Airtel Launches Intex Aqua Lions N1

Leading telecom operator Airtel has launched a new 4G Smartphone, dubbed as- Aqua Lions N1 - in partnership with domestic Smartphone maker Intex. This is in accordance with expanding its lineup of ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ series.

Intex Aqua A4 and Intex Aqua S3 are also available under ‘Mera Pehla Smartphone’ series.

Price and Availability:

The Intex Aqua Lions N1 comes with a down payment of Rs 3,149 and with a monthly pack of Rs 169 from Airtel. Customers are required to make 36 continuous monthly recharges of Rs 169 from Airtel. After 18 months, customers will get a cash refund of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 after the completion of 36 months, taking the total cash benefit to Rs 1500, bringing down the effective price of Intex Aqua Lions N1 to Rs 1,649.

The same cash benefit of Rs 1,500 will be applicable to both Intex Aqua A4 and Intex Aqua S3, making their effective price to Rs 1,999 and Rs 4,379.

Technical Specifications:

The Intex Aqua N1 comes with a full touch 4-inch WVGA capacitive touch screen of 800x480p display resolution. Backed by a 1400mAh battery, it is powered by a 1.1 GHz MTK processor coupled with 1GB RAM. It has a 2MP rear camera and 0.3MP front camera. For storage, it has 8GB memory and a microSD card support of up to 128 GB.

The Intex Aqua A4 also has a full touch 4-inch WVGA capacitive touchscreen of 800x480p display resolution. It is backed by a 1750mAh battery and is powered by a 1.3 GHz Quad-core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM. Offering an external storage support up to 64GB, it has a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing snapper.

The Intex Aqua S3 features a 5-inch full HD IPS Display of 1080x1920p resolution. It sports an 8MP rear camera and a 5MP selfie camera. It houses a 2450mAh battery and is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core Processor with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage.

All the three Smartphones run Android 7.0 Nougat and comes preloaded with apps such as MyAirtel App, Airtel TV, Wynk Music.

For connectivity options, they have dedicated Dual SIM Slots and offer 4G/3G/2G with support for Airtel VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

“Bharti Airtel” Focusing On 5G

Bharti Airtel, India's leading telco, has intensified its efforts on the 5G front, and to fully prepare itself for the newer technology, has now joined hands with Swedish telecom gearmaker Ericsson, following similar pacts with Finnish firm Nokia and SK Telecom. reports Danish Khan.

Under the agreement, Ericsson will help Bharti Airtel create a strategic road map for network evolution to the 5G technology standard. The Swedish telecom gearmaker will also provide its 5G-related technology to demonstrate capabilities, and help the telco identify use cases around the new technology.

The agreement between both companies was signed last week in Stockholm, Sweden. Bharti Airtel's key top executives including Abhay Savargaonkar, director networks services (India & South Asia), flew to Sweden to ink the agreement, according to sources.

Airtel to Acquire Orascom's share in MENA

Bharti Airtel has declared that its subsidiary Network i2i has entered into a definitive agreement with Egyptian firm Orascom to acquire the latter's entire equity stake in Middle East North Africa Submarine Cable Systems for an undisclosed amount.

The agreement has been signed with Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding SAE.

Middle East North Africa Submarine Cable Systems (MENA-SCS) is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Orascom.

It is live and operational, connecting Mumbai - Oman - Saudi Arabia - Egypt and Italy. It further has the branching options to connect to other countries in Europe, Africa and Middle East via branching options to Cyprus, Greece, Djibouti, Yemen, Iran, Lebanon, Libya and Sudan.

MENA-SCS owns and operates a submarine cable network between India and Europe covering Middle East, with options to extend the network to Africa. It is a submarine optic network capable of carrying multi tera bits per second of data speeds.

The proposed acquisition of MENA-SCS is aimed at further strengthening Airtel's global network that currently runs across 225,000 route kilometers, covering 50 countries and 5 continents.

Airtel, Aircel to launch Apple iPhone 4 in India

Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's top mobile phone carrier, and its smaller rival Aircel separately said they would launch Apple's iPhone 4 in India in the coming months. Bharti and Vodafone Essar already sell earlier models of the iPhone in India. With nearly 800 million mobile subscribers, India is the world's second-biggest market for mobile phone services and is also the fastest-growing. But smartphones are estimated to account for just over 5 percent of the mobile handset sales. Indian carriers have recently started rolling out high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile networks, which is expected to boost sales of smart-phones. As of end-February, Bharti had 159 million mobile subscribers, while Aircel had 53.5 million.

Airtel to launch African call centers

CEO Manoj Kohli and other officials of the world's fifth largest telecommunications company declined to put dollar figures to their plans. The company said it will create call centers with partners including IBM Corp., Tech Mahindra and SPANCO with initial contracts of five years.

Bharti announced in June, it would invest $600 million in Nigeria's mobile phone market, but the company faces a fight in its hopes to expand in the nation of 150 million people. South Africa-based MTN already holds a 50 percent market share in the country while other networks also vie for customers.

However, Nigeria's state-run telephone company's fixed-line network sits in ruins, awaiting a potential privatization deal. Estimates suggest nearly 63 million mobile phones are used in the country.

Bharti faces challenges in Indian market as a price war has driven costs down to less than 1 cent a minute. The company's most recent quarterly report saw profits fall 32 percent to $361 million.

Kohli declined to say whether he anticipated a similar price war coming to Africa, as his company tries to make a name for itself in countries like Nigeria - where more than 80 percent of people earn less than $2 a day.

"We are here to create market," the CEO said.

Bharti's other holdings in Africa include networks in Burkina Faso, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Airtel partners with Infosys

Bharti Airtel has recently launched DTH service and this seem to be moving towards becoming a big success. Bharti has announced a partnership with Infosys Technologies Limited to bring value added services to the customers.

Airtel’s digital TV technology will combine with the Convergence Platform developed by Infosys to bring interactive content to the homes. This will include a host of services like iCity that will include local city information, iNet to include internet access, Astrology, booking of movie tickets and many more services. While some services have already commenced operations others are likely to be launched very soon.

A commerce application called tPortal has also been developed by Infosys. Mr. Atul Bindal, President - Telemedia Services, Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel is delighted to partner with Infosys to offer cutting-edge interactive applications on Airtel digital TV - its DTH TV service. This is in line with Airtel’s partnership approach to innovation and its commitment to deliver the best in world technology to its customers. With this partnership, Airtel aims to revolutionize the TV-viewing experience and usher in the future of television in the country.”

Bharti Airtel launches DTH Satellite TV service in India

Bharti Airtel has launched its direct-to-home (DTH) Satellite TV services in India from Thursday. The service is expected to be available to customers through 21,000 retail locations in various cities across India.

The service has MPEG4 standard video with DVB S2 technology and will cover 62 cities in first phase. Airtel also claims to have a 20 percent larger dish antenna for better performance during rains.

It also promises to offer exclusive content such as World space Radio, interactive applications such as iMatinee to book cinema tickets, iTravel to browse and book travel packages, iShop for shopping on TV, iCity to get city’s information and Widgets which update the latest stock news. It also features audio gain control to ensure uniform audio levels across all channels and an on-screen account meter and low battery indicator.

According to sources, it has a team of 800 professionally-trained service engineers and 24×7 customer care representatives. Mr. Manoj Kohli, CEO and Jt. MD, Bharti Airtel, remarked, “Today we are starting a new chapter in our journey, one that adds a new dimension to our existing product portfolio and is a major step towards transforming Airtel from just a telecom brand to a lifestyle enabler. The launch of Airtel digital TV is the culmination of our three screens strategy, which is to be present across mobile phone, computer and TV screens.”

Bharti Airtel brings Canada-India closer

In an attempt to bring 1.5 million non resident Indians (NRIs) and students in Canada closer to their friends and families in India, Bharti Airtel Ltd. launched its virtual calling card service “Airtel CallHome” in Canada. Airtel has previously launched this calling card service in the US in the last quarter of 2006 and in UK and Singapore in August and September 2008, respectively.

The calls to India will cost 5.9 cents per minute. With Airtel’s inaugural offer of 50% free talk time the cost per minute will come further down to 3.9 cents. The “Airtel CallHome” service is offered for prepaid charges which will be accepted through a credit card on the Airtel Web portal through a secure payment gateway.

It was revealed that according to industry estimates, the total outgoing traffic to India from Canada is around 18 crore minutes per month, of which 6 crore minutes are utilized through calling cards.

David Nishball, President, Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel Ltd., said, “We are excited to launch the Airtel CallHome service in Canada after our successful foray in three international markets. With the large NRI population, Canada is a strategic market for us and we see great potential here. With our world-class service standards we hope to increase the share of virtual calling cards here and make Airtel the preferred choice for the Indian community to connect with friends and family back in India.”

Axis Bank will help you to get Apple 3G iPhone

…and finally Apple 3G iPhone hit the Indian market on Thursday.The third generation Apple iPhone was introduced in India by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone.

Reportedly, Vodafone was selling its phones at 11 stores across Delhi initially, while Bharti was selling it only at the Shahara Mall. But, the phone will be available shortly through 250 Vodafone stores in 50 cities across India and Bharti Airtel will ensure the availability of the iPhone in more than 65 cities. Moreover, the Apple stores will also carry the product.

The 8 GB iPhone is priced at Rs 31,000 and the 16 GB iPhone costs Rs 36,100. It appears rather expensive when compared to the US price. In the US, it costs around $199 which amounts roughly to Rs 8400. In an attempt to defend their price, Sanjay Kapoor, president of mobile services Bharti Airtel, stated that the US price is subsidised as it comes with a two-year airtime contract. Hence, it is not fair to compare these rates.

Vodafone, however has tied up with Axis Bank and Barclays to offer the phone on 6 or 12 equated monthly installments (EMIs) with a lower interest rate in order to make the product affordable for the customers. However, the customers are obligated to buy the iPhone on the credit cards of one of these banks. Bharti Airtel has not come up with any plans for an EMI scheme as yet.

The multipurpose iPhone gadget combines the extra feature of an in-built GPS system, an iPod and a web browser.

Airtel and Vodafone to launch iPhone on 22 August

The iPhone is finally on its way to India. Airtel and Vodafone will be launching iPhone on 22 August 2008. It was earlier reported that only Airtel will be launching the service. However now it has now been confirmed that even Vodafone will be selling iPhones from the same date.

The iPhone will provide 3G services, which are expected to be twice as faster as 2G services. The price details for the phone in India have not yet been released.

According to President Bharti Airtel mobile services Sanjay Kapoor, “iPhone has been an iconic technological revelation of this year and Airtel has been at the forefront of innovation and customer delight in the Indian telecom sector”.

Now what about the price? No one knows the exact price and even the Airtel or Vodafone has not disclosed it either. However, a 3G phone is expected to be sold at about Rs 20,000.