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Airtel’s rivals question open network ad blitz
NEW DELHI: India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel opened up to its mobile network information – network coverage, signal strength, and network site deployment
NEW DELHI: India’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel opened up to its mobile network information – network coverage, signal strength, and network site deployment status – on Wednesday to gain confidence of its customers at a time when telecom operators are facing regulatory ire over call drops.
The announcement was made through a full-page advertisement titled “open network” in a few national dailies. In the ad, Bharti Airtel asks: “Are we the best network we could possibly be? Honestly and humbly, no”.
In the ad Airtel said it has decided to become India’s first “open network” giving access to our towers maps, internet strength, signal zones down to where a user “lives”.
The information can be accessed through the Airtel app or on its website. However, experts and industry officials said that the move won’t change things on the ground, even though Airtel’s CEO Gopal Vittal called it “paradigm shift” in the way of interacting with its users.
“How does it change things for Airtel’s users – we don’t know. It seems to be aiming more at the regulatory environment,” said Rajat Mukarji, Idea Cellular’s head of corporate affairs.
The government has been cracking down on call drops, and has stated that call drops shouldn’t account for more than 2% of all calls made from a particular network.
Another communications head of a national telecom operator agrees with Mukarji. “This changes perception towards a brand – of course people get carried away with openness but it doesn’t change service,” he said.
An Airtel spokesperson also said that nothing will change on the ground – just that it helps users to know what the condition of the network is and any issue can be reported to Airtel.
But can’t users call the customer care of Airtel if there is a connectivity issue? The user can, and an Airtel executive pays a visit. That doesn’t change – even after opening the network, the same executive will visit you.
The network was opened seven months after Vittal wrote a letter to Airtel’s customers on November 15 that the company will make its services better. That was also the beginning of Project Leap, where Airtel committed that it will spend Rs 60,000 in three years. It has spent Rs 15,000 crore, so far – all to upgrade its network.
To be sure, Airtel is not the only company which has spent a bomb on infrastructure.
Vodafone India, as a part of Project Spring, has spent Rs 18,000 crore ($3 billion) on upgrading network, last year.
However, the network condition in India remains a big problem. In Bhopal, for example, every other operator except Airtel and Vodafone failed to meet the government’s call drop norm. That’s because in India networks operate at over 95% utilisation (leading to congestion), while the global average is 70-80%.
