Bharti Airtel Lanka a new Mobile service launch in Sri Lanka

by Sri Lanka Army news | January 6, 2009 at 01:19 am

5837 views | 2 Recommendations | 11 comments

Bharti Airtel Lanka Private Limited is going to launch its operations on 12th January 2009 in Sri Lanka. Bharti Airtel Lanka was the fifth mobile operator who gets licensed in Sri Lanka. Tigo (celtell), Dialog, Mobitel and Hutch are the Current mobile networks in Sri Lanka.
Bharti Airtel Lanka Private Limited, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited, one of Asia’s leading integrated telecom services companies, invested approximately USD 200 million. They are launching both 2G and 3G services.Bharti Airtel, that has been rated among the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list in 2007,

At the moment Airtel advertisement are visible via Television and can listen over Radio stations.Airtel Lanka is on a testing Transmission these days. Using your mobile phone you can check whether Airtel signals are Active in your Area or not. Go to the network settings and apply Manual Search. There you can see SRI 05 with other Operators. Airtel Code is SRI 05 and its numbers starts with 075.Alredy Airtel erected 600 Towers island wide and also sharing Towers with other Networks.

It is believed that the Airtel Lanka will offer low charges than other operators. To face the new competitor other Networks has taken few steps. Tigo offers per second billing which was a innovative to the industry but later Dialog and Hutch followed the offer.Mobitel started its “Upahara package” targeting state workers and pensioners with free voice and video calls within the network and all fixed lines during off-peak. Dialog responded with a package which has 1,000 minutes of free talk time within the network named “Master Blaster”.
In Sri Lanka there are 9.253 million mobile subscribers as of end 2008.Among those 4.98 million subscribers are Dialog Telecom and 2.4 million subscribers are Mobitel. “Making every Lankan a mobile phone owner “keeping such a vision Hutch has around a 10 percent market share. Keen competition amongst mobile operators has led Dialog Telekom dropping market share to around 53 percent of total subscribers in fiscal year.
Also it is reported that the sixth Mobile Operator is coming to Sri Lanka in December 2009. RTEC Mobile Lanka (Private) Limited signed the agreement to set up and operate a mobile and fixed telecommunications network. The venture is an investment of US $ 100 million sponsored by Global Electroteks Limited, UK.
Cyber.Alwis reporting to NP from Sri Lanka
Special Thanks : bhartiairtel.in

1 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend Sign In or Join to post comments

True Sri Lankan (not verified)

at 02:04 on January 6th, 2009

hey Guys & Gals,
Do you believe that Airtel is coming here because of their kindness towards Sri Lankans..? oh..I don't believe...coz I know much about Airtel & following facts will guide you..(I challenge Airtel to give counter arguments for those..)

1. Airtel is using cheapest Chinese Equipments, that's why they can come with lower charges

2. The performance will degrade very sooner (less than 1 year), then all the subscribers will have to suffer.

3. they are coming with both 2G & 3G...still now they are struggling with 2G (GSM). The products they've used for 2G are from the rejected brand from most of other Operators. Therefor their 2G (GSM) network is still having many problems & it'll be one of worst network in the World

4. their delay in launching in Sri Lanka was mainly due to Point (3)

5. Airtel's performance in India is no doubt. Its superior. the simple reason is they use high quality European product. But how can we have a guarantee of similar performance here with these Chinese low quality products..?

6. Just think about Global Trends. In future Indians & Chinese will enter into world market & they'll extract all the profits from other Nations. (Airtel is coming with both Chinese & Indian involvement- this will not be good for Sri Lanka in future)

7. Bharathi (india) Airtel's one of major intentions is to use Sri Lanka as a place for their Testings (as a test bed). This will cause high power, Microwave emissions which can cause for health effects (headache, Cancer..Gene Abnormalities)

Above are only some facts...Sri Lankans, You may know some other facts too...specially People from Technical Areas may add more into this.

Lets see the things with open mind...this is our country, we are Sri Lankans...!!

Uwe Paschen

at 04:08 on January 6th, 2009

Thank you for the Post, where and who is your source of information. Do you know about our highlight tool and please do read the fine print laid out in the Newsroom.

Mora (not verified)

at 05:44 on January 7th, 2009

@True Sri Lankan

What is the reality for your information? What are evidence for your details?

Still hate some backbench comments as like from you..

True Sri Lankan (not verified)

at 20:07 on January 7th, 2009

Mora : I suggest you to check those with Airtel Technical team.

Most Sri Lankan can be made fool by others nations. Don't let others to make benifit out of you...

chandana bandara (not verified)

at 21:55 on January 7th, 2009

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;}

Dear Sir,

There are several company provide the telecommunication facility. But we know how did they provide this facility in around last 10 year now they try to reduce there call charges.

They provide

That time 1min call Rs 14 .00

Now 1 min call Rs 3.00

If you can compare this prices with any prices of goods. You can understand who much they had make profit a in that period. That company sucked the customers.

Dear friend think about that!

Some one say we are in “…… family” but they don not know what happened.

Gayan Gunasekara (not verified)

at 08:04 on January 9th, 2009

Hi,

I'd like to comment on some of the facts i know of Airtel, to the text said by True Sri Lankan (not verified)

1. Well actually its not the cheapest. Airtel is using products from Huawei which is of a major Telecom provider who has specialized in telecom infrastructure products. Vodafone, Dialig GSM, Mobitel, Lankabel, Suntel and even SLT uses their products and they're not cheap. If you may, almost all CDMA units are made by Huawei and they have strict quality control.

2. I don't know how to comment on this as if they'd be really absurd to be doing such a thing after investing a lot on this country and being able to pay high salaries to employees (30% more than Dialog), then they sure have to shut down their services once people start to move out. Also there's a note that Reliance Mobile is gonna come to this island so they'd be watchful. And by the above postulate i don't think it would happen.

3. Facts please. Support your stuff. What i say is by meeting the real people who's dealing with Airtel and seeing what they do. I have no clue on this. If so how are they so great on India and still provide a great service.

4. Unfortunately that's not the fact. The delay was because some of the main/key towers that were required for operation not complete. A tower based on Kadugannawa was needed to route signal to kurunagala and the nothern part of the island. Without this the coverage would be limited to western/southern provinces. This tower (erection - without any telecom equipment) was completed on around 15th of December. Therefore they didn't have a way to test the n/w fully before launching.

5. The European product you are referring to I think is Ericsson equipment. So if Huawei products are so poor in quality how Mobitel/Suntel/Lankabel etc. perform any better? All mobile N/W providers use these products.

6. I'm not an economist or some1 related to economy (i'm just a student) so i don't know about that. But i know that outsoursing is now moving out from India and coming to Sri Lanka. Company's have reduced hiring of indians as they tend to colonise and make trouble.

7. As i know there are ratings imposed for these stuff by the world. and as i know all tower projects must be approved both by environmental ministry and the related regional authorities. I can't say anything more than that as i don't know about this.

I hope this helps in clarifying the facts said by that person.
--
Best Regards

Gayan Gunasekara
(MCP MCTS)

Amila Priyantha (not verified)

at 22:53 on January 11th, 2009

I like to get your airtel connectinn

Bandara Kumara (not verified)

at 02:49 on January 12th, 2009

I like to get your airtel conection

padmasiri Kaluaratchi (not verified)

at 21:36 on January 12th, 2009

I like to get Airtel Postpaid connection

srisaman (not verified)

at 01:46 on January 13th, 2009

I am a Sri Lankan and I just want to know about the post paid packages, call charges etc you are introducing and also want to download the audio clip of the advertisement.

Srisaman

Saptarshi (not verified)

at 08:03 on January 14th, 2009

Guys to tell the fact most of you pep never used a airtel connection, m n indian n have personally used it, u c basicly 1ce when its launged in Sri Lanka its gona swipe out all companies as it provies sevice with quality. Thought its a bit xpensive but its very good. Dont worry about chineese tech n indian tech till the time u get good service it wont matter 2 u. Wait n watch? n pep like true Sri Lankan i hope so u r not bribed by othe mobile companies coz a true sri lankan will never discourage his countries devp. M sure he himselp dint go check ot what aitel doin. Com on Huawei is not a bad brad 2 set up towers with pep in china r very much doin well with this company setting up towers. So i adivse u all to wait n c hw airtel gets into the market.