The Hindu : Business : Airtel’s big push to rural connectivity

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Saturday, Dec 29, 2007
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Airtel’s big push to rural connectivity

K. T. Jagannathan

Plans to launch services in Sri Lanka; to increase broadband speed

Two more undersea fibre optic cables planned
Proposes to launch iPTV next month

Manoj Kohli

CHENNAI: Mobile service provider Bharti Airtel has drawn up a ‘big push’ strategy to make Airtel the most admired rural brand in India, even while making it a benchmark one across the globe.

As part of its effort to have greater footprint in rural India, Bharti is planning to expand Airtel coverage to a majority of villages in the next two-to-three years. In an interaction with The Hindu, Manoj Kohli, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said brand Airtel at present covered three lakh villages out of the six lakhs. “Our objective is to connect a majority of villages,” he said.

Mr. Kohli said infrastructure remained a constraint for connecting rural India. “Our mission is to let Airtel bridge this constraint,” he added. The CEO said affordability would be the key plank of Bharti’s rural connectivity programme. “We want to be the most admired rural brand by 2010,” he said and added that it was hoping to have a customer base of 125 million by that year against 54 million now.

Mr. Kohli said the company would rely on the Airtel brand for all its related future forays into areas such as entertainment and media. In this context, he said it would launch iPTV (internet protocol television) next month. The entry into DTH (direct-to-home) under Airtel can happen by the April quarter, according to Mr. Kohli. He said the company was keen to get into mobile television. However, it had to wait for the government policy in this regard.

To a question, he said “Airtel will be known as a lifestyle brand, which provides support for all your needs”. Mr. Kohli said telephony and entertainment could make Airtel “a far more admired brand”.

Mr. Kohli said a couple of pilots were currently on elsewhere in the globe to take Airtel international. The company was readying to launch Airtel services in Sri Lanka. In the next two years, the brand would spread its wings to some neighbouring nations and countries in East Africa and West Asia. The company was planning two more fibre optic undersea cables over the next couple of years. “This will help us to gain a major portion of the future entertainment market,” he added.

The CEO said Bharti was in the process of increasing the speed on its broad brand service to 16 mbps from 8 mbps.

Mr. Kohli said the capital expenditure for the year ended March 31, 2007, was over $2 billion and the company planned to invest around $3-3.5 billion in the current financial year.

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