India’s first mobile wallet service, airtel money launched
- Category: Airtel
- Monday, 31 January 2011 14:31
- Written by Puneet Jain
Have you ever wanted to buy tickets for the evening movie show without visiting the theatre, pay your electricity bill without waiting in a long queue, buy yourself a coffee without the need to take out change – or wished you could magically pay for groceries after forgetting your wallet at home? Your wait is finally over. Bharti airtel today announced the launch of airtel money - India’s first mobile wallet service by a telecom operator.
It is presently available in Gurgaon only. airtel airtel money will subsequently be launched in Delhi NCR and several other key cities in India in a phased manner. In Gurgaon, airtel has already established partnerships with several merchants (including coffee shops, restaurants etc) to accept payments via airtel money – which will gradually be scaled up to over 3,000 merchants across the city.
Announcing the launch of the service, Mr. Atul Bindal, President - Mobile Services, Bharti airtel said, “The mobile phone is fast emerging as a device that enables our lives in more than many ways. Taking this a step further, we are proud to launch airtel money as a first-of-its-kind service from a telecom operator, that transforms the mobile phone into a secure and convenient wallet which customers can use to load money and use it for shopping and making payments. We see a huge potential for mCommerce services in India and are confident that the launch of airtel money will facilitate a paradigm shift in the way consumers transact”.
airtel 3G Data Plans (Tamil Nadu & Chennai) in detail
- Category: Airtel
- Thursday, 27 January 2011 14:12
- Written by Puneet Jain
airtel today launched its 3G services in Chennai and Coimbatore and annouced 4 type of Plans for its subscribers in Tamil Nadu.
Here are the complete details
1. PAYG VBC (Pay as you go): For all existing airtel 2G customers who want to experience the power of airtel internet on 3G for a short while, this tariff plan is the solution. The customer will pay the same prevailing data rates as on 2G service, but with the advantage of a faster mobile broadband.
2. Sachet Plans: The objective of these plans is to drive mass trial and adoption of 3G, and will serve as the natural upgrade path to higher rental plans. These plans will have validity of lesser than or equal to 10 days. These plans are only for Prepaid subscribers.
3. Standard Plans: These plans are best suited for the mid to high-end users of data and will have a validity of 30 days.
4. FlexiShield Plan: This plan has a combination of free data usage and a low inbuilt VBC rate. The plan is constructed in a way that it provides the customer, the flexibility to start from a relatively lower initial rental commitment and shields from a bill shock.
airtel also introduces an initiative to help customers manage their 3G data usage and prevent ‘bill shock’ – by offering proactive, personalized and timely data usage alerts to its customers.
To know more you can visit www.airtel.in/Airtel-3G/, call the Toll Free Helpline 12134 or SMS ‘3G HELP’ to 121.
airtel 3G says Vanakkam Chennai & Coimbatore
- Category: Airtel
- Thursday, 27 January 2011 13:35
- Written by Puneet Jain
3 days after 3G launch in Karnataka on 24th, airtel today annouced the commercial launch of its 3G services in Chennai and Coimbatore. Announcing this, Mr. Atul Bindal, President-Mobile Services, Bharti airtel also welcomed airtel Brand Ambassador and Cinestar Karthi onto the airtel 3G platform as the first airtel 3G customer in Chennai. airtel would offer services like video call, live streaming of Video, high speed internet, mobile TV entertainment, go video on social networking etc in Chennai & Coimbatore through 3G technology. airtel users can avail the services through existing sim cards. For laptop users airtel has also come up with 3G dongles.Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Atul Bindal, President-Mobile Services, Bharti airtel said, “Today, as we introduce the airtel 3G promise in namma Chennai and Coimbatore – we are delighted to bring the power of the mobile internet deeper south. A new era begins for Tamil Nadu’s mobile phone users, with high-speed internet, better access to data services including mCommerce, social networking and mHealth in a robust ecosystem of affordable 3G-ready handsets and a range of applications at affordable prices. We are happy to give one more reason for all mobile users across Tamil Nadu to join India's network - airtel”.
We are coming up with airtel 3G tariff details soon.
Also Read :
Airtel 3G Plans (Tamil Nadu and Chennai)
airtel 3G coming soon to Chennai
- Category: Airtel
- Wednesday, 26 January 2011 20:40
- Written by Puneet Jain
airtel will soon be launching its 3G services in Chennai. We got a mail from airtel regarding the same. There was just one picture in the mail (the one you can see above), but no details were shared except that they will be launching 3G services soon.
airtel has already announced the launch of its 3G services in Karnataka circle. The company announced 9 3G plans but none of the 9 offers unlimited usage. You can check airtel 3G Tariff for Karnataka circle here.
airtel 3G Data Plans (Karnataka) in detail
- Category: Airtel
- Monday, 24 January 2011 19:08
- Written by Puneet Jain
airtel announced launch of its 3G services in Karnataka today. airtel 3G will be available in rest of the circles where airtel has license by March 2011. airtel announced a total of 9 plans for its 3G customers. I was saw responses of many people on twitter and most of them were not happy with the 3G tariff of airtel. We are sharing the details of airtel 3G Plans, check them out and let us know your views about airtel's 3G Data Plans.Here is the airtel 3G tariff in detail :
Note that :
- Plan P2 and P3 will expired on same day midnight
- Plan P9's data bill is capped at Rs. 2000
airtel 3G launched in Karnataka
- Category: Airtel
- Monday, 24 January 2011 12:14
- Written by Puneet Jain
airtel 3G is now available in Karnataka. airtel today announced the launch of its 3G service in India – bringing the airtel internet experience on 3G first to Karnataka – its largest circle by revenue market share. airtel is targeting to launch in all 13 3G license circles by March 2011. Announcing this, Mr. Sanjay Kapoor, CEO - Bharti airtel Ltd (India & South Asia) said, “It is indeed the start of a new era when 3G services in India roll out on airtel's network. World over ‘Data traffic’ on the back of high speed internet and use of social networking has already exceeded the ‘Voice traffic’. India is ushering in the domain – though later than most of the world - but no doubt we will catch up at a much faster speed. 3G is much more than a technology migration - it is a transformational shift - and airtel's focus would be to bring to its customers an enriched user experience on the back of a world class delivery network. I welcome all 745 million mobile customers of the country to be a part of this journey with airtel!"
airtel has announced two categories of 3G Plans
Time-based plans for light users of data – where usage and billing will be by hour
Flexi-shield plans for heavy users of data – where usage and billing will be capped
airtel 3G customers will be empowered to manage their 3G data usage alert and prevent ‘bill shock’ with proactive, personalized and timely data usage alerts.
We are coming up with more details on airtel 3G plans soon.
SBI and airtel join hands to usher in a new era of financial inclusion for unbanked India
- Category: Airtel
- Wednesday, 12 January 2011 14:38
- Written by Puneet Jain
State Bank of India, the country’s largest commercial bank, and Bharti airtel, India’s largest telecommunications company, today announced that they have entered into a Joint Venture (JV) agreement to make available banking services to India’s unbanked millions. The newly formed entity, will harness the power of State Bank’s strengths and airtel’s mobile telephony to add value to the banking and financial services sector and empower millions of financially excluded in the country to enhance their livelihood and quality of life. The Joint Venture will become the Business Correspondent of SBI and offer banking products and services at affordable cost to the citizens in unbanked and other areas.Speaking on the occasion, Mr. O. P. Bhatt, Chairman, State Bank of India said, “State Bank of India has always been in the forefront of Financial Inclusion initiatives. More than 67% of its massive (13,000) branch network is in rural and semi urban areas. In the last four years, the bank has set up more than 15,000 Customer Service Points of Business Correspondents as well as 13,000 Business Facilitators, to increase its outreach. The Bank has already reached out to more than 1 lakh unbanked villages. This joint venture which brings together the commitment of two of India’s greatest institutions, one in the financial services sector known for its innovation and dedication to the under privileged sections of the society, the other in mobile telephony whose drive for growth and excellence is unmatched, will enable the bank to fulfil its mandate of reaching out to every Indian leveraging the distribution network of airtel to provide banking services in a cost effective and secure manner. With this, we look forward to taking the benefits of banking to the Indian masses and building a more inclusive society thereby carrying forward State Bank’s vision of being the Banker to every Indian”.
Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti airtel said, “This historic collaboration between SBI and airtel brings together two sectors that have made the most impact in addressing inclusive growth. The services offered by the JV will enable financial inclusion and economic empowerment for people across India. This will be a complete game changer, leveraging SBI’s expertise in the banking sector along with airtel’s 150 million strong customer base and ecosystem of over 1.5 million retailers and distributors across India. Together, we will create a scalable operation that will address the banking requirements of millions of Indians through the mobile platform.”
airtel is the country’s largest telecom operator, present across 5,101 towns and more than 500,000 villages, with its network covering 85% of India’s population carrying an average of over 200 billion minutes per quarter.
SBI is the largest commercial bank in India with more than 13,000 branches (8,800 in rural/semi urban areas) serving 210 million accounts and peak transactions of about 43 million per day. SBI is rightfully ‘the banker’ to every Indian, has the consumer’s trust and has been at the forefront of driving inclusive growth.
The JV as Business Correspondent will engage airtel’s retailers as Customer Service Points (CSP) all over India in a phased manner. With this, existing and new airtel mobile customers will be able to visit these outlets and open new SBI bank accounts and avail of other banking products and services available at the CSPs. Additionally, existing SBI customers will also get serviced at these outlets.
The JV incorporation between SBI and airtel will be concluded by 31st March, 2011.
Airtel hikes GPRS tariff
- Category: Airtel
- Wednesday, 29 December 2010 12:27
- Written by Puneet Jain
At this time of year everybody thinks of discounts and gifts, well airtel's new year gift for its subscriber is increased GPRS cost. Internet Broswing on airtel will now cost you more if you are not using any GPRS Pack. airtel issued a Public Notice in leading newspapers stating that Internet Mobile Service charges will be revised from existing rate of 30p/50KB to 30p/20KB from 5th January 2011. Also, airtel started its subscribers for browsing airtel Live WAP Portal at the rate of 30p/20KB from yesterday i.e. 28th December 2010.Here is the Airtel Public Notice :
From the notice its clear that it will not affect the airtel users who are using any GPRS packs. Only those who are not using any GPRS packs will be affected with this tariff hike. Since most of the users use GPRS packs, so probably this hike won't create much of an impact.
Will this hike impact you? Share your views about it.
Airtel launches Triple play in Bangalore
- Category: Airtel
- Wednesday, 15 December 2010 15:30
- Written by Puneet Jain
Airtel's Triple Play proposition is now available in Bangalore. With Triple Play, airtel offers customers the opportunity of simultaneously using voice, broadband and television (IPTV) all on a single line. airtel IPTV will come to customers through a Carrier Ethernet Network with last mile delivery on copper using ADSL2+ technology.
airtel IPTV's features
• Triple Play-enjoy voice, broadband and television (IPTV)on a single line and simultaneously too
• VoD Library of 150+ Titles
• 42 channels on Time Shift TV - over 7000+hrs of content
• Universal remote-single remote for TV and set top box
To save you from hassle of paying different bills for different services airtel will offers its customers single Customer Service interface which will deliver a single unified bill for voice, broadband and television to its Triple Play customers in Bangalore.
airtel IPTV's features
• Triple Play-enjoy voice, broadband and television (IPTV)on a single line and simultaneously too
• VoD Library of 150+ Titles
• 42 channels on Time Shift TV - over 7000+hrs of content
• Universal remote-single remote for TV and set top box
To save you from hassle of paying different bills for different services airtel will offers its customers single Customer Service interface which will deliver a single unified bill for voice, broadband and television to its Triple Play customers in Bangalore.
Do you like Airtel's new logo?
- Category: Airtel
- Sunday, 21 November 2010 10:58
- Written by Puneet Jain
Airtel recently launched its new logo. I asked many people to share their views about Airtel and response was mixed, some liked it and some did not. Personally I feel that Airtel, the largest telecom company in terms of number of subscribers, has done a good job.According to Airtel, their new logo is youthful, international, inclusive and dynamic. I feel the backgroud colour, which is slightly different than the earlier one, looks brighter and better, though the font could have been a lot better. Introducing New Logo is a good move by Airtel as it is now a Global brand.
For those who are not liking it, I would like say that we are used to see the earlier Airtel logo from past many years and when something changes, chances are there that one might not like it instantly but gradually as time progresses one might start liking it.
I am publishing images of both old logo and the new logo to facilitate a better comparison.
And now its your time to share your views about Airtel's new logo, tell us you liked it or not. Please remember criticism is fine but abusing is strictly not allowed. So go ahead and share your thoughts.
