Airtel India is the second largest provider of

mobile telephony Mobile telephony is the provision of wireless telephone services to mobile phones, distinguishing it from fixed-location telephony provided via landline phones. Traditionally, telephony specifically refers to voice communication, though th ...

and third largest provider of

fixed telephony A landline is a physical telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber from the subscriber's premises to the network, allowing multiple phones to operate simultaneously on the same phone number. It is also referred to as plain old ...

in India, and is also a provider of

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

and

subscription television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

services. The brand is operated by several subsidiaries of

Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian Multinational corporation, multinational Telecommunications in India, telecommunications company based in New Delhi. It operates in 18 countries across South Asia and Africa, as well as the Channel Islands. ...

, with Bharti Hexacom and Bharti Telemedia providing broadband fixed line services and Bharti Infratel providing telecom passive infrastructure service such as telecom equipment and telecom towers. Currently, Airtel provides 5G, 4G and 4G+ services all over India. Currently offered services include fixed-line broadband, and voice services depending upon the country of operation. Airtel had also rolled out its

VoLTE Voice over Long-Term Evolution (acronym VoLTE) is an LTE high-speed wireless communication standard for voice calls and SMS using mobile phones and data terminals. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than older 3G UMTS an ...

technology across all Indian telecom circles. Airtel is the first Indian telecom service provider to achieve

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

Gold Certification. It also acts as a carrier for national and international long-distance communication services. The company has a submarine cable landing station at

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

, with a connection to

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. Airtel was named India's second most valuable brand in the first ever Brandz ranking by Millward Brown and

WPP plc WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It is the world's largest advertising company, as of 2023. WPP plc owns many companie ...

in 2014.

Mobile services

Airtel operates in all

telecom circle In India, mobile numbers (including pagers) on GSM, WCDMA, LTE and NR networks start with either 9, 8, 7 or 6. Each telecom circle is allowed to have multiple private operators; previously it was two private + BSNL/MTNL, subsequently it changed to ...

s of India.

3G

On 18 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction was completed and Airtel paid the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

for spectrum in 13 telecom circles of India:

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (ISO 15919, ISO: , , AP) is a States and union territories of India, state on the East Coast of India, east coast of southern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, seventh-largest state and th ...

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

, Uttar Pradesh (West),

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

Bihar Bihar ( ) is a states and union territories of India, state in Eastern India. It is the list of states and union territories of India by population, second largest state by population, the List of states and union territories of India by are ...

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

, North East, and Jammu & Kashmir. Airtel also operates 3G services in

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

Goa Goa (; ; ) is a state on the southwestern coast of India within the Konkan region, geographically separated from the Deccan highlands by the Western Ghats. It is bound by the Indian states of Maharashtra to the north, and Karnataka to the ...

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

and

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

circles through an agreement with

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

. This gives Airtel a 3G presence in all 22 out of 22 circles in India. Airtel is fined by DoT 3.50 billion for not stopping offering 3G Services through Roaming Pacts outside its Licensed Zones in Seven Circles. On 20 September 2010, Bharti Airtel said that it had given contracts to Ericsson India,

Nokia Siemens Networks Nokia Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) and Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational data networking and telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Espoo, Finland, and who ...

(NSN) to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. These vendors would plan, design, deploy and maintain 3G–HSPA (third-generation, high-speed packet access) networks in 13 telecom circles where the company had won 3G licences. While Airtel awarded network contracts for seven 3G circles to Ericsson India, NSN would manage networks in three circles. Chinese telecom equipment vendor

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...

Technologies was introduced as the third partner for three circles. Airtel launched 3G services in

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

on 24 January 2011. On 27 January 2011, Airtel launched 3G in

and

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

in Tamil Nadu. On 27 July 2011, 3G services were launched in

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

's 3 largest cities –

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

Kozhikode Kozhikode (), also known as Calicut, is a city along the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala in India. Known as the City of Spices, Kozhikode is listed among the City of Literature, UNESCO's Cities of Literature. It is the nineteenth large ...

and

Thiruvananthapuram Thiruvananthapuram ( ), also known as Trivandrum, is the Capital city, capital city of the Indian state of Kerala. As of 2011, the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation had a population of 957,730 over an area of 214.86 sq. km, making it the ...

. Airtel 3G services are available in 200 cities through its network and in 500 cities through intra-circle roaming arrangements with other operators. Airtel had about 5.4 million 3G customers of which 4 million are 3G data customers as of September 2012. Airtel has 3G licence in all 22 circles. In October 2017,

announced its acquisition of

Tata Docomo Tata Docomo was an Indian mobile network operator, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tata Teleservices deriving its name from NTT Docomo who invested in the company in 2008. In October 2017, Bharti Airtel announced a merger deal with Tata Telese ...

having roughly 40 million subscribers. In June 2019, Airtel closed their 3G network in Kolkata. In Kolkata users can only access 4G and 2G networks. As of April 2025, Airtel does not provide a 3G network and only 5G, 4G LTE, and 2G services are offered.

4G

On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum auction in India ended. Airtel paid for spectrum in 4 circles:

and

, Karnataka,

and

. The company was allocated 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in 2.3 GHz frequency band. Airtel's TD-LTE network is built and operated by

ZTE ZTE Corporation is a Chinese partially state-owned technology company that specializes in telecommunication. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. ZTE's core business is wireless, exchange, opti ...

and

in Karnataka, and

in Maharashtra and Goa. On 10 April 2012, Airtel launched 4G services through dongles and modems using TD-LTE technology in

, becoming the first company in India to offer 4G services. The Kolkata launch was followed by launches in

(7 May 2012),

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

(18 October 2012), and

Chandigarh Chandigarh is a city and union territory in northern India, serving as the shared capital of the states of Punjab and Haryana. Situated near the foothills of the Shivalik range of Himalayas, it borders Haryana to the east and Punjab in the ...

Mohali Mohali, officially Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar or Ajitgarh, is a planned city in the Mohali district in Punjab, India, Punjab, India, which is an administrative and a commercial hub lying south-west of Chandigarh. It is the headquarters of the M ...

and

Panchkula Panchkula (ISO: ''Paṁcakulā'') is a city and district headquarter in the Panchkula district in Haryana, India. It is a satellite town of the state capital Chandigarh. Panchkula is a border city with Punjab, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh ...

(25 March 2013). Airtel obtained 4G licences and spectrum in the telecom circles of

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

and

after acquiring Wireless Business Services Private Limited, a joint venture founded by Qualcomm, which had won BWA spectrum in those circles in the 4G spectrum auction. Airtel launched 4G services on mobile from February 2014. The first city to get the service was Bangalore. Airtel has started their 4G services in

Karnal Karnal () is a city located in the state of Haryana, India and is the administrative headquarters of Karnal District. The city is well connected as it lies on National Highway 01, in the south of the city lies the cities of Panipat and Sonipa ...

and

Yamunanagar Yamunanagar () is a city and a municipal corporation in Yamunanagar district in the Indian state of Haryana. This town is known for the cluster of plywood units and paper factories. It provides timber to larger industries. The older town is ...

in Haryana on 16 June 2015. Airtel 4G trials has been started in Delhi from 18 June 2015.Airtel 4G launch in Delhi
, ''News Exprezz'', 16 June 2015. Airtel had 95,173,000 4G subscribers as of June 2019. As of June 2019, Airtel provides 4G coverage in all India in 22 circles. Airtel extended its 4G network to 15 km off India's coastline, following a request by the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy (IN) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Navy, maritime and Amphibious warfare, amphibious branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of the Naval Staff (India), Chief ...

. Airtel started its 4G in

Andaman and Nicobar The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is a union territory of India comprising 572 islands, of which only 38 are inhabited. The islands are grouped into two main clusters: the northern Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands, separated by ...

on 15 January 2019. Airtel covered 96% population in

till March 2019. Airtel's network now covers approximately 98% of the population in these geographies.

VoLTE

On 3 November 2016, ''The Economic Times'' reported that Airtel had awarded a 4.02 billion (US$60 million) contract to

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

to implement

Voice over LTE Voice over Long-Term Evolution (acronym VoLTE) is an LTE high-speed wireless communication standard for voice calls and SMS using mobile phones and data terminals. VoLTE has up to three times more voice and data capacity than older 3G UMTS and ...

(VoLTE) technology on the operator's network nationwide. Airtel had previously awarded a smaller contract to Nokia for trial of VoLTE technology in select circles in early 2016. Airtel subscribers would be able to place VoLTE calls in areas covered by LTE. If LTE was not available in the area, the call will fall back to 3G or 2G.

5G

Airtel operates a

5G network In telecommunications, 5G is the "fifth generation" of cellular network technology, as the successor to the fourth generation ( 4G), and has been deployed by mobile operators worldwide since 2019. Compared to 4G, 5G networks offer not only hi ...

running in NSA mode and runs on bands n78 and n258. Jan 2021 - Demonstrated live 5G network at

Hyderabad Hyderabad is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India. With an average altitude of , much ...

, India. Feb 2021 - Announced partnership with

Qualcomm Qualcomm Incorporated () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software and services related to wireless techn ...

to develop Open- RAN based 5G network. July 2021 - Airtel and Intel announce collaboration to accelerate 5G in India. August 2022 - Airtel signed agreement deal with Nokia, Samsung & Ericsson for 5G services. October 2022 - On 1 October 2022, Bharti Airtel launched 5G services in 8 cities in India.

Spectrum frequency holding summary

Airtel India owns spectrum in 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 3500 MHz and 26 GHz bands across the

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, state with limited recognition, constituent country, ...

Project Leap

On 30 November 2015, Airtel announced the launch of a network transformation programme called Project Leap. Under the programme, the company will invest 60,000 crores over the next 3 years to upgrade its network across India. Airtel will deploy over 160,000 base stations nationwide, and also expand its mobile broadband coverage to over 500,000 villages. Under Project Leap, Airtel will introduce several technologies such as small cells, carrier aggregation solutions,

Wi-Fi hotspot A hotspot is a physical location where people can obtain Internet access, typically using Wi-Fi technology, via a wireless local-area network (WLAN) using a router connected to an Internet service provider. Public hotspots may be created by ...

s, and several different spectrum bands to improve network coverage in indoor areas. The company will also deploy more than 5,50,000 km of domestic and international fibre, and upgrade its legacy networks and base stations over the three-year period. Airtel Broadband will also benefit from Project Leap. The ISP's maximum offered speed will rise from 16 Mbit/s in 2016 to 50 Mbit/s when after the programme is implemented. On 14 June 2016, Airtel launched the Open Network initiative under Project Leap. The Open Network service allows users to view Airtel's mobile network coverage and signal strength across India, in addition to network site deployment status. This was first launched on a trial basis in December 2015, before its official launch in June 2016. In February 2016, Airtel deployed

LTE Advanced LTE Advanced, also named or recognized as LTE+, LTE-A or 4G+, is a 4G mobile Cellular network, cellular communication standard developed by 3GPP as a major enhancement of the LTE (telecommunication), Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. Three tec ...

carrier aggregation technology in Kerala. Carrier aggregation combines the capacities of TD-LTE (2300 MHz spectrum band) and FD-LTE (1800) enabling better spectrum utilisation and efficiency. The network achieved data speeds of up to 135 Mbit/s.

Airtel Business

Jan 2020 - Announced partnership with

Google Cloud Platform Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a suite of cloud computing services offered by Google that provides a series of modular cloud services including computing, Computer data storage, data storage, Data analysis, data analytics, and machine learnin ...

to offer

Google Workspace Google Workspace (formerly G Suite, formerly Google Apps) is a collection of cloud computing, Productivity software, productivity and Collaborative software, collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It con ...

to SMBs in India. May 2020 - Announced 'Work@Home' solutions for corporate employees, which bundled collaboration tools including

Google Meet Google Meet is a video communication service developed by Google. It is one of two apps that constitute the replacement for Google Hangouts, the other being Google Chat. It replaced the consumer-facing Google Duo on November 1, 2022, with ...

Cisco Webex Webex by Cisco, is an American subsidiary of Cisco Systems that develops and sells web conferencing, videoconferencing and contact center as a service applications. It was founded as WebEx Communications, Inc., in 1995 and acquired by Cisco Sys ...

and

Zoom (software) Zoom Workplace (commonly known and stylized as zoom) is a proprietary software, proprietary videotelephony software program developed by Zoom Communications. The free plan allows up to 100 concurrent participants, with a 40-minute time restricti ...

. Announced "High speed Airtel 4G Corporate Mi-Fi devices with complimentary G Suite pack". July 2020 - Partnered with

Verizon Communications Verizon Communications Inc. ( ), is an American telecommunications company headquartered in New York City. It is the world's second-largest telecommunications company by revenue and its mobile network is the largest wireless carrier in the ...

to launch BlueJeans in India.

Airtel IQ

A cloud communications suite, which Airtel has announced in Oct 2020, that it will operate as a separate business division.

Nxtra Datacenter

Nxtra Data Ltd, a subsidiary of Airtel, which operates data center services to corporate clients in the South Asian region. It currently operates 10 Tier-III

Data center A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for busines ...

s across 7 locations in India. Aug 2020 - Announced strategic alliance with

Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS) is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Amazon that provides Software as a service, on-demand cloud computing computing platform, platforms and Application programming interface, APIs to individuals, companies, and gover ...

to offer AWS's services to SMBs in India.

Airtel Money

Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money in collaboration with Infosys and SmartTrust (now Giesecke & Devrient). The platform was launched on 5 April 2012, at Infosys' headquarters in Bangalore. Using Airtel Money, users can transfer money, pay bills and perform other financial transactions directly on the mobile phone.

Airtel Broadband

Xstream Fiber

Airtel launched its Xstream Fiber service in October 2016. Airtel Xstream Fiber is available in 1,140 cities in India with speeds up to 1 Gbit/s. It offers other services like VoIP, OTT apps and TV channels.

IPTV

Airtel Broadband launched its IPTV service in 2009. On 31 August 2016, the company shut down the service, and offered its 50,000 subscribers a free upgrade to

Airtel Digital TV Airtel Digital TV is an Indian subscription based satellite television provider owned by Bharti Telemedia Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel. It launched DTH satellite television service in India on 9 October 2008. Airtel D ...

. The company stated that the move was part of its strategy to focus on a single television service.

Net Neutrality Debate

In April 2015, Airtel launched a marketing platform called Airtel Zero, which allows application providers to pay for the data used by the consumers, enabling consumers to access specific mobile apps at zero data cost.

Flipkart Flipkart Inc. is an Indian e-commerce company, headquartered in Bangalore, and incorporated in Singapore as a private limited company. The company initially focused on online book sales before expanding into other product categories such as con ...

, a leading Indian e-commerce firm reportedly was to become the launch partner of "Airtel Zero". The issue triggered debate on net neutrality in India and following protests

pulled out of Airtel Zero.

References

External links

* {{Telecommunication companies of India Companies based in Mumbai Telecommunications companies of India Mobile phone companies of India Internet service providers of India Indian companies established in 1995 Telecommunications companies established in 1995 Bharti Airtel