Airtel named best service provider in Asia-Pacific

September 27th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Mobile operator Bharti Airtel Sunday announced two schemes enabling cheaper calls from the US to India as part of a festive season offer. Under the first scheme, users will get 1,353 minutes of calls for $24.99.

September 24th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Reliance Industries (RIL), Bharti Airtel, Infosys Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services are among the 13 Indian companies that have made it to the list of Forbes' 50 Best companies in the Asia-Pacific region. "Our list is a mix of giant, established companies this year which includes Australian miner BHP Billiton, Hong Kong conglomerate Noble Group and Indian oil and gas heavyweight RIL - and smaller outfits such as Agile Property Holdings, Anhui Conch Cement and Digital China Holdings," Forbes Asia said in a statement.

September 23rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - India's telecom regulator Wednesday issued guidelines on mobile number portability (MNP) that will allow subscribers to change operators while retaining the original number, but only within a particular circle. The new facility will become a reality from Dec 31 in metros and by March 20, 2010 in the rest of the country, said a statement from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

August 18th, 2009 MUMBAI - The installation, testing and commissioning of the 6,700 km TGN-Intra Asia (TGN-IA) cable system was complete, telecom service provider Tata Communications and undersea communications technology leader Tyco Telecommunications announced Tuesday. "The fully operational 6,700 km TGN-IA system links Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Vietnam and the Philippines, providing route diversity throughout the Asia Pacific region, Tata Communications said in a regulatory statement.

August 4th, 2009 NEW DELHI - India's leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel Tuesday said it will expand its cable network to Bhutan to help the IT and IT-enabled services sector of that country. The telecom major has signed an agreement with the Bhutan government in this regard, the company said in a statement.

July 28th, 2009 COLOMBO - Bharti Airtel Lanka, a subsidiary of India's telecom major Bharti Airtel, Tuesday said it has crossed the one million customer-mark in Sri Lanka. The company has achieved this milestone within six months of the launch of its services in the island country.

July 7th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Citibank has named a three-person team to replace Ajay Banga, who held the title of Asia-Pacific CEO and left the firm June 19 to become president and CEO of MasterCard. Shirish Apte,56, and Stephen Bird, 42 have been made CEOs for Asia-Pacific, while Shengman Zhang has been named chairman of the firm in the region, effective immediately, Indian American Vikram Pandit led bank announced Monday.

June 23rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - Taiwanese handset major HTC Corp, in collaboration with Bharti Airtel, Tuesday launched HTC Magic, India's first smartphone that will run on Google's Android operating system. The device is priced at Rs.29,900 and will be available in Airtel relationship centres and authorised HTC resellers in 17 cities.

May 15th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Leading telecom operator Bharti Airtel Friday said its mobile phone subscriber base had crossed the 100-million mark, making the company the third largest single country service provider in the world. 'Bharti Airtel has achieved 100-million subscriber mark,' said a beaming Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the Rs.375 billion company.

April 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Leading telecom service provider Bharti Airtel Wednesday launched a new offer for its US customers which will enable them to make calls to India at 1 cent per minute using online calling cards. 'With our IndiaOne Offer, we are delighted to take the lead in offering the best value for US to India calling.

April 8th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharti Airtel today launched the never before calling rate of 1 cent a minute on its online calling card service www.airtelcallhome.com. This will enable NRIs in US to call friends and family back in India at the most competitive rates in the market.

April 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharti Airtel Monday launched 16 Mbps broadband, the fastest wireline broadband on digital subscriber loop(DSL) in the country, in select cities. 'We will be able to offer 16 Mbps broadband to 70 percent of the households in Delhi and NCR (national capital region), Chennai and Bangalore,' Airtel Telemedia Services joint president K.

April 6th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharti Airtel has pioneered 16 Mbps broadband - the fastest wireline broadband on DSL in the country. This service, powered by Airtel's Carrier Ethernet Network, will be initially available in the cities of Delhi NCR, Chennai and Bangalore with phased roll-out to additional cities of Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai and Kolkata.

March 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bharti Airtel Limited, Asia's leading integrated telecom services provider, today announced the withdrawal of '95' dialing for long distance calling on its fixed line service as per the directive from Department of Telecom (DoT), Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India. This withdrawal will come into effect from midnight today.

January 11th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Airtel has slashed the one time processing fee for lifetime validity customers from Rs.295 to Rs.99, the company said in a statement Monday. According to the new tariff plan, an Airtel customer on the lifelong plan will have to make a minimum recharge of Rs.200 every 180 days.