Bharti Airtel rules out tariff war in 3G space

Nov 10, 2010 |

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New Delhi, Nov. 10: Bharti Airtel on Wednesday said there is no possibility of a tariff war in 3G services as operators have shelled out high prices for bagging spectrum.

Bharti Airtel CEO, Mr Sanjay Kapoor, said that it was unlikely that there would be a tariff war in 3G space under rational circumstances. “Irrationality can never be explained,” he added.

With the entry of new players, the Indian telecom sector has seen fierce tariff wars eating into profitability of telcos.

Bharti Airtel had bagged airwaves to offer 3G services in 13 out of 22 telecom circles. It plans to launch the service before the end of this calendar year.

For having a pan-India footprint, Mr Kapoor said the company is in talks with “quality operators who have got 3G” for roaming pacts.

Rival Tata Teleservices on Tuesday launched 3G services with a tariff of 0.66 paise per second. State-run

BSNL and MTNL are already offering 3G services. There was speculation in the market that Bharti will enter into strategic alliance with Vodafone and Idea for rolling out 3G services pan India.

3G mobile services will allow high-speed content download and broadband services.

Airtel had paid the highest amount of `12,295.46 crore for securing 3G spectrum (radio waves) in 13 telecom circles.

They include New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad, which account for 21 per cent of India’s data traffic and are expected to have the strongest uptake of 3G services.

Bharti Airtel, which operates in 19 countries, already offers 3G services in Seychelles. It is also running 3G broadband services in Sri Lanka, Jersey and Guernsey.

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