Airtel plans to increase user base to 3 million

With a view at increasing the subscriber base in smaller towns, mobile telephony service provider Airtel has planned to increase its capacity in terms of additional switches and base stations in Maharashtra.

Airtel, which currently has a subscriber base of 1.5 million, is set to augment its capacity to cater to the needs of more than 3 million subscribers during the year, Airtel's chief operating officer Mandeep Bhatia told Business Standard.

"We have recently commissioned our third and fourth mobile switching centres(MSC) and will commission another MSC in August," Bhatia said. "With the enhanced capacity, we can take well over 3 million subscribers," he added.

With a special focus on the prepaid segment, the company has doubled its intelligent network capacity by one million and will be completing deploying of 15,000 radio erlangs by the end of the current month, Bhatia said.

Airtel has a share of 28 per cent in subscriber addition in the Maharashtra and Goa circle. Spelling out the company's expansion plan, Bhatia said three factors - innovation, customer affordability and superior network quality and coverage would be the drivers of the plan.

"With the enhanced network and delivery capabilities, we now plan to attack the market opportunities in the smaller towns in a circle, with a population of even 4,000 and 5,000," Bhatia said.

He said the company plans to increase the number of its cell sites from 1,550 now to 2,400 during the year 2006-07 and extend its coverage from 400 locations to over 600.

Bhatia did not give specific details about the investments needed for the expansion but said the investment for the expansion plans will be made from the $2-billion "kitty" created by the Bharati group.

He, however, made it clear that the company may never encounter such a situation that its subscriber needs don't match its capacity. "We will always plan ahead and keep the network ready to accommodate the expanding subscriber base."

The company has also planned to offer "regional roaming" benefit under which the Airtel subscribers will pay Re 1 for both incoming and outgoing calls when they are travelling in neighbouring states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

"This has been decided after studying the pattern of movement of people especially in the boundary areas of these states", Bhatia explained.