The Hindu Business Line : Upgradation of Airtel's capacity undertaken

Airtel towers in central Bangalore remained down for most of the day. When contacted, Bharti said it was administering itself a high dose of upgradation.

The problem was confined to a geography of 2-3 sq kms, which could imply a single BTS (base transmission station) was affected. The upgrade in capacity took up to late afternoon to be complete.

"We normally do it before early hours of the morning. But this was a massive project. We are increasing the capacity of our networks in line with our plan for next years' expansion," said Mr Deepak Mehrotra, CEO, Bharti Airtel Karnataka.

Bharti Airtel added 1,400 towers last year and plans to exceed this number into the coming year. It currently has about 31 per cent market share. The telco clocked a 37 per cent growth in Karnataka and is adding two lakh users per month in the circle. "To keep pace with the rising demand of cellular users, we had to upgrade. This was a larger dose than usual," said Mr V. Venkatesh, COO, Bharti Airtel.

According to the Cellular Operators Association of India, Karnataka recorded the highest growth of 5.2 per cent followed by Maharashtra at 4.9 per cent in January. Bharti Airtel has 3.37 crore subscribers in India.

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