Bharti Airtel Lanka

Airtel Lanka is the brand name of mobile network operator, Bharti Airtel Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd, the Sri Lankan subsidiary of Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel. The company was awarded a mobile phone operator license in 2006 and was scheduled to start operations in early 2007, however the company didn't commence services until 12 January 2009. Airtel is present in all 25 administrative districts of Sri Lanka.
Airtel had over 1.7 million active subscribers by January 2013.

MNC: 413 05 Operator code: 075

History

Airtel Lanka Limited is a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited, the third largest mobile operator in the world, with over 240 million mobile customers as of December 2011. Bharti Airtel has been featured in Forbes Asia's Fab 50 list, rated amongst the best performing companies in the world in the BusinessWeek IT 100 list 2007, and voted as India's most innovative company in a survey by The Wall Street Journal
Airtel Sri Lanka commenced commercial operations of services on 13 January 2009. Granted a license in 2007 in accordance with the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991, it is also a registered company under the Board of Investment Sri Lanka. Under the license, the company provides digital mobile services to Sri Lanka. This is inclusive of voice telephony, voice mail, data services and GSM based services. All of these services are provided under the airtel brand.
Airtel Sri Lanka has good coverage, except National Parks and Forests.

Network implementation

Airtel currently uses GSM and UMTS/HSPA+ technologies.

Airtel 3.5G and 3.75G broadband and coverage

Initially Airtel was offering cheapest Mobile broadband plans starting at 5GB for Rs.299/- but later it discontinued due lack of International bandwidth and financial loss it had incurred. In End of 2011, airtel announced its Unlimited Mobile broadband plan for Rs.1,499 and become the best unlimited data plan in mobile market in Sri Lanka.
airtel covers 30% of the population with 3G like Colombo, Kandy, Galle, Matara, Ampara Jaffna, Badulla, Bandarawela and airtel has covered Colombo and greater Colombo using the HSPA+ technology.
Airtel is improving their GSM coverage rapidly and they have 1600+ 2G base stations on operation island-wide and 650+ 3G base stations. Airtel started their service in Northern Sri Lanka on October 2010 and subsequently airtel broadband was available in August 2011 in Jaffna district

Legal issues

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Airtel Sri Lanka received many legal threats from other telecommunications operators, as Airtel began offering cheaper call rates. This led the industry to a price war, and all operators, including Airtel itself, posted significant losses for 2009.

On July 15, 2010, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL) implemented a price floor in order to overcome the negative effects of the price war. All operators increased their call charges, except Airtel, which filed a Fundamental Rights Petition in the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka on July 19, 2010, arguing that the floor price discriminated unfairly against the newcomer. The Supreme Court, however, rejected the petition.

Therefore, on August 3, 2010, Airtel revised its tariff for new customers, from 49 cents/min (within the network) to Rs. 1/min, with no changes to calls to outside networks, which has always been Rs. 2/min.