The Hindu Business Line : AirTel plans to launch services in Assam soon

Bharti Cellular Ltd has applied for a unified access licence to commence telecom services in Assam. The company has also entered into an agreement with Hexacom - the holder of the mobile licence for the North East - with a view to facilitating AirTel's entry into the region.

Stating this at a news conference held here on Thursday, Mr Manoj Kohli, President (Mobility) of Bharti Televentures, said AirTel had firmed up plans to expand its mobile services to 200 new towns in the eastern region by 2005.

Over 500 cell sites would be set up in the current fiscal. The new initiative would entail an investment of Rs 400 crore, of which Rs 100 crore would be in Kolkata alone. In the process, AirTel cellular would emerge as the first GSM operator to operate services in all telecom circles in the country.

"The overall economy is growing and we are very bullish on the situation in the eastern region", Mr Kohli said, adding that the waiting list in the fixed line telephone connections "is an opportunity for us".

The "demonstrating effect" had begun to yield results and the future of cellular telephony in the region was very bright.

Nationally, AirTel is set to augment its capacity to manage four billion call minutes every month, up from two billion call minutes at present.

It would also scale up capacity to cater to a subscriber base of 11 million by the end of the year. In the months ahead, the number of cell sites is set to double from 5,000 at present.

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