The Hindu Business Line : Bharti unveils GSM service in Bengal

BHARTI Cellular Ltd on Friday launched its GSM mobile service in the West Bengal Telecom Circle. With this, Bharti's mobile footprint now extends to 18 out of the 23 telecom circles in the country.

The West Bengal Telecom Circle includes the whole of West Bengal minus the Kolkata Telecom District, Sikkim and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

According to Mr Deepak Gulati, Chief Executive Officer (Eastern Region), Bharti Cellular, an investment of Rs 100 crore was being made in West Bengal. Over 100 cities and towns in West Bengal and Sikkim would be brought within Airtel's GSM footprint soon. By 2005, another 50 towns would have cellular connectivity. Airtel's cellular services in Sikkim would be launched later this month.

Speaking to newspersons, Mr Gulati said there would be seamless coverage on Airtel's own backbone across all key highways, rail routes and hills. All Airtel to Airtel STD calls in the Kolkata and Bengal telecom circles would cost Rs 1 per minute as a promotional offer. Post-paid customers can avail themselves of a bundled offering of Samsung E800 phones with Bengali menu.

Mr Gulati declined to hazard a guess on the number of cellular customers in the West Bengal Telecom Circle that Airtel was hopeful of having in a specified time frame. He, however, said that the telecom penetration in the West Bengal Telecom Circle was a mere two per cent against the national average of eight per cent and, hence, the potential was huge.

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