The Hindu Business Line : AirTel to increase cell sites to 2,000

BHARTI Cellular Ltd, which offers mobile telephone services in Chennai and Tamil Nadu circles, is witnessing an increase in usage following the Centre's move to do away with the distinction between the two circles as far as mobile calls are concerned.

Earlier, calls from mobile phones in Chennai to Tamil Nadu and vice versa were treated as long distance calls and carried higher tariffs, including roaming charges. Now, outgoing calls are at local call rates and all incoming calls are free.

Consequently, Bharti has commissioned its third switch in Chennai, which can help it cater to another three lakh subscribers, and will commission a switch in Madurai next month, its third in Tamil Nadu circle.

It will also increase the number of cell sites — towers — from 1,200 in both the circles together (300 in Chennai and 900 in Tamil Nadu) to 2,000 by the end of the year. Sixty-three more towns have been covered under the network from May 1, taking the total number to 360, according to company officials.

Mr P. Swaminathan, Chief Executive Officer - Mobility, Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, said traffic between Chennai and Tamil Nadu doubled in the 45 days since the distinction between the two circles was removed. For instance, the traffic from Chennai to Tamil Nadu went up from 400 erlangs to 800 while that from Tamil Nadu to Chennai increased from 300 to 650 erlangs. (An erlang is a unit of traffic density in a telecommunications network. One erlang is equivalent to one call for 60 minutes, not necessarily in a single block.)

Any revenue loss on account of doing away with roaming charges has been offset by the increased usage, he said at a press conference here on Monday. AirTel, he said, had made sure that its network was always congestion free and it was towards this end that it recently commissioned a third switch in Chennai and would commission the one in Madurai next month.

Mr Swaminathan said AirTel was coming out with a plan under which its subscribers can make STD calls to anywhere in the country at Rs 2 a minute for a monthly rental of Rs 30. Now the charges varied from Rs 2 in the case of a call within the AirTel network to Rs 2.65 for a call to a landline or any other mobile.

AirTel has a total subscriber base of 909,514 at the end of June in Chennai and Tamil Nadu put together with 510,365 subscribers in Chennai and 399,149 in Tamil Nadu. Its total business in the two circles together would be around Rs 400 crore. In Chennai, AirTel post-paid subscribers accounted for 40 per cent of the total subscriber base while it was 30 per cent in Tamil Nadu. The average revenue per user was Rs 450 in Chennai circle and Rs 300 in Tamil Nadu, Mr Swaminathan said.

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