Airtel launches website to allow users to track Project Leap

Bharti Airtel, the country's No 1 carrier, has launched a special website which will allow customers to know everything about how Project Leap, the 60,000-crore network transformation programme, is progressing in their respective localities. Customers will also be able to get a transparent view of coverage of voice and high speed broadband services. They will also be able to see sites planned in their localities, seek help on hosting sites and share site upgradation plans for every site. Customers will also be able to see sites that have been forcibly shut down in their locality. "With the launch of Project Leap, Airtel is investing companywide resources in ramping up our network infrastructure towards this modernisation drive and improving the service experience delivered to every customer," said Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO, Bharti Airtel (India and South Asia).

Reliance Jio launches 4G for employees

 Mukesh Ambani introduced his much-touted 4G telecom services on Sunday evening, restricting it only for Reliance employees for now, as the petroleum-to-retail corporate giant prepares to shake the telecom industry with a full-bloodied launch around March next year. For Ambani, this is the second calling in the telecom business after his first venture, Reliance Communications, went into the kitty of younger brother Anil as part of a family settlement between the siblings. On offer from Reliance Jio Infocomm will be low-cost 4G devices (under 'Lyf' brand) costing as low as Rs 4,000 and a host of services along with the regular voice and data. These will include a big collection of music (Jio Beats); around 200 television channels with back-up (Jio Play) and movies (Jio on-demand). At the commercial launch, Ambani is expected to go in for an aggressive pricing for his offerings which are expected to come bundled with a host of SIM cards (to make it a family offering) and large data-pack plans. The telecom entry is one of the group's most ambitious project to date (after retail) and it has pumped in nearly Rs 1 lakh crore into the business which aims to take on the established telecom behemoths such as homegrown Bharti Airtel, Britain's Vodafone and Aditya Birla group's Idea Cellular head-on.

Full spectrum of bad, good for telecom

successful auction of airwaves and the launch of 4G services were the high points for India's telecom industry in 2015 even as the lingering problem of call drops and bottlenecks in infrastructure, notably on transmission towers, remained major areas of concern. Early in the year, the country saw the biggest auction of spectrum when the government garnered Rs 1.10 lakh crore ($17.6 billion) to licence 380.75MHz of airwaves in the 900MHz, 1,800MHz and 800MHz and 2100MHz bands across 17 out of 22 telecom circles. The telecom service providers that participated in the marathon auctioning were: Idea Cellular, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Reliance Communications, Reliance Jio, Tata Teleservices, Telenor and Aircel.