagged the 2011 'Green Mobile Award ' at the GSMA Mobile
World Congress atBarcelona and was also awarded the 2010 innovative
infrastructure company of the year award at the CNBC Infrastructure Awards for
this groundbreaking initiative.Bharti remains the first company in the world to
introduce the practice of sharing of passive infrastructure by collaborating with
their competition to share mobile towers and to reduce the collective carbon
footprint of the industry. This has become a subject of case studies in institutions
including the Harvard Business School.
[citation needed]

21. Energy conservation
The company has installed solar hot water generator at its main campus in Gurgaon
for fulfilling the hot water requirement in the cafeteria. Majority of its facilities
across NCR region are now equipped with LES (Lighting Energy Savers) which
have reduced energy consumption in the lighting system to the tune of 10–25%.
Variable Frequency Drives installed in AHU (Air Handling Unit) at its campus
have helped in enhancing the efficiency of cooling system by 10%. These
measures have resulted in a total saving of 8.5 lakh units of electricity per year.
Airtel has embarked upon technology related initiatives like virtualization of
servers that has helped it release over 500 CPUs. Also the drive of sending e-bills
to the post-paid customers is helping save 12,840 trees annually. Within its campus
the ‗Secure Print Solution' – an automated queue management based secured
printing solution has led to an annualized saving of about 8 metric tonnes of paper.
Alternate energy sources such as solar energy
They have already deployed these at as many as 1050 sites thus saving 6.9 mn
litres of diesel and approximately 280 million.
Energy efficiency measures such as Integrated Power Management Systems
and variable speed DC generators
It has resulted in the reduction in the rate of diesel consumption by 1.2 mn litres.
They have already saved 47 million across nearly 900 sites.
Demand side management like Free Cooling Units (FCU) instead of air
conditioners
It has already been implemented across 3400+ sites, saving consumption of 4.1 mn
litres of diesel.

22. Timeline


Logo used by Airtel till 2010 November
The chronology of events since Bharti Tele-Ventures was incorporated in 1995:
[58]

1995
 Bharti Cellular launched cellular services as "AirTel" in Delhi.
2010
 On 18 May 2010, Airtel won 3G spectrum in 13 circles: Delhi, Mumbai,
Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (West), Rajasthan, West
Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir for
Rs. 12,295 crores.
[21]

 Bharti Airtel wins broadband spectrum in four circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka,
Punjab and Kolkata for Rs. 3314.36 crores.
[27]

 On 18 November 2010, Bharti Airtel announced a re-branding campaign
wherein, they would be referred as airtel, with a new logo.
 On 20 December 2010, Airtel launched its new identity for Bangladesh
subscribers.
[59]

 On 23 December 2010, Airtel opened its first underground terrestrial fibre optic
cable built in alliance with China Telecom.
[60]

2011
 On 24 January 2011, Airtel announced the launch of its 3G services in India.
[61]

 On 31 January 2011, Airtel launched wallet service - Airtel Money in the
millennium city of Gurgaon.
[62]

 On 18 February 2011, Airtel Digital TV brings cricket world cup in High
Definition.
[63]

 On 14 March 2011, Bharti Airtel announced the launch of ‗Airtel Broadband
TV‘.
[64]

 On 11 April 2011, Bharti Airtel and Apple bring the iPhone 4 to India.
[65]

23.  On 18 April 2011, Bharti Airtel enters into a partnership with photo service
Zoomin.com.
[66]

 On 17 May 2011, Airtel launches the world‘s first USSD-based Facebook
access service in India – Facebook by Fonetwish.
[67]

 On 2 June 2011, Bharti Airtel offers on-demand online movie viewing services
- launches ‗Airtel Movies‘
[68]

 On 16 June 2011, Airtel digital TV launches iKisaan – the world‘s first
interactive service in Hindi.
[69]

 On 27 June 2011, Airtel 3G launches international video calling services.
[70]

 On 7 July 2011, Bharti Airtel announces new organisation structure for its India
and South Asia operations.
[71]

 On 18 July 2011, Airtel digital TV adds 41 new channels.
[72]

 On 25 July 2011, Bharti Airtel Launches Facebook For Every Phone.
[73]

 On 16 August 2011, Wide availability of Airtel Service Centers in Rajasthan
creates easy touch points for customer service.
[74]

 On 19 September 2011, Bharti Airtel announces GO! GO! GOAL Contest
2011.
[75]

 On 22 September 2011, Airtel digital TV brings the TV series ―Johnny Test‖ to
India.
[76]

 On 26 September 2011, Airtel Youth Star kicks off ‗Friends Dance Carnival‘ in
Andhra Pradesh.
[77]

 On 28 October 2011, 2011 Formula 1 Airtel Grand Prix of India Winner's
Trophy Revealed.
[78]

 On 1 November 2011, Airtel digital TV now has 11 True HD channels,Expands
total channel count to 262.
[79]

 On 11 November 2011, Bharti Airtel named amongst the top 25 companies for
leaders globally.
[80]

 On 25 November 2011, Mr. Sharlin Thayil, CEO – Bharti Airtel, AP launches
iPhone 4S in Hyderabad.
 On 1 December 2011, Airtel introduces India‘s first free mobile access to
Twitter.
[81]

 On 12 December 2011, Bharti Airtel recognized for the delivery of best
network services with customer focus at Telecom Centre of Excellence
Awards.
[82]

24.  On 21 December 2011, Airtel launches exciting recharge offers for mobile
customers in Rajasthan.
[83]

2012
 On 11 January 2012, Airtel launched Comedy FM on Airtel Mobile.
[84]

 On 12 January 2012, Airtel launches all new ―BBM Plan‖ for its postpaid
mobile customers on BlackBerry.
[85]

 On 23 January 2012, Airtel prepaid mobile recharge made easier with
netbanking at www.airtel.in
[86]

 On 30 January 2012, Airtel digital TV launches iKidsworld.
[87]

 On 2 February 2012, Airtel launched Vh1 Radio GAGA powered by Hungama
on Airtel Mobile.
[88]

 On 3 February 2012, India‘s largest collection of Hello Tunes is now available
online for Airtel mobile customers.
[89]

 On 4 February 2012, Bharti Airtel announces consolidated IFRS results for the
third quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2011.
[90]

 On 10 February 2012, Bharti Airtel launched 3 Pack Education Portal for its
mobile customers across India.
[91]

 On 27 February 2012, Bharti Airtel selects Infosys as its technology partner for
airtel money.
[92]

 On 29 February 2012, Bharti Airtel appoints Nokia Siemens Networks to
supply, manage 4G network in Maharashtra.
[93]

 On 27 May 2012, Bharti Airtel announced its strategic foray into the mobile
advertising (m-Advertising) segment, in India.
[94]

 In 2012, Bharti Airtel signed a pact with Opera Software, to provide its
customers with Opera Mini browsers.
[95]