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HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T13:10:00.002+05:30

IDEA:

Idea Cellular, usually referred to as Idea, is an Indian mobile network operators based in Mumbai, India.

[hide]

[edit]Inception and growth

In 2000, Tata Cellular was a company providing mobile services in Andhra Pradesh. When Birla-AT&T brought Maharashtra and Gujarat to the table, the merger of these two entities was a reality. Thus Birla-Tata-AT&T, popularly known as Batata, was born and was later rebranded as IDEA.

Then Idea set sights on RPG’s operations in Madhya Pradesh which was successfully acquired, helping Batata have a million subscribers, and the licence to be the fourth operator in Delhi was clinched.

In 2004, Idea (the company had by then been rechristened) bought over the Escorts group’s Escotel gaining Haryana, Uttar Pradesh (West) andKerala — and licences for three more — UP (East), Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh. By the end of that year, four million Indians were on the company’s network. In 2005, AT&T sold its investment in Idea, and the year after Tatas also bid good bye to pursue an independent telecom business. And Idea was left only with one promoter, the AV Birla group. Rs 2,700 crore adding Punjab and Karnataka circles. Modi’s joint venture partner, Telekom Malaysia, invested Rs 7,000 crore for a 14.99% stake in Idea. Just around then, Idea’s subsidiary, Aditya Birla Telecom sold a 20% stake to US-based Providence Equity Partners for over Rs 2,0000 crore.

[edit]Customer service

The company has its retail outlets under the "My Idea" banner. The company has also been the first to offer flexible tariff plans for prepaid customers^{[citation needed]}. It also offers GPRS services in urban areas.

Idea Cellular won the GSM Association Award for "Best Billing and Customer Care Solution" for 2 consecutive years^{[citation needed]}.

IDEA Cellular has been recognized as the 'Most Customer Responsive Company' in the Telecom sector, at the prestigious Avaya GlobalConnect Customer Responsiveness Awards 2010^{[citation needed]}.

[edit]Holding

Initially the Birlas, the Tatas and AT&T Wireless each held one-third equity in the company. But following AT&T Wireless' merger with Cingular Wireless in 2004, Cingular decided to sell its 32.9% stake in Idea. This stake was bought by both the Tatas and Birlas at 16.45% each.

Tata's foray into the cellular market with its own subsidiary, Tata Indicom, a CDMA-based mobile provider, cropped differences between the Tatas and the Birlas. This dual holding by the Tatas also became a major reason for the delay in Idea being granted a license to operate in Mumbai. This was because as per Department of Telecommunications (DOT) license norms, one promoter could not have more than 10% stake in two companies operating in the same circle and Tata Indicom was already operating in Mumbai when Idea filed for its licence.

The Birlas thus approached the DOT and sought its intervention, and the Tatas replied by saying that they would exit Idea but only for a good price. On 10 April 2006, the Aditya Birla Groupannounced its acquisition of the 48.18% stake held by the Tatas at Rs. 40.51 a share amounting to Rs. 44.06 billion. While 15% of the 48.14% stake was acquired by Aditya Birla Nuvo, a company in-charge of the Birlas' new business initiatives, the remaining stake was acquired by Birla TMT holdings Private Ltd., an AV Birla family-owned company. Currently, Aditya Birla Groupholds 49.1% of the total shares of the company. Malaysia based Axiata controls a 14.99% stake in the company.^[3]

[edit]3G

On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Idea paid 5768.59 crores for spectrum in 11 circles. The circles it will provide 3G in are Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra & Goa, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh (East) and Uttar Pradesh (West).^[4]

On 28 March 2011, Idea launched 3G services in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.^[5] The launch cities were Ahmedabad, Shimla and Indore. This makes Idea the sixth private operator (eighth overall) to launch its 3G services in the country following Tata Docomo, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Aircel and Vodafone.

Idea currently supports up to 21.1 Mbit/s over 2G speeds of 256 kbit/s. However, different handsets support different speeds, from 384 kbit/s, 3.6 Mbit/s, 7.2 Mbit/s or 21.1 Mbit/s. Speeds also depend on the 3G plan/recharge that users opt for.^[6]

The operator announced that IDEA 3G services will be available in 200 towns of 11 3G circles by mid-April 2011, progressively growing at the rate of ten towns per day to cover 750 towns by mid-2011 and 4000 towns by the end of 2012.

Idea cellular has announced a cut of 70% in the tariff of its 3G services.^[7]

[edit]Idea 3G Smartphone

On 23 November 2011 Idea Cellular launched two affordable 3G handsets in India: Idea 3G Smartphone Blade priced at 7,992 and Idea 3G Smartphone priced at 5,850. Both handsets are based on Android 2.2 Froyo.^[8]

Idea has also launched a Dual-SIM Android smartphone in India on June 15, 2012 named as Idea ID-918 at a price point of Rs.5,994 ($108 approx.) It features Android v2.3 OS, 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, 3G, Wi-Fi and 3.2 MP rear facing camera.

[edit]Pan India 3G Coverage

Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have begun collaborating to provide 3G coverage to their customers pan India. The agreement aims to provides for these companies to offer 3G services to their customers in circles where they have not won any spectrum. It is expected that the 3 companies will be able to provide 3G services in all circles in India except orissa where the three have not won any spectrum.^[9]

[edit]3G Coverage

Idea’s 3G service is currently available in the following cities in 11 telecom circles^[10]

Telecom Circle	State/Region	No. of Towns	Cities/Towns
Andhra Pradesh	Andhra Pradesh	13	Akiveedu, Amalapuram, Choutuppal, Hyderabad, Jaggaiahpet, Kamareddy, Machilipatnam, Narsapur, Palakol, Tadepalligudem, Vizag, Vizianagaram,Vijayawada, Yanam, Siddipet, Warangal,
Gujarat	Gujarat	2	Ahmedabad, Daman
Haryana	Haryana	87	Ambala, Bhiwani, Hansi, Hisar, Jhajjar, Panipat, Rewari, Rohtak,Adampur, Agroha, Asandh, Asauda, Badli, Baljattan, Barsi Barwala-His, Bawal, Beri, Bhadra, Bhalgarh, Bilaspur-Nh8, Bolni, Charkhidadri, Dabwali, Dharuhera, Dighal, Farookhnagar, Fatehabad, Gannaur, Gar-Shahjanpur, Garhiharsu, Gharaunda, Gohana, Hailymandi, Hodal, Ismaila, Ismailabad, Jakhoda, Jamalpur-Ggn, Jhansa, Jind, Julana, Kahanaur, Kaithal, Kalanaur, Kalka, Kaninakhas, Karnal, Kassan, Khatiwas, Kohand, Kori Kalan, Kosli, Kundli, Kurukshetra, Ladwa, Madhuban, Mahendergarh, Manesar, Meham,Naraingarh, Narnaund, Narwana, Nilokheri, Nuh, Palwal, Panchgaon, Pinjore, Pundri, Punhana, Radaur, Rania, Rohad, Samalakha, Sampla, Shahbad, Silkho, Sirsa, Sohna, Sonipat, Tatarpur, Tauru, Tohana, Tosham, Uchana, Uklana, Yamunanagar.
Himachal Pradesh	Himachal Pradesh	5	Shimla, Baddi, Mandi, Sundernagar, Dharamshala
Jammu & Kashmir	Jammu & Kashmir	0
Madhya Pradesh	Madhya Pradesh	4	Indore, Bhopal, Gwalior, Jabalpur
Madhya Pradesh	Chhattisgarh	8	Raipur, Durg & Bhilai, Bilaspur, Champa & Jhangir, Korba, Ambikapur, Raigad, Rajnandgaon, Baloda Bazar, Dhamtari, kanker, jagdalpur
Maharashtra and Goa	Maharashtra^†	3	Nagpur, Nashik, Pune, Solapur
Maharashtra and Goa	Goa	3	Ponda, Panaji, Margao
Punjab	Punjab	0
Kerala	Kerala	18	Trivandrum, Kochi, Kozhikkode, Alleppey, Aluva, Thrissur, Irinjalakuda, Punalur, Adoor, Thalassery, Koyilandy, Cherthala, Kannur, Kottayam,Malappuram, Manjeri, Parappanagadi, Munnar
Delhi	Delhi	1	Delhi
Kolkata	Kolkata	1	Kolkata
Kanpur	Kanpur	1	Kanpur
Uttar Pradesh (East)	Eastern Uttar Pradesh	6	Allahabad, Azamgarh, Jhansi, Lucknow, Sitapur, Faizabad, Raibarelli, Gorakhpur, Vanarasi, Jaunpur	-

Idea’s 3G service recently launched in Mumbai with 3G network sharing agreement with Airtel. [Idea has launched 3G services in Chennai network sharing with Vodafone]

[edit]Subscriber base

Idea's subscriber base as at the end of August 2011 according to the statistics,^[11] is totalling to 98,441,714 or 16.09% (Approx.) of the total^[12] mobile connections in India.

Idea leads all other telecom operators in India in the MNP (Mobile Number Portability) race, with a net gain of 10,31,380 subscribers as on 31 August 2011.^[13]

Idea also leads all other competitors in having the most active subscriber base, scoring highly on the VLR statistics. Visitor Location Register (VLR) is basically a temporary database of the subscribers who have roamed into the particular area, which it serves. Each base station in the network is served by exactly one VLR; hence a subscriber cannot be present in more than one VLR at a time.^[14]

[edit]Competitors

Idea competes with 14 other mobile operators throughout India. They are Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Ping Mobile, Reliance Communications, S Tel, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom, Uninor, Videocon, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone.

[edit]Video Calling ISD Booth

On 21 September 2011, Idea inaugurated Kerala’s first Video Calling ISD booth in Kottakkal, Malappuram. Idea has come out with the idea of setting up ISD video calling booths wherein users can not only talk but see the person live in real-time. The person receiving the call should be using a 3G handset on a 3G connection.^[15]

[edit]Seamless Coverage in Karnataka

After Acquiring Spice Communications of Karnataka telecom circle Idea Cellular Covered More than 20,000+ Villages in Karnataka and has the wider coverage than Airtel and other operators and next to BSNL

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T13:06:00.003+05:30

VIDEOCON:

Videocon is an industrial conglomerate headquartered in Gurgaon (NCR Delhi) with interests all over the world, and is an Indian multinational company. The group has 17 manufacturing sites in India and plants in China, Poland, Italy and Mexico. It is also the third largest picture tubemanufacturer in the world.^[1]^[2] The group is a USD 4 billion global conglomerate.

[edit]Corporate profile

The Videocon group has an annual turnover of 4 billion USD, making it the largest consumer electronic and home appliance companies in India. Since 1998, it has expanded its operations globally, especially in the Middle East.^[1]

Today the group operates through six key sectors: The Brand Trust Report, 2011 has ranked Videcon as the 42nd most trusted brand in India among the top 300 brands.

[edit]Consumer electronics

In India the group sells consumer products like Colour Televisions, Washing Machines, Air Conditioners, Refrigerators, Microwave ovens and many other home appliances, selling them through a Multi-Brand strategy with the largest sales and service network in India.^[3]

[edit]Mobile phones

In November 2009 Videocon launched its new line of Mobile Phones.^[4] Videocon has ever since launched a no. of Innovative handsets ranging from Basic Colour FM phones to High End Android Devices. And in February 2011, Videocon Mobile Phones launched the revolutionary concept of ZERO paise per second with pre-bundled simcards of Videocon mobile services along with 7 of its Handset Models.

[edit]Colour picture tube glass

Videocon is one of the largest CPT Glass manufacturers in the world, operating in Mexico, Italy, Poland and China.

[edit]Oil and gas

An important asset for the group is its Ravva oil field with one of the lowest operating costs in the world producing 50,000 barrels of oil per day.^[5]

[edit]DTH

Main article: Videocon d2h

In 2009, Videocon launched its DTH product, called 'd2h'. As a pioneering offer in the Indian DTH market, Videocon offered LCD & TVs with built-in DTH satellite receiver with sizes 19" to 42". This concept in the DTH service is relatively new in the presence of other players like ZEE TV's Dishtv, Tata Sky, Air tel Digital TV and Reliance's BIG TV providing only the set top box.

[edit]Telecommunication

Videocon Telecommunications Limited has license for mobile service operations across India. It launched its services on 7 April 2010 in Mumbai.

[edit]Acquisition of Thomson SA

Videocon through its Wholly Owned Offshore Subsidiary acquired the Color Picture Tube (CPT) businesses from Thomson S.A having manufacturing facilities in Poland, Italy, Mexico and China along with support research and development facilities.

[edit]Acquisition rationale

The acquisition came at a time when Thomson was facing a fall in demand in developed markets for television with CPTs and was moving more towards Flat-screen and Plasma Television. However, Videocon saw an opportunity in the emerging countries for CPTs and hence pursued with the acquisition. Besides, the acquisition gave Videocon, the access to advanced technology giving the company control over an R&D facility in Agnani, Italy. The major reasons behind this acquisition were:^[6]

Cost cutting – Videocon was better positioned to shift the activities to low-cost locations and also it could integrate the operations with the glass panel facility in India with the CPT manufacturing facilities acquired from Thomson S.A. Videocon wanted to leverage its position in the existing parts of the business and this acquisition would give it a strong negotiation position and could reduce impact of glass pricing volatility. Videocon could also reduce the costs by upgrading and improving the existing production lines.

Vertical Integration – The acquisition helped Videocon in vertically integrating its existing glass-shell business where it had been enjoying substantially high margins.^[7] Videocon’s glass division had the largest glass shell plant in a single location. This gave the company an unrivaled advantage in terms of economies of scale and a leadership position in the glass shell industry. The acquisition also gave Videocon a ready-market for its glass business and it was part of Videocon’s long-term strategy to have a global vertically-integrated manufacturing facility.

Rationalization of Product Profile – Videocon modified its product profile to cater to the changing market needs like moving away from very large size picture tubes to smaller ones.^[8]

Apart from the overall strategy Videocon also had a plan on the technological front. It wanted to improve the setup for the production line and line speed post-merger. Its focus was to increase sales while reducing the costs and thereby improving the productivity of the existing line. The company also wanted to foray in a big way into LCD panels back-end assembly . On the sales front the company wanted to leverage on the existing clients of Thomson and build relation as a preferred supplier to maximise sales. Also, Videocon could benefit from OEM CTV business with the help of Videocon’s CTV division, invest for new models and introduction of new technologies.^[9]

[edit]Thomson’s perspective

In 2004 Thomson planned entry into the high-growth digital media and technology business. Also, Thomson wanted to exit consumer and electronics businesses as they were incurring significant losses. After sale of its TV business to Chinese group TCL, and Tubes to Videocon, Thomson divested from the audio/video accessories business which was the last unit of its consumer electronics business. The need to divest are quite evident from the losses that it incurred in these businesses particularly that the unit that it sold off to Videocon, the Optical Modules activity, and the Audio/Video & Accessories businesses which totalled around €749 million for 2005. Moreover Thomson had done some acquisitions that were in line with boosting their revenues in the following years. ^[10]

[edit]Other competitors for the acquisition

When Videocon entered the race for the colour picture tubes manufacturing capacity of Thomson SA in November 2004, there were 16 other bidders. Videocon stood slim chances given the fact that it had to battle it out with players like LG, Philips, Samsung and Matsushita, Daewoo and several Chinese manufacturers but finally managed to close the deal. The deal catapulted Videocon into the No. 3 slot in the global pecking order for CPTs. An official of Videocon said on the deal "The word is out in the world that India and Indian companies are not just a good bet by themselves, but also a hedge against China.“ ^[11]

[edit]Pre-merger scenario analysis

CPT industry is affected by many competitive factors such as change in the consumer preferences, the product offer strategy of retailers, the progress made by alternative technology manufacturers, capacity adjustment facility of competitors etc. Based on all of these factors there were two scenarios that emerged from the 2005 budget of Videocon. The first scenario is a conservative one. It mainly assumes Price pressures similar to those in the past(-8 to -12%),capacity reduction over a period of two years, a gradual shift to newer technologies like True Flat and good amount of growth for LCD makers.

The second scenario is a more aggressive one in term of trends predicted. It assumes that the switch to TrueFlat would be faster, more overcapacity, more competition from LCD manufacturers and rising price strategy pressures in general. The second scenario obviously requires an industrial strategy which is more adapted to the environment.

However even if the second scenario arises,Videocon believes there is an opportunity in the CRT business. Though it is very obvious that in the developed markets of the western world the demand is shifting towards the flat panel side(FPD it is expected to contribute 70% of TV market in these regions),in the emerging markets like BRIC CRT still holds fort. CRT holds a dominant 70% share in these markets. When translated into number of units the demand is more than 100 million units. As Videocon is primarily based in these countries, it hopes to harness the value of the Thomson acquisition in the coming years.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Post merger situation (2008)

Videocon has not been able to turn the plant around in Italy still. However it is getting support from the local government(which want to prevent job cuts) in form of grants. The government is in fact trying to set up a Greenfield venture in form of a LCD manufacturing facility in partnership with Videocon. The banks are also supporting Videocon and with help from all these quarters Videocon expects to turn around the plant in Italy.^[12] The Thomson plant has not turned around in Mexico as well and in fact production has been reduced over there.In Poland,the situation is more promising and Videocon hopes that plant over there will get in black in the very near future.^[13] However the surprise has been in the Chinese market .Despite facing a highly competitive market Videocon has managed to turn a plant around while the other is on its way. In China Videocon is adopting a different strategy for manufacturing CTVs as the local players dominate the market .It plans to supply these players by taking advantage of low-cost nature of mainland(the number targeted by it about 6 million CPTs).^[14]

[edit]Role of local government in the acquired units

[edit]Italy

This article or section reads like an editorial or opinion piece. Please improve this article by rewriting this article or section in anencyclopedic style to make it neutral in tone. Please see WP:No original research and WP:NOTOPINION for further details. (March 2012)

The LCD television segment is one of the fastest in terms of growth rate in Italy. The compounded growth rate is projected to be around 70% in the next few years. Videocon in partnership with the local government is going for a Greenfield venture in this segment. The Italian central government is giving a euro 180 million grant whereas the regional authorities are giving a 40 million grant. Videocon would itself pitch in with about euro 300 million whereas bank loans would provide a further 700 million. Unfortunately Videoconn after the high millions grant, did not succeeded with the promised investments and left Italy with a fist of flie. Now thompson is a empty company and people are at home unemployed. they just need the brand thomson to have some copyrighted inventions from thomson itself.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]China

In the Thomson plant located in China the local Chinese Government is the minority shareholder.

[edit]Mexico

When Videocon acquired Thomson’s CPT business, it also gained control of Thomson’s Mexican plants. However Videocon Industries has a view that it would expand in the country only if the government gives it enough incentives. Videocon is demanding a 25-30% cash benefits from the government of Mexico.

[edit]Thomson’s exit from Videocon

Thomson is looking to sell out its stake in Videocon (a 10 percent stake via GDRs) and in most likelihood it would be bought by Videocon itself. Thomson would be exiting at a loss as it had acquired the stake at around Rs 400 per share (approximately equal to $10 per share).The deal is expected to happen at current market prices. Videocon’s GDR is currently traded at around $5.06 on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. On the Bombay stock exchange its trading around Rs 150 against the 52 week high of Rs 868 in Jan 2008. Another point to be noted is that this won’t attract the market regulator’s “creeping acquisition” norm which comes into force once they acquire more than 5% stake,as the deal would be an overseas one. ^[15]

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T13:03:00.001+05:30

UNINOR:

Uninor is an Indian mobile network operator based in Gurgaon, India. The company holds Unified Access Service(UAS) licences^[1] to offer mobile telephony services in each of India’s 22 telecom circles, and has received spectrum to roll out services in 21 of these (excluding Delhi). The company is a joint venture between Telenor Group, a telecommunications company headquartered in Oslo, Norway, and Unitech Group, an Indian real estate company. Telenor owns a controlling majority stake in the company (67.25%), which has been branded Uninor in the Indian market.

Uninor offers mobile voice and data services based on the GSM technology, currently on a 5.4 MHz spectrum. Uninor services are commercially available in 13 circles across India. With a ‘value for money’ proposition in the market^{[citation needed]}, Uninor targets youth and other communities within the Indian mass market.

As of December 2011, Uninor has 36 million customers and a total workforce of 17,500 people. The company has more than 22,000^{[citation needed]}partners in India. Uninor products and services are available from a more than 375,000 retail outlets serviced by 1,900 distributors all over the country.

[hide]

[edit]History

The company Unitech Wireless was until 2009 a subsidiary of Unitech Group, holding a wireless services licence for all 22 Indian telecom circles since 2008. In early 2009, Unitech Group and Telenor agreed to enter a joint venture where Telenor Group would inject fresh equity investments of INR 61.35 billion into Unitech Wireless to take a majority stake in the company. This was operating capital invested directly in Unitech Wireless by Telenor Group.

Telenor Group conducted these investments in four tranches, and subsequent to approvals from the Indian Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) and the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) took 67.25% ownership of Unitech Wireless.^[2] In September, the company announced its brand name as Uninor.

Uninor launched its first eight circles on 3 December 2009, after completing one of the world’s largest GSM Greenfield launches which was also one of the fastest telecom roll-outs ever in India. The brand was built around an ambition to serve the young, aspiring India.^{[citation needed]} Six months later, five additional circles were launched including metros like Mumbai and Kolkata, making the brand commercially operational in 13 telecom circles of India. These circles together account for over 75% of India’s population.

Uninor has facilitated rapid scaling of the company through a lean operation model, where a large share of the network infrastructure is outsourced to business partners. With a relatively recent infrastructure in place, Uninor operates one of the most modern GSM networks in the country.^{[citation needed]} Uninor’s modern equipment has enabled it to introduce targeted offerings and serve a large audience with limited spectrum.^{[citation needed]} As the first mobile operator in India, Uninor introduced Dynamic Pricing, a concept that gives consumers discounts that are based on current network traffic at an individual site and change with location and time. About 40% of Uninor’s customers are on a Dynamic Pricing plan.

Over the summer of 2010, the company further simplified its strategy with a focus on three core areas – excellence in mass market distribution, basic services and cost efficient operations. Changes were also made to the product mix and marketing communication – making them simpler, more direct and clearly positioning Uninor as an affordable mass market service.^{[citation needed]}

Uninor has grown from 0 to 36 million customers (as of December 2011) within less than two years, and is now emerging as the most successful of the new entrants that obtained licenses in 2008. The company has more than double the subscribers of all of the other entrants combined.^{[citation needed]}

Uninor's subscriber numbers and market share, based on numbers as reported by TRAI in June 2011.

Uninor's subscriber market share and circle-wise rank, based on numbers as reported byTRAI in June 2011.

[edit]Strategy

Launching its Indian operation, Telenor announced a set of financial targets for the new venture. Uninor is targeting an 8% pan-India market share, breaking even on EBIDTA within three years of launch and obtain positive operating cash flow within five years of launch. The operational peak funding requirement is set at INR 155 billion.

Uninor’s strategy to reach its targets is based on three strategic pillars;

servicing the basics,
excellence in mass market distribution and
cost efficient operations

Uninor decided to relocate its resources with focus on Kolkata, West Bengal and seven other circles, gradually scaling down its operations in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Orissa Circles.^[3]

[edit]Brand

[edit]Name and logo

The name Uninor is composed of the names of the two owners of the joint venture. The logotype, font and the visual expression follows that of the Telenor Group and other Telenor companies. While Telenor business units operate under the Telenor brand in most markets, local aspects and requirements are always considered when deciding upon a brand name.

[edit]Pay Less. Talk More.

The tagline ‘Pay Less. Talk More.’ was introduced in 2011.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Operations

[edit]Technology

This section appears to contain a large number of buzzwords. Specific concerns can be found on the talk page. Please help improve this section if you can. (February 2012)

Together with its key technology partners, Uninor has established a lean operating model. Taking the concept of outsourcing to the next level, its transformational partnership model is based on efficiency gain sharing, process focus for continuous improvement and relentless simplification.^{[clarification needed]}

Uninor’s main infrastructure and operation is handled by:

Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, ZTE and Ericsson for the core and radio infrastructure
Telcordia for the infrastructure (IN) solution
Wipro for the company's IT services
VIOM as the main infrastructure provider

[edit]Distribution

Making distribution a key capability of the company, Uninor has a comprehensive network of distributors and retail outlets. This network is serviced by a 7,000-strong field sales force which follows up on everything from customer queries to commissions to stocks of vouchers and SIM cards. Advanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and a handheld device enable real-time information to the sales force, increased transparency and traceability, as well as more efficient processing of requests.

[edit]Presence

Uninor’s Corporate Office is located in Gurgaon, Haryana, just outside Delhi. It has 13 circle offices, one in each of the circles where its services are commercially available, as well as a number of zonal offices and technical offices.

The circles offices are in:

Kochi – Kerala circle
Chennai – Tamil Nadu circle
Bengaluru – Karnataka circle
Hyderabad – Andhra Pradesh circle
Bhubaneswar – Orissa circle
Kolkata – Kolkata circle, West Bengal circle
Patna – Bihar & Jharkhand circle
Lucknow – Uttar Pradesh East circle
Noida – Uttar Pradesh West circle
Pune – Maharashtra & Goa circle
Mumbai – Mumbai circle
Ahmedabad – Gujarat circle

[edit]Controversies

Unitech Wireless was one of the would-be telecom companies that received 2G licenses in 2008. The method chosen by the authorities to allocate these licenses has later been subject to controversy as part of the 2G license allocation case. Licenses were awarded through a first come-first served process, where eight companies belonging to the Unitech Group were awarded telecom licenses. The licenses obtained by the telecom arm of the Unitech Group were the basis for Telenor Group’s investment into the joint venture. Unitech Wireless companies were later amalgamated into one company, Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Pvt. Ltd. The Telenor Group invested INR 61.35 billion through new shares to hold 67.25% majority stake in the company. This investment has been used as working capital for the joint venture. Telenor’s investments in Unitech Wireless have been cleared at each stage by the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB).

Due to the controversy of the 2G license allocation case, Unitech Ltd.'s Managing Director Sanjay Chandra (who was also earlier the Chairman of the Board of Unitech Wireless) together with the company Unitech Wireless, have come under investigation by the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). These investigations are connected to Unitech Wireless at a point when the company was fully owned by the Unitech Group. Subsequently, Unitech’s Managing Director and the erstwhile chairman of the board of Unitech Wireless, Sanjay Chandra, together with individuals from other telecom operators were taken into custody in early 2011. This trial is now ongoing in the Indian courts.

In February 2012, a special court consisting of two Supreme Court justices issued a judgment in a public interest litigation (PIL) case connected to the 2008 allocation of telecom licenses. The judgment directs the Indian telecom regulator, TRAI, to recommend a process for re-allocation of the 121 licenses that were issued in 2008. The court ordered this process to be concluded within four months, i.e. by June 2012. Uninor services and operations will continue uninterrupted.

Telenor Group on 21 February 2012 announced its intention to form a new entity in India with which its Indian operations will be taken forward. This new entity will serve as the platform to approach the upcoming auctions for fresh licenses as mandated by the Supreme Court. The new entity will also seek requisite approvals from the FIPB to allow Telenor Group to take up 74% ownership.^[4]Uninor on 1 August 2012 said it will auction all of its telecom business before it becomes non-operational on September 7, the deadline set by the apex court for winding up of operations of all the firms whose licences had been cancelled. The move has been strongly opposed by the firm's minority stakeholder Unitech and it has threatened to initiate legal action, if Uninor goes ahead with the auction.^[5] TELENOR, a majority stake holder in UNINOR said on August 1, 2012 that it will buy out the Unitech Wireless for Rs 4,190 crore, if there are no bidders for the Indian mobile phone operator's assets.^[6] Unitech, however, sought on 2 August 2012 stay by the Company Law Board on auction by Telnor of the business in which it has a third of the stake. It also sought a restraint on any sale or transfer of Uninor’s business and assets.^[7] Company Law Board on August 3, 2012 stayed Telenor's mobile phone joint venture not to proceed with a planned auction of its assets until its next hearing.^[8]

[edit]Chief Executive Officers

Sigve Brekke^{[citation needed]} (? - incumbent)

[edit]Quitting Operations in south India

Uninor has decided to quit the operations in south India due to bad network and as well as low customer database in Orissa, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Kerala

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T13:00:00.000+05:30

TATA DOCOMO:

TATA DoCoMo, usually referred to as DoCoMo (not to be confused with NTT Docomo), is an Indian cellular service provider on the GSM and platform-arising out of the strategic joint venture between Tata Teleservices (subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Tata Group) and Japanese telecom giant NTT Docomo (subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone) in November 2008. It is the country's sixth largest operator in terms of subscribers (including both GSM and CDMA).^{[citation needed]}

Tata DoCoMo received a license to operate GSM telecom services in 19 telecom Circles and has been allotted spectrum in 18 of these circles, under the brand "TATA DoCoMo". Tata Docomo launched GSM services on 24 June 2009. It first launched in South India and currently operates GSM services in 18 of 22 telecom circles. It has licence to operate in Delhi but has not been allocated spectrum from the Government.^[1] Docomo provides services throughout India. Tata DOCOMO offers both prepaid and postpaid cellular phone services. It has become very popular with its one second pulse especially in semi-urban and rural areas.

On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO became the first private sector telecom company to launch 3G services in India. Tata DOCOMO had about 42.34 million users at the end of December 2010.^[2]

On 20 October 2011, Tata DoCoMo brought its brands - GSM, Photon, INTERNET TATADOCOMO Walky - under the Tata Docomo name. All subscribers to these services were migrated to the Docomo brand on 20 October 2011.^[3]

[hide]

[edit]Rebranding

On 20 October 2011, Tata DoCoMo brought its brands - CDMA, GSM, Walky (Fixed Wireless Phone), Photon, INTERNET - under the Tata Docomo name. All subscribers to these services were migrated to the Tata Docomo brand on 20 October 2011.^[3]

The companies other brands - Virgin Mobile and T24 - are not part of the rebranding and will retain their names.^[4]

TATADOCOMO LTD products have been renamed as below

Tata Docomo CDMA
Tata Docomo GSM
Tata Docomo Walky
Tata docomo Photon
Tata docomo Internet

TATADOCOMO LTD products Headquarters New Delhi, India Revenue invest US$175.6 million Owner(s)author: sathish ray cell 8148860440

[edit]GSM

[edit]Network Coverage

Tata Docomo mobile service is available in the following circles:

Madhya Pradesh (3G)
Maharashtra & Goa (3G)
Mumbai
Andhra Pradesh '
Bihar & Jharkhand
Gujarat (3G)
Haryana (3G)
Himachal Pradesh
Karnataka (3G)
Kerala (3G)
Kolkata
Orissa
Punjab (3G)
Rajasthan (3G)
Tamil Nadu
Uttar Pradesh (East)
Uttar Pradesh (West) (3G)
West Bengal (2G)

Tata Docomo CDMA offers services in Assam, Delhi, [Uttar Pradesh], North-East and Jammu & kashmir. But Tata Docomo GSM service is still not available in Assam, Delhi, North East and Jammu & kashmir.

[edit]3G

On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Tata Docomo paid 5864.29 crores for spectrum in 10 circles. The circles it will provide 3G in are Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Haryana,Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra & Goa, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh (West).^[5]

On 5 November 2010, Tata DOCOMO became the first private sector telecom company (third overall) to launch 3G services in India, with a 20 city launch. The company will be investing USD 500 million in network roll out nationally.

Tata Docomo's HSPA+ 3G network, set up with the assistance of NTT Docomo, supports high-speed internet access with speeds of up to 21.1 Mbit/s. The network also supports high definition voice for superior quality voice calls.^[6]

On July 19, 2011, Docomo and Aircel entered into a roaming agreement for 3G services to jointly roll out 3G networks in the circles where they both have spectrum. In the spectrum auction held last year, Aircel won 3G spectrum in 13 of India's 22 circles (service areas), while TATA DOCOMO was awarded 3G licenses in nine circles. This deal would give both companies 3G coverage in 19 telecom circles of India. They will not have coverage on 3 circles - Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and Mumbai. The companies have three circles in common - Karnataka, Kerala and Punjab.^[7]

On December 14, 2011, Docomo ended its agreement with Aircel. Both operators ended the deal after the Department of Telecom said that such 3G arrangements were illegal, as the pacts violate licence terms and conditions.^[8]

Docomo had about 1.5 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011.^[9]

Docomo Has Launched 3G Internet Access Devices 3G e-Sticks and 3G Wi-Fi Hubs .

[edit]Recent Campaigns

Tata Docomo refreshed its campaign starting April 8, 2011.The “Keep It Simple, Silly” ad features their new brand ambassador and Bollywood star Ranbir Kapoor. The new ad campaign is claimed to be exciting and innovative and is being featured during the IPL 4 Season. It features Ranbir performing stand-up-comedy as a series of several 30 second episodes. Following its "Do the New" slogan Tata Docomo became the first to introduce Roam Free Packs to Postpaid customers offering free incoming roaming service while in docomo Network. Tata Docomo choosed popular Tamil actor Vijay^[10] as its brand ambassador for Tamil Nadu.

[edit]Competitors

Tata Docomo competes with several other mobile operators throughout India. They are Aircel, Airtel, Cheers Mobile, BSNL, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Ping Mobile, Reliance Communications, S Tel, Uninor, Videocon and Vodafone. Tata Docomo's parent company also operates Virgin Mobile (GSM).

[edit]See also

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T12:55:00.000+05:30

RELIANCE:

Reliance Communications Ltd. (commonly called RCOM) is an Indian broadband and telecommunications company headquartered in Navi Mumbai, India. RCOM is the world's 15th largest mobile phone operator with over 150 million subscribers and India's 2nd largest telecom operator in India, only after Bharti Airtel. Established on 2004, a subsidiary of the Reliance Group. The company has five segments: Wireless segment includes wireless operations of the company; broadband segment includes broadband operations of the company; Global segment include national long distance and international long distance operations of the company and the wholesale operations of its subsidiaries; Investment segment includes investment activities of the Group companies, and Other segment consists of the customer care activities and direct-to-home (DTH) activities.

[hide]

[edit]Background

It ranks among the top 5 telecommunications companies^{[citation needed]} in the world by number of customers in a single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes 2,100 Indian and multinational corporations, and over 800 global, regional and domestic carriers. The company has established a pan-India, next-generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting services spanning the entire communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages. Reliance Communications owns and operates the next-generation IP-enabled connectivity infrastructure,^[2] comprising over 190,000 kilometers of fiber opticcable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Main subsidiaries

[edit]Reliance Telecommunication Limited (RTL)

In July 2007, the company announced it was buying US-based managed ethernet and application delivery services company Yipes Enterprise Services for a cash amount of 1200 crore (the equivalent of US$300 million). The deal was announced of the overseas acquisition, the Reliance group has amalgamated the United States-based Flag Telecom for $210 million (roughly 950 crore). RTL operates in Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa, Bihar, Assam, Kolkata and Northeast, offering GSM services.^[3]^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Reliance Tech Services

Reliance Tech Services is the IT wing of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group. It provides IT consultancy, business process outsourcing and software development for Reliance Communications and other ADA group companies. It provides services to industry sectors such as telecommunications, financial services, utilities, entertainment, infrastructure, BPO operations and health care.

[edit]Reliance Globalcom

RGL owns the worlds largest private undersea cable system,^[4] spanning 65,000 km seamlessly integrated with Reliance Communications. Over 110,000 km of domestic optic fiber provides a robust Global Service Delivery Platform, connecting 40 key business markets in India, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the U.S.

[edit]Reliance Internet Data Center (RIDC)

RIDC provides Internet Data Center (IDC) services located in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Spread across 650,000 sq ft (60,000 m²) of hosting space, it offers IT infrastructure management services to large, medium and small enterprises. It is one of the leading data center service provider in India and provides services like colocation, managed server hosting, virtual private server and data security. It has launched cloud computing services,^[5] offering product under its infrastructure as a server (Iaas) and software as a service (Saas) portfolio, which enables enterprises, mainly small and medium, a cost-effective IT infrastructure and application on pay-per-user model.

[edit]Reliance Digital TV

Main article: Big TV

Reliance Big TV launched in August 2008^[6] and thereafter acquired 1 million subscribers within 90 days of launch,^[7] the fastest ramp-up ever achieved by any DTH operator in the world. Reliance Big TV offers its 1.7 million customers DVD-quality pictures on over 200 channels using MPEG-4 technology.

[edit]Acquisition

FLAG Telecom
Yipes ethernet service
Digicable
Vanco

[edit]Offices

Reliance Communications Limited has its offices in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Patna and Pune.

[edit]3G and 4G

On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Reliance Communications paid 5864.29 crores for spectrum in 13 circles. The circles it will provide 3G in are Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata,Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir.^[8] On 11 June 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4Gspectrum auction in India ended. Infotel Broadband, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries,^[9] won pan-India licence in the auction across 22 circles, the only telecom operator other than state-ownedBSNL/MTNL to do so.^[10] Infotel paid the government 12847.77 crore for the licence.

According to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) director general Rajan S. Mathews, Reliance Industries is expected to launch 4G services in December 2011.^[11] They are expected to use LTE technology. On 25th May 2012, RCom announced a price reduction of 61% on its 3G services.^[12]

[edit]Technology

Currently Reliance is only operator who provides up to 28 Mbit/s speed in India with its 3G MIMO technology.

[edit]Competitors

Reliance Communications competes with 14 other mobile operators throughout India. They are Aircel, Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTNL, MTS, Ping Mobile, S Tel, bsnl, Tata DoCoMo, Tata Indicom, Uninor, Videocon, Virgin Mobile (GSM & CDMA) and Vodafone.

[edit]2G Spectrum Scam Arrests and Chargesheets

On February 2, 2011, the CBI arrested former Telecommunications Union Minister A.Raja. The CBI also arrested R.K. Chandolia, Raja's personal aide, and Siddharth Behura, the former Telecom Secretary.^[13]^[14] Both A.Raja and R.K Chandolia are heard in conversation with Niira Radia in the released Radia tapes.

On February 8, 2011, the CBI arrested Mumbai based Dynamix Balwas (DB) group managing director Shahid Usman Balwa in connection with the 2G spectrum allocation scam. The CBI has evidence from the Income Tax department that Shahid Usman Balwa, considered close to A. Raja, was instrumental in channelling the kickbacks allegedly received by the former telecom minister.^[15]

On March 29, 2011, in Delhi, the CBI arrested Asif Balwa (younger brother of the arrested former Managing Director of DB-Etisalat Group, Shahid Balwa) and Rajeev Agarwal for their alleged involvement in money transfer to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (DMK) Kalaignar TV channel.^[16]

On April 2, 2011, the CBI filed its first 80,000 page chargesheet in the 2G spectrum scam before a Special Court in Delhi naming nine individuals and three companies. It said the wrongful acts of the accused deprived the government exchequer of possible revenues amounting to INR Rs 30,985 crore (USD $ 6,983,322,233). The accused include the following individuals:^[17]

[edit]See also

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T12:48:00.000+05:30

AIRCEL:

This article is about the telecom company. For the comics publisher, see Aircel Comics. For the broadband company, see Aircell.

Aircel group

Type	Joint Venture
Industry	Telecommunications
Founded	1999
Headquarters	Chennai, Tamilnadu, India
Key people	Sandip Das, CEO Jean Pascal,^[1] Head Operating Division Sudhir Mathur CFO & Head Network Division^[2]
Products	Mobile telephony, Wireless broadband services
Parent	Maxis Communications (74%)^[3]
Website	aircel.com

Aircel group is an Indian mobile network operator headquartered in Chennai, that provides wireless voice, messaging and data services in India. It is a joint venture between Maxis Communications Berhad of Malaysia and Sindya Securities & Investments Private Limited, whose current shareholders are the Reddy family of Apollo Hospitals Group of India, with Maxis Communications holding a majority stake of 74%.^{[citation needed]} Aircel commenced operations in 1999 and today the leading mobile operator in Tamil Nadu, Assam, North- East and Chennai.

It is India’s fifth largest GSM mobile service provider & seventh largest mobile service provider (both GSM and CDMA) with a subscriber base of over 51.83 million, as of January 31, 2011.^{[citation needed]} It has a market share of 6.72% among the GSM operators in the country.^{[citation needed]}

Additionally, Aircel has also obtained permission from Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to provide International Long Distance (ILD) andNational Long Distance (NLD) telephony services. It also has the largest service in Tamil Nadu.

[hide]

[edit]3G & BWA

On 19 May 2010, the 3G spectrum auction in India ended. Aircel paid 6499.46 crores for spectrum in 13 circles - the least cost per circle compared to other operators. The circles it will provide 3G in are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh, North East, Orissa, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (East) &Uttarakhand and West Bengal.^[4]

On 11 June 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum auction in India ended. Aircel paid 3438.01 crores for spectrum in 8 circles, the second highest wins overall - after Reliance Communications. The circles it has won spectrum are Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, North East, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.^[5] It also has 3G spectrum in all these circles.

Aircel has introduced new price plans for its consumers and are termed to be the cheapest in the country. Following the key players in 3G, Aircel also slashed its 3G tariff.^[6]

[edit]3G Coverage

Aircel’s 3G service is currently available in the following cities/towns in 13 telecom circles:

This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Telecom Circle	State/Region	No. of Towns	Cities/Towns
Andhra Pradesh	Andhra Pradesh	12	Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Vizag, Tirupathi, Kurnool, Nellore, Kakinada, Rajahmundry, Guntur, Karimnagar, Nizamabad, Warangal
Assam	Assam	6	Guwahati, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur, Sibsagar
Bihar	Bihar	6	PatnaPatna (Incl Danapur and Hajipur), Jamshedpur, Muzzafarpur, Katihar, Ranchi, Chapra and Gaya
Bihar	Jharkhand	0
Jammu & Kashmir	Jammu & Kashmir	1	Srinagar
Kanpur^†	Kanpur^†	N/A	N/A
Karnataka	Karnataka	16	Bangalore, Mysore, Shimoga, Hassan, Mangalore, Mandya, Gulbarga, Dharwad, Haveri, Davangere, Kolar, Tumkur, Udupi, Chikmagalur,Chitradurga, Maddur
Kerala	Kerala	14	Kochi/Ernakulam, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Thiruvananthapuram, Malappuram, Kannur, Thrissur, Alappuzha, Ambalapuzha, Kollam, Kottakkal,Thalassery, Kasaragod, Manjeri.
West Bengal	West Bengal	4	Asansol, Durgapur, Siliguri, Kharagpur
Kolkata^†	Kolkata^†	N/A	N/A
North East	Arunachal Pradesh	0
	Meghalaya	1	Shillong
	Manipur	1	Imphal
	Mizoram	0
	Nagaland	2	Dimapur, Kohima
	Tripura	1	Agartala
Orissa	Orissa	4	Bhubaneswar, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Cuttack
Tamil Nadu	Tamil Nadu	3	Chennai, Coimbatore, Hosur, thirukovilur
Uttar Pradesh (East)	Eastern Uttar Pradesh	6	Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Jhansi, Gorakhpur

†Kanpur and Kolkata are metro circle and are not included in Uttar Pradesh (East) and West Bengal circle, even though they are part of Uttar Pradesh (East) and West Bengal state.

New Chief Operating Offcer

Aircel's, majority share holder, Malaysia's Maxis will appoint Dr Kaizad Heerjee, the former chief executive officer of Malaysian telecom company U Mobile, next week, who will report to Maxis Communications chief executive officer and Aircel executive director Sandip Das.^[7]

[edit]Aircel Business Solutions

Aircel Business Solutions (ABS), part of Aircel, is an ISO 9000 certified company. ABS is a registered member of WiMAX forum – both in the Indian and International Chapters. ABS’ product range includes enterprise solutions such as Multiprotocol Label Switching Virtual Private Networks (MPLS VPNs), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Managed Video Services on wireless platform including WiMAX.

[edit]Sponsorships

Aircel is one of the sponsors of the Indian Premier League Cricket Team Chennai Super Kings. It is also the major sponsors for Chennai Open (the only ATP tennis tournament in India), and Professional Golf Tour of India.

[edit]Share holders

Maxis, Aircel's majority stake holder at that time, raised 11.2 billion (USD 3.36 billion) for its shareholders (UTSB), making it the largest IPO in Malaysia and Southeast Asia, Tamil Nadu.

[edit]Social Presence

Aircel placed an actual dinghy lifeboat to a downtown billboard. A rope with a sign reading, “In case of emergency, cut rope”, held up the branded raft. July 15, 2009 the monsoon arrived with flooded streets and so did Aircel customer service. The dinghy was cut down and pedestrians were safely transported. What Aircel calls “Corporate Social Responsibility – A Solution”. The company was able to generate positive publicity and show consumers that they care.

Beautification of Anna Flyover has been taken up Aircel for a period of three years, the contract has been awarded by TNRIDC and executed by Chennai based outdoor advertising agency Abra Media Networks. This project boasts of first of its kind lighting solution for the entire stretch of the bridge and many other landscapes to enhance the look of the whole bridge. As far as the utility is concerned, they are building a dedicated toilet for the police guarding the Anna Flyover and the US Embassy. Once this flyover is beautified, Aircel plans to maintain it for 3 years. Aircel tied up with Tamil Nadu Public Works Department for beautification and maintaining of Gandhi Mandpam, Guindy in opposite of Anna University.

[edit]Awards & Recognition

Aircel has won many awards for its services. Aircel was honored at the World Brand Congress 2009 with three awards, Brand Leadership in Telecom, Marketing Campaign & Marketing Professional of the Year^{[citation needed]}. Aircel was honored by CMAI INFOCOM National Telecom Award 2009 for, ‘Excellence in Marketing of New Telecom Service’. Aircel had been selected as the best regional operator in 2008 by Tele.net.^{[citation needed]} Aircel was rated as the top mid-size utility company in Business World’s ‘List of Best Mid-Size Companies’ in 2007.^{[citation needed]}Aircel got the highest rating for overall customer satisfaction and network quality in 2006 by Voice and Data.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Apple iPhone 4 Launch

Aircel launched the Apple iPhone 4 apart from Bharti Airtel on 27 May 2011, which is one of the most popular smartphone in the contemporary world.^[8]

Aircel is famous for innovative Pocket Internet cards for Free GPRS service for 1day/3days/7days/30days. Aircel become first to introduce Online service to subscribe and manage Dialer tunes. It is first in country to introduce SMS bank/Phone Book/Reminder/Talking SMS.

[edit]Other Information

[edit]Message Centre Numbers

Andhra Pradesh - +919700099060
Assam - +919854099060
Bihar - +919854099060
Chennai - +919841044446
Delhi - +919716099060
Himachal Pradesh - +919854099060
Jammu & Kashmir - +919851099060
Karnataka - +919738099060
Kerala - +919809099060
Kolkata - +919854099060
Mumbai - +919768099060
North East - +919854099060
Orissa - +919854099060
Rajasthan(Jaipur) - +919782099060
Tamil Nadu - +919842201155
West Bengal - +919854099060
Maharashtra - +919762099060
UP East - +919807099060
UP West - +919808099060

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T12:39:00.002+05:30

VODAFONE:

History

The evolution of 'Vodafone' brand starts in 1982 with the establishment of 'Racal Strategic Radio Ltd' subsidiary of Racal Electronics plc - UK's largest maker of military radio technology. The same year, Racal Strategic Radio Ltd forms a joint venture with Millicom called 'Racal Vodafone', which would later evolve into the present day Vodafone.^[11]^[12]^[13]

[edit]Evolution as a Racal Telecom brand : 1980 to 1991

Vodafone's original logo, used until the introduction of the speechmark logo in 1997

Part of the Vodafone campus inNewbury, Berkshire.

In 1980, Sir Ernest Harrison OBE, the then chairman of Racal Electronics plc agreed a deal with Lord Weinstock of General Electric Company plcto allow Racal to access some of GEC's tactical battle field radio technology. The head of Racal's military radio division - Gerry Whent was briefed by Ernest Harrison to drive the company into commercial mobile radio. Whent visits GE’s mobile radio factory in Virginia, USA the same year to understand the commercial use of military radio technology.^[14]

In 1982, Racal's newly formed Racal Strategic Radio Ltd subsidiary won one of two UK cellular telephone network licences, with the other going toBritish Telecom^[15]^[16] The network, known as Racal Vodafone, was a joint venture 80% owned by Racal, with Millicom holding 15% and Hambros Technology Trust 5%.

Vodafone was launched on 1 January 1985, and ^[17] shorty thereafter Racal Strategic Radio was renamed Racal Telecommunications Group Limited.^[16]On 29 December 1986, Racal Electronics bought out the minority shareholders of Vodafone for GB£110 million;^[18] and Vodafone became a fully owned brand of Racal.

In September 1988, the company was again renamed Racal Telecom. On 26 October 1988, Racal Telecom, majority held by Rasal Electronics; went public on the London Stock Exchange with 20% of its stock floated. The successful flotation led to a situation where the Racal's stake in Racal Telecom was valued more than the whole of Racal Electronics. Under stock market pressure to realise full value for shareholders of Racal, Harrison decides in 1991 to demerge Racal Telecom.^[19]^[20]

[edit]Vodafone Group, then Vodafone Airtouch plc : 1991 to 2000

On 16 September 1991, Racal Telecom was demerged from Racal Electronics as Vodafone Group,^[21] with Gerry Whent as its CEO.

In July 1996, Vodafone acquired the two thirds of Talkland it did not already own for £30.6 million.^[22] On 19 November 1996, in a defensive move, Vodafone purchased Peoples Phone for £77 million, a 181 store chain whose customers were overwhelmingly using Vodafone's network.^[23] In a similar move the company acquired the 80% of Astec Communications that it did not own, a service provider with 21 stores.^[24]

In January 1997, Gerald Whent retired and Christopher Gent took over as the CEO. The same year, Vodafone introduced its Speechmark logo, composed of a quotation mark in a circle, with the O's in the Vodafone logotype representing opening and closing quotation marks and suggesting conversation. .

On 29 June 1999, Vodafone completed its purchase of AirTouch Communications, Inc. and changed its name to Vodafone Airtouch plc. The merged company commenced trading on 30 June 1999.^[25] In order to gain anti-trust approval for the merger, Vodafone sold its 17.2% stake in E-Plus Mobilfunk.^[26] The acquisition gave Vodafone a 35% share of Mannesmann, owner of the largest German mobile network.

On 21 September 1999, Vodafone agreed to merge its U.S. wireless assets with those of Bell Atlantic Corp to form Verizon Wireless.^[27] The merger was completed on 4 April 2000, just a few months prior to Bell Atlantic's merger with GTE to form Verizon Communications, Inc.

In November 1999, Vodafone made an unsolicited bid for Mannesmann, which was rejected. Vodafone's interest in Mannesmann had been increased by the latter purchase of Orange, the UK mobile operator.^[28] Chris Gent would later say Mannesmann's move into the UK broke a "gentleman's agreement" not to compete in each other's home territory.^[29] The hostile takeover provoked strong protest in Germany, and a "titanic struggle" which saw Mannesmann resist Vodafone's efforts. However, on 3 February 2000, the Mannesmann board agreed to an increased offer of £112 billion, then the largest corporate merger ever.^[29] The EU approved the merger in April 2000 when Vodafone agreed to divest the 'Orange' brand, which was acquired in May 2000 by France Telecom. The conglomerate was subsequently broken up and all manufacturing related operations sold off.

[edit]Vodafone Group plc : 2000 to present

The headquarters of Vodafone Romania in Bucharest.

On 28 July 2000, the Company reverted to its former name, Vodafone Group plc. In April 2001, the first 3G voice call was made on Vodafone United Kingdom's 3G network.

In 2001, the Company acquired Eircell, the largest wireless communications company in the Republic of Ireland, from eircom.^[30] Eircell was subsequently rebranded as Vodafone Ireland. Vodafone then went on to acquire Japan's third-largest mobile operator J-Phone, which had introduced camera phones first in Japan.^[31]

On 17 December 2001, Vodafone introduced the concept of "Partner Networks", by signing TDC Mobil of Denmark. The new concept involved the introduction of Vodafone international services to the local market, without the need of investment by Vodafone. The concept would be used to extend the Vodafone brand and services into markets where it does not have stakes in local operators. Vodafone services would be marketed under the dual-brand scheme, where the Vodafone brand is added at the end of the local brand. (i.e., TDC Mobil-Vodafone etc.)^[32]

In 2005, Vodafone entered into a title sponsorship deal with the McLaren Formula One team, which has since traded as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes.^[33]

In May 2011, Vodafone Group Plc bought the rest of the shares of Vodafone Essar from Essar Group Ltd with value of $5 billion and became a solely owned of Vodafone Essar.^[34]

On 1 December 2011, it acquired the Reading based Bluefish Communications Ltd - a ICT consultancy company.^[35] The acquired operations formed the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within its subsidiary - Vodafone Global Enterprise,^[35] which will focus on implementing strategies and solutions in cloud computing, and strengthen its professional services offering.

On 23 April 2012, Vodafone announced an agreement to acquire Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CWW) for £1.04 billion.^[36] Vodafone was advised by UBS AG, while Barclays and Rothschild advised Cable & Wireless.^[36] The acquisition, if it is approved by CWW's shareholders, will give Vodafone access to CWW's fibre network for businesses, enabling it to take unified communications solutions to large enterprises in UK and globally; and expand its enterprise service offerings in emerging markets. On 18 June 2012, Cable & Wireless shareholders voted in favour of the Vodafone offer, exceeding the 75% of shares necessary for the deal to go ahead.^[37]^[38]

[edit]Operations

[edit]Africa and the Middle East

Networks in the Middle East and Africa
Majority-owned		Minority-owned	Partner networks
DR Congo¹	Egypt	Kenya	Kuwait
Ghana	Lesotho¹		Bahrain
Mozambique¹	Qatar²		Libya
Tanzania¹	South Africa¹		UAE
¹Majority stakes held through majority-owned Vodacom Group ²Effective ownership is not majority, but full control exercised by the group.

Egypt

In November 1998, Vodafone Egypt network went live under the name ClickGSM.

On 8 November 2006, the Company announced a deal with Telecom Egypt, resulting in further co-operation in the Egyptian market, and increasing its stake in Vodafone Egypt. After the deal, Vodafone Egypt was 55% owned by the group, while the remaining 45% was owned by Telecom Egypt.

On 28 January 2011, Vodafone complied with Egyptian government instructions to suspend Internet service "in selected areas" during a period of anti-Mubarak protests. The company issued a statement that "Under Egyptian legislation, the authorities have the right to issue such an order and we are obliged to comply with it."^[39]^[40]

Vodafone also received public and media criticism for allowing the authorities to send mass pro-government messages via SMS over their network during the protests. One such message requested that "honest and loyal men" should "confront the traitors and criminals". Vodafone later issued a statement asserting that they had no choice but to allow the messages to be broadcast, and that they had complained to the Egyptian authorities about the practice.^[41]

Kuwait

On 18 September 2002, Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with MTC group of Kuwait. The agreement involved the rebranding of MTC to MTC-Vodafone. On 29 December 2003, Vodafone signed another Partner Network Agreement with Kuwait's MTC group. The second agreement involved co-operation in Bahrain and the branding of the network as MTC-Vodafone.

South Africa (Vodacom)

On 3 November 2004, the Company announced that its South African affiliate Vodacom had agreed to introduce Vodafone's international services, such as Vodafone live! and partner agreements, to its local market.

In November 2005, Vodafone announced that it was in exclusive talks to buy a 15% stake of VenFin in Vodacom Group, reaching agreement the following day. Vodafone and Telkom then had a 50% stake each in Vodacom. Vodafone now owns 65% of Vodacom after purchasing a 15% stake from Telkom.^[42]

On 9 October 2008, the company offered to acquire an additional 15 per cent stake in Vodacom group from Telkom. The finalised details of the agreement were announced on 6 November 2008. The agreement called for Telkom to sell 15 per cent of its 50 per cent stake in Vodacom to the group, and demerge the other 35 per cent to its shareholder. Meanwhile, Vodafone has agreed to make Vodacom its exclusive sub-Saharan Africa investment vehicle, as well as continuing to maintain the visibility of the Vodacom brand. The transaction is closed in May/June 2009.

On 18 May 2009, Vodacom entered the JSE Limited stock exchange in South Africa after Vodafone increased its stake by 15% to 65% to take a majority holding, despite disputes by local trade unions.

Qatar

In December 2007, a Vodafone Group-led consortium was awarded the second mobile phone licence in Qatar under the name "Vodafone Qatar". Vodafone Qatar is located at QSTP, the Qatar Science & Technology Park

Ghana

On 3 July 2008, Vodafone agreed to acquire a 70% stake in Ghana Telecom for $900 million. The acquisition was consummated on 17 August 2008. The same group-led consortium won the second fixed-line licence in Qatar on 15 September 2008.

On 15 April 2009, Ghana Telecom, along with its mobile subsidiary onetouch, was rebranded as Vodafone Ghana.

U.A.E.

On 28 January 2009, the group announced a partner network agreement with Du, the second-largest operator of the United Arab Emirates. The agreement involved co-operation on international clients, handset procurement, mobile broadband etc.

Libya

On 24 February 2010, the group signed a partner network agreement with the second-largest operator in Libya, al Madar.

[edit]The Americas

For more information, see Verizon Wireless.

Networks in the Americas
Minority-owned	Partner networks
USA¹	Anguilla²	Antigua & Barbuda²	Aruba²	Barbados²
	Bermuda²	Bonaire²	Canada³	Cayman Islands²
	Chile⁴	Curaçao²	Dominica²	French West Indies²
	Grenada²	Guyana²	Haiti²	Honduras²
	Jamaica²	Panama²	St. Kitts & Nevis²	St. Lucia²
	St. Vincent & the Grenadines²	Trinidad & Tobago²	Turk & Caicos²

¹ – Verizon Wireless
² – Digicel (Partner)
³ – America Movil (Partner in some countries)
⁴ – Entel PCS (Partner)

In the United States, Vodafone owns 45% ofVerizon Wireless, the country's largest mobile carrier after their merger withAlltel. The percentage of the customer base, and revenues of Verizon Wireless that Vodafone consolidates is slightly lower, since some Verizon Wireless subsidiaries have minority investors. (Hence the exact percentages that Vodafone and Verizon report vary from period to period: in June 2006 Vodafone reported that Verizon Wireless owned 98.6% of its customers at that date.) Before this joint venture was formed, Vodafone merged with AirTouch Communications of the U.S. in June 1999, and changed its name to Vodafone Airtouch plc. In September 1999, Vodafone Airtouch announced a $70-billion joint venture with Bell Atlantic Corp. Verizon Wireless was composed of Bell Atlantic's and Vodafone AirTouch's U.S. wireless assets, and began operations on 4 April 2000. However, Verizon Communications – the name Bell Atlantic took upon its June 30, 2000 buyout of GTE – owns a majority of Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone's branding is not used, nor is the CDMA network compatible with GSM phones. This relationship has been quite profitable for Vodafone, but there have historically been three problems with it. The first is the above-mentioned incompatibility with the GSM 900/1800 MHz standard used by Vodafone's other networks, and the consequent difficulty of offering roaming between Vodafone's U.S. and other networks. The other two stem from the fact that Vodafone does not have management control over Verizon Wireless. Vodafone is thus unable to use the Vodafone brand for its U.S. operations, and (perhaps more importantly) has no control of dividend policy at Verizon Wireless, and is therefore entirely at the mercy of Verizon management with respect to cash flow from Verizon Wireless.

Perhaps as a consequence of these reasons, Vodafone made a bid for the entirety of AT&T Wireless when that company was for sale in 2004. Had this bid been successful, Vodafone would presumably have sold its stake in Verizon Wireless, and then rebranded the resultant business as Vodafone. However, Cingular Wireless, at the time a joint venture of SBC Communications andBellSouth (both now part of AT&T), ultimately outbid Vodafone and took control of AT&T Wireless (the combined wireless carrier is now AT&T Mobility), and Vodafone's relationship with Verizon has continued.

Early in 2006, Verizon re-iterated their desire to buy out the remaining 45% of stock of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone Group. Vodafone has also repeatedly indicated that it would be willing to buy out Verizon's stake.

Verizon has announced that its 4G data network will be LTE, which is considered part of the GSM path and not the CDMA2000 path Verizon has been using.

On 11 May 2008, Vodafone sealed a trade agreement with the Chilean Entel PCS Chile, in which Entel PCS has access to the equipment and international services of Vodafone, and Vodafone will be one of the trademarks of Entel for the wireless business. This step will give the Vodafone brand access to a market of over 15 million people, currently divided among three companies:Telefonica Movistar, Claro, and Entel PCS.

[edit]Asia-Pacific

Networks in Asia-Pacific
Majority-owned	Minority-owned	Partner networks
Australia	China^{[citation needed]}	Afghanistan	Armenia
India	Fiji	Azerbaijan	Hong Kong
New Zealand	Japan	Malaysia
		Samoa	Singapore
		Sri Lanka	Taiwan
		Thailand	Turkmenistan
		Uzbekistan

In July 1993, BellSouth New Zealand's network went live, and October 1993 Vodafone Australia's network also went live. This was followed in July 1994 by Vodafone Fiji's network going live.

In November 1998, Vodafone purchased BellSouth New Zealand, which later became Vodafone New Zealand. In 1999, J-Phone launched the J-sky mobile internet service in response to DoCoMo's i-Mode service. In December 2002 J-Phone's3G network went live.

On 1 October 2003, J-Phone became 'Vodafone', and J-Phone's mobile internet service J-Sky became Vodafone Live!. On 3 November 2003, Singapore became a part of the community as M1 was signed as partner network.

In December 2004, Vodafone Australia agreed to deploy high-speed MPLS backbone network built by Lucent Worldwide Services using Juniper hardware.^[43]

Then in April 2005, SmarTone changed the name of its brand to 'SmarTone-Vodafone', after both companies signed a Partner Network Agreement. In August 2005, Vodafone launched 3G technology in New Zealand, and in October 2005, it began launching 3G technology in Australia. On 28 October 2005, the Company announced the acquisition of a 10 per cent stake in India's Bharti Televentures, which operates the largest mobile phone network in India under the brand name AirTel. On 22 December 2005, the Company announced the completion of the acquisition of the 10% stake in Bharti Televentures of India.

The headquarters of Vodafone New Zealand in Auckland City

In January 2006, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka were added to the Vodafone footprint as Vodafone Group signed a partner network agreement withTelekom Malaysia. On 17 March 2006, Vodafone announced an agreement to sell all its interest in Vodafone Japan to SoftBank for £8.9 billion, of which £6.8 billion will be received in cash on closing of deal. Vodafone Japan later changed its name to SoftBank Mobile. On 9 October 2006, Vodafone New Zealand bought New Zealand's 3rd largest internet service provider, iHug, and on 1 November 2006, Vodafone Australia signed the Australian Football League (AFL)'s biggest individual club sponsorship deal with the Brisbane Lions for seasons 2007, 2008 and 2009.

On 6 February 2007, along with the partnership with Digicel Caribbean (see below), Samoa was added as a Partner Market. Then on 11 February 2007, the Company agreed to acquire a controlling interest of 67% in Hutch Essar for US$11.1 billion. At the same time, it agreed to sell back 5.6% of itsAirTel stake back to the Mittals. Vodafone would retain a 4.4% stake in AirTel. On 21 September 2007, Hutch was rebranded to Vodafone in India.

On 6 February 2007, Vodafone Group signed a three-year partnership agreement with Digicel Group. The agreement, which includes Digicel's sister operation in Samoa, will result to the offering of new roaming capabilities. The two groups will also become preferred roaming partners of each other. Along with Digicel's markets, the Vodafone brand is now present in 81 countries, regions, and territories. What is interesting to note, is that as well as being partners, Digicel and Vodafone are also rival operators in Fiji, where Digicel Fiji recently launched in October 2008, and Vodafone owns a minority (49%) stake in Vodafone Fiji.

On 10 February 2008, Vodafone announced the launching of M-Paisa mobile money transfer service on Roshan's (Afghanistan's largest GSM operator) network: Afghanistan was added to the Vodafone footprint.

On 5 September 2008, Vodafone purchased Australia's largest bricks and mortar mobile phone retailer Crazy John's adding 115 retail stores to its local operations.^[44]

On 9 February 2009, Vodafone Australia announced a merger with 3/Hutchison via a joint venture company VHA Pty Ltd, which would offer products under the Vodafone brand. dtac in Thailand is signed as a partner network of the Group on 25 March 2009.

On 19 June 2009, Vodafone-Hutchison Australia (VHA) announced the end of its outsourcing of retail operations. VHA committed to buying back and managing its entire retail operation, including 208 Vodafone-branded retail outlets Australia-wide. This project was slated to be completed by 1 September 2009.

On 31 August 2009, VHA enabled an extended 900 MHz 3G UMTS network which functions outside their 2,100 MHz 3G network, boosting Vodafone's 3G population coverage from around 8% to around 94% on dual-band 900/2,100 MHz 3G UMTS devices.

Nar Mobile in Azerbaijan was signed as a Partner Network on 22 July 2009, while Chunghwa Telecom of Taiwan was signed on 12 November 2009.

[edit]Europe

Networks in Europe
Majority-owned	Minority-owned	Partner networks
Albania	Austria	Belgium
Czech Republic		Bulgaria	Channel Islands
Germany		Croatia	Cyprus
Greece		Denmark	Estonia
Hungary		Finland	Faroe Islands
Ireland		Iceland	Latvia
Italy		Lithuania	Luxembourg
Malta		Rep. of Macedonia	Norway
Netherlands		Russia	Serbia
Slovenia		Sweden
Portugal		Switzerland	Ukraine
Romania
Spain
Turkey
UK

Vodafone Hungary is a Hungarian mobile telephone company, operating in Hungary, started to operate in 7 July 1999.^[45] In February 2002, Radiolinja of Finland joined as a Partner Network. Radiolinja later changed its named toElisa. Later that year, the Company rebranded Japan's J-sky mobile internet service as Vodafone live!, and on 3 December 2002, the Vodafone brand was introduced in the Estonian market following the signing of a Partner Network Agreement with Radiolinja (Eesti). Radiolinja (Eesti) later changed its name to Elisa.

On 7 January 2003, the Company signed a group-wide Partner agreement with mobilkom Austria. As a result, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovenia were added to the community. In April 2003, Og Vodafone was introduced in the Icelandic market, and in May 2003, Omnitel (Omnitel Pronto-Italia) was rebranded Vodafone Italy. On 21 July 2003, Lithuania was added to the community, with the signing of a Partner Network agreement with Bitė.

In February 2004, Vodafone signed a Partner Network Agreement with Luxembourg's LuxGSM, and a Partner Network Agreement with Cyta of Cyprus. Cyta agreed to rename its mobile phone operations to Cytamobile-Vodafone. In April 2004, the Company purchased Singlepoint airtime provider from John Caudwell (Caudwell Group), and approx 1.5 million customers onto its base for £405million, adding sites in Stoke-on-Trent (England), to existing sites in Newbury (HQ), Birmingham, Warrington and Banbury. In November 2004, Vodafone introduced 3G services into Europe.

In June 2005, the Company increased its participation in Romania's Connex to 99%, and also bought the Czech mobile operator Oskar. On 1 July 2005, Oskar of the Czech Republic was rebranded as Oskar-Vodafone. Later that year, on 17 October 2005, Vodafone Portugal launched a revised logo, using new text designed by Dalton Maag, and a 3D version of the Speechmark logo, but still retaining a red background and white writing (or vice versa). Also, various operating companies started to drop the use of the SIM card pattern in the company logo. (The rebranding of Oskar-Vodafone and Connex-Vodafone also does not use the SIM card pattern.) A custom typeface by Dalton Maag(based on their font family InterFace) formed part of the new identity.

On 28 October 2005, Connex in Romania was rebranded as Connex-Vodafone, and on 31 October 2005, the Company reached an agreement to sell Vodafone Sweden to Telenor for approximately €1 billion. After the sale, Vodafone Sweden became a Partner Network. In December 2005, Vodafone won an auction to buy Turkey's second-largest mobile phone company,Telsim, for US$4.5 billion.^[46] In December 2005, Vodafone Spain became the second member of the Group to adopt the revised logo: it was phased in over the following six months in other countries.

In 2006, the Company rebranded its Stoke-on-Trent site as Stoke Premier Centre, a centre of expertise for the company dealing with Customer Care for its higher value customers, technical support, sales and credit control. All cancellations and upgrades started to be dealt with by this call centre. On 5 January 2006, Vodafone announced the completion of the sale of Vodafone Sweden to Telenor. On February 2006, the Company closed its Birmingham Call Centre. On 1 February 2006, Oskar Vodafone became Vodafone Czech Republic, adopting the revised logo, and on 22 February 2006, the Company announced that it was extending its footprint to Bulgaria with the signing of Partner Network Agreement with Mobiltel, which is part of mobilkom Austria group.

The headquarters of Vodafone Ireland in Dublin

In April 2006, the Company announced that it had signed an extension to its Partner Network Agreement with BITE Group, enabling its Latvian subsidiary "BITE Latvija" to become the latest member of Vodafone's global partner community. Also in April 2006, Vodafone Sweden changed its name to Telenor Sverige AB, and Connex-Vodafone became Vodafone Romania, also adopting the new logo. On 30 May 2006, Vodafone announced the then biggest loss in British corporate history (£14.9 billion), and plans to cut 400 jobs; it reported one-off costs of £23.5 billion due to the revaluation of itsMannesmann subsidiary. On 24 July 2006, the respected head of Vodafone Europe, Bill Morrow, quit unexpectedly,^[47] and on 25 August 2006, the Company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Belgium's Proximus for €2 billion. After the deal, Proximus was still part of the community as a Partner Network. On 5 October 2006, Vodafone announced the first single brand partnership with Og Vodafone which would operate under the nameVodafone Iceland, and on 19 December 2006, the Company announced the sale of its 25% stake in Switzerland's Swisscom for CHF4.25 billion (£1.8 billion)., After the deal, Swisscom would still be part of the community as a Partner Network. Finally in December 2006, the Company completed the acquisition of Aspective, an enterprise applications systems integrator in the UK, signalling Vodafone's intent to grow a significant presence and revenues in the information and communication technologies (ICT) marketplace.

The Vodafone Lion on the Löwenparade in Munich, Germany

Early in January 2007, Telsim in Turkey adopted Vodafone dual branding as Telsim Vodafone, and on 1 April 2007, Telsim Vodafone Turkey dropped its original brand and became Vodafone Turkey. In addition, Vodafone Turkey also gives service in Northern Cyprus. On 1 May 2007, Vodafone added Jersey and Guernsey to the community, as Airtel was signed as Partner Network in both crown dependencies. In June 2007, the Vodafone live! mobile internet portal in the UK was relaunched. Front page was now charged for, and previously "bundled" data allowance was removed from existing contract terms.^[48] All users were given access to the "full" web rather than a 'Walled Garden', and Vodafone became the first mobile network to focus an entire media campaign on its newly launched mobile internet portal in the UK.^[49] On 1 August 2007, Vodafone Portugal launched Vodafone Messenger, a service with Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. At the end of 2007, Vodafone Germany was ranked 6th in Europe by subscriber numbers, whilst its Italian operation was listed as 10th. Vodafone UK was ranked 13th, whilst Spain was listed in 16th place.^[50]

On 17 April 2008, Vodafone extended its footprint to Serbia as Vip mobile was added to the community as a Partner Network, and on 20 May 2008, the Company added VIP Operator as a Partner Network, thereby extending the global footprint to the Republic of Macedonia. In May 2008, Kall of the Faroe Islands rebranded as Vodafone Faroe Islands.

On 30 October 2008, the company announced a strategic, non-equity partnership with Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) group of Russia. The agreement adds Russia, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan to the group footprint.^[51]

On 20 March 2009, it was announced that the group's Luxembourg partner has been changed to Tango: the agreement with LuxGSM was not renewed in favour of Tango, the Luxembourg unit of another partner network, Belgacom of Belgium.^[52]

[edit]Vodafone Global Enterprise

Main article: Vodafone Global Enterprise

A map showing the countries where Vodafone Global Enterprise has operations (coloured in red)

Vodafone Global Enterprise is the business services division, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Vodafone Group. It was established in April 2007 to provide telecommunications and information technology services to large corporations.^[53]^[54]^[55]

It offers integrated communication solutions in cloud computing, unified communications and collaboration.^[54]^[53] Its services include domestic and international voice and data, Machine to Machine services, mobile email, mobile broadband, managed services, mobile payment and mobile recording.^[56]

In December 2011, it acquired the Reading-based Bluefish Communications Ltd - an ICT consultancy company.^[57] The acquired operations will form the nucleus of a new Unified Communications and Collaboration practice within VGE,^[35] which will focus on implementing strategies and solutions in cloud computing, and strengthen its professional services offering.^[58]

It operates in over 65 countries, operated by its "Northern Europe" (based in London, United Kingdom), "Central Europe", "Southern Europe and Africa", "Asia Pacific & Sub-Saharan Africa" (based in Singapore) and "Americas" geographical divisions.^[59] VGE's major customers include Deutsche Post,^[60]The Linde Group, ^[61] Unilever,^[62] and Volkswagen Group.^[63]

[edit]Products and services

Products promoted by the Group include Vodafone live!, Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem, Vodafone Connect to Friends, Vodafone Passport, Vodafone Freedom Packs, Vodafone at Home, Vodafone 710 and Amobee Media Systems.

In October 2009, it launched Vodafone 360, a new internet service for the mobile, PC and Mac. In February 2010, Vodafone launched world's cheapest mobile phone known as Vodafone 150, will sell for below $15 (£10) and is aimed at the developing world. It will initially be launched in India, Turkey and eight African countries including Lesotho, Kenya and Ghana.^[64]

[edit]Mobile money transfer services

In March 2007, Safaricom, which is part owned by Vodafone and the leading mobile communication provider in Kenya, launched a mobile payment solution developed by Vodafone.^[65] M-PESA is aimed at mobile customers who do not have a bank account, typically because they do not have access to a bank or their income is insufficient to justify a bank account. The M-PESA system allows customers to deposit and withdraw cash via local agents, and transfer money to other mobile phone users via SMS.

By February 2008, the M-PESA money transfer system in Kenya had gained 1.6 million customers,^[66] and Vodafone announced that it was to extend the service to Afghanistan.^[67] The service here was launched on the Roshan network under the brand M-Paisa with a different focus to the Kenyan service. M-Paisa was targeted as a vehicle for microfinance institutions' (MFI) loan disbursements and repayments, alongside business to business applications such as salary disbursement. The Afghanistan launch was followed in April 2008 by the announcement of further a further launch of M-PESA in Tanzania.

[edit]mHealth services

In November 2009, Vodafone announced the creation of a new business unit focused on the emerging mHealth market (the application of mobile communications and network technologies to healthcare).^[68] One of its early success stories is with the Novartis-led “SMS for Life” project in Tanzania, for which Vodafone developed and deployed a text-message based system that enables all of the country’s 4,600 public health facilities to report their levels of anti-malaria medications so that stock level data can be viewed centrally in real-time, enabling timely re-supply of stock. During the SMS for Life pilot, which covered 129 health facilities over six months, stock-outs dropped from 26% to 0.8%, saving thousands of lives.^[69]

Vodafone has also been active in mHealth from a philanthropic perspective. The Vodafone Group Foundation is a founder member of the mHealth Alliance, supporting the adoption of mHealth through policy research and advocacy and the development of interoperable and sustainable mHealth solutions.^[70]

[edit]Corporate affairs

[edit]Senior management

In a period just short of twenty years from its initial public offering, the Company had had just three Chief Executives. The fourth CEO, Vittorio Colao, stepped up from Deputy Chief Executive in July 2008. Each of his predecessors made a personal contribution to the development of the Company.

Sir Gerald Whent, at that time an Executive with Racal Electronics plc, was responsible for the bid for a UK Cellular Network licence. The Mobile Telecoms division was de-merged, and was floated on the London Stock Exchange in October 1988 and Sir Gerald became Chief Executive of Racal Telecom plc. Over the next few years the company grew to become the UK's Market Leader, changing its name to Vodafone Group plc in the process.

Sir Christopher Gent took over as Chief Executive in January 1997, after Sir Gerald's retirement. Sir Christopher was responsible for transforming Vodafone from a small UK operator into the global behemoth that it is today, through the merger with the American AirTouch and the takeover of Germany's Mannesmann, the Goldman Sachs chief advisor on the deal was Scott Mead.

Arun Sarin was the driving force behind the Company's move into emerging markets such as Asia and Africa, through the purchases such as that of Turkish operator Telsim, and a majority stake in Hutchison Essar in India. Faced with increased competition, and penetration rates above 100% in the more mature European markets, he saw it necessary to diversify from being a mobile-only business into a company which provided all telecommunications services. This has seen Vodafone launch DSL and other fixed-line services in markets such as Germany and the UK.

Chief Executive	Tenure
Sir Gerald Whent	October 1988 – December 1996
Sir Christopher Gent	January 1997 – July 2003
Arun Sarin	July 2003 – July 2008
Vittorio Colao	Since July 2008

[edit]Financial results

Vodafone reports its results in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Vodafone has some large minority stakes, which are not included in its consolidated turnover. In order to provide additional information on the overall scale and growth trends of its business, it publishes "proportionate turnover" figures, and these are included in the tables below. For example, if a business in which it owns a 45% stake has turnover of £10 billion, that equals £4.5 billion of proportionate turnover for Vodafone. Proportionate turnover is not an official accounting measure, and Vodafone's proportionate turnover should be compared with other companies' statutory turnover.

Vodafone also produces proportionate customer number figures on a similar basis, e.g. if an operator in which it has a 30% stake has 10 million customers that equals 3 million proportionate Vodafone customers.

Year ended 31 March	Turnover £m	Profit before tax £m	Profit for the year £m	Basic eps (pence)	Proportionate customers (m)
2011	45,884	9,498	7,870	15.20	347.7
2010	44,472	8,674	8,618	16.44	341.1
2009	41,017	4,189	3,080	5.81	302.6
2008	35,478	9,001	6,756	12.56	260
2007	31,104	(2,383)	(5,297)	(8.94)	206.4
2006*	29,350	(14,835)	(21,821)	(35.01)	170.6
2005	34,073	7,951	6,518	9.68	154.8
2004	36,492	9,013	6,112	8.70	133.4

*Losses for year to 31 March 2006 reflect write downs of assets, principally in relation to the Mannesmann acquisition. Proportionate turnover includes £7,100 million from discontinued operations.

[edit]Criticisms

UK Uncut protestors outside a Vodafone shop in Liverpool.

In September 2010, an investigation by Private Eye magazine revealed certain details of Vodafone's tax avoidance activities. It was reported that Vodafone routed the acquisition of Mannesmann through a Luxembourg subsidiary, set up to avoid paying tax on the deal, and continued to place its profits in Luxembourg. Following a long legal struggle with HMRC (during which a senior HMRC official, John Connors, switched sides to become head of tax at Vodafone), it was eventually agreed that Vodafone would pay £1.25 billion related to the acquisition. Based on Vodafone's accounts, experts have estimated the potential tax bill written off as a result of the negotiations was over £6 billion.^[71]

The news of this legal tax avoidance sparked angry protests, beginning in October 2010 and ongoing as of April 2011, outside Vodafone shops across the UK, organised under the banner of UK Uncut. The first protests caused the simultaneous closure of over a dozen stores, including the flagship Oxford Street branch.^[71]

In 2011, Private Eye magazine and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism alleged that Vodafone's Swiss branches were run by a single part-time bookkeeper. The report claimed hardly any business was done from there, indicating that the main purpose of the Zug office was tax avoidance. The report claimed the money was borrowed from the Swiss branch of the Luxembourg company, allowing it to take advantage of Luxembourg’s laws, which exempts foreign branches of companies from tax, and Swiss laws, which almost completely exempt local branches of foreign companies. According to the expose, this would have otherwise generated a British tax bill on a little over £2 billion. It said Vodafone publishes a single, combined set of accounts for its Luxembourg subsidiaries and their Swiss branches. For the one company, profits worth £1.6 billion were taxed at less than one per cent in 2011, and the profits are likely to have been attributed to Switzerland. In its response to these allegations, Vodafone has said the Swiss branch has not been involved in Vodafone’s global financing for a number of years. It is, therefore, irrelevant in respect to global financing arrangements.^[72]

Vodafone was also assessed a US$2.5 billion tax over its acquisition of Hutchison Whampoa's Indian assets in 2007, a demand that it contests. In a recent event dated 20 January 2012, Indian highest court ruled that Vodafone is not liable for taxes and penalties of up to $4.4 billion (£2.8 billion).^[73]^[74]

Vodafone was implicated in the violent suppression of pro-democracy protests in Egypt's 2011 demonstrations. On 27 January, Vodafone, responsible for much of Egypt's telecommunication infrastructure, shut off all voice and data services for Egyptian citizens and businesses at the request of the Egyptian Government under Hosni Mubarak.^[75] The Daily Telegraph of the UK reported, "The Egyptian government’s action is unprecedented in the history of the internet."^[76] U.S.-based Internet intelligence firm Renesys stated, "in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet."^[77] Vodafone Group CEO Vittorio Colao said the company was obliged by law to comply with the instructions of the Egyptian government.^[78] In the company’s annual general meeting, on 26 June, the campaign groups Access and FairPensions asked Vodafone to endorse a plan to prevent facing similar demands in the future.^[79]^[80]

HISTORY OF OUR GREAT SIM CARDS

2012-08-20T12:36:00.000+05:30

AIRTEL:

Sunil Bharti Mittal founded the Bharti Group. In 1983, Mittal was in an agreement with Germany's Siemens to manufacture push-button telephone models for the Indian market. In 1986, Mittal incorporated Bharti Telecom Limited (BTL), and his company became the first in India to offer push-button telephones, establishing the basis of Bharti Enterprises. By the early 1990s, Sunil Mittal had also launched the country's first fax machines and its first cordless telephones. In 1992, Mittal won a bid to build a cellular phone network in Delhi. In 1995, Mittal incorporated the cellular operations as Bharti Tele-Ventures and launched service in Delhi. In 1996, cellular service was extended to Himachal Pradesh. In 1999, Bharti Enterprises acquired control of JT Holdings, and extended cellular operations to Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. In 2000, Bharti acquired control of Skycell Communications, in Chennai. In 2001, the company acquired control of Spice Cell in Calcutta. Bharti Enterprises went public in 2002, and the company was listed on Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India. In 2003, the cellular phone operations were rebranded under the single Airtel brand. In 2004, Bharti acquired control of Hexacom and entered Rajasthan. In 2005, Bharti extended its network to Andaman and Nicobar. This expansion allowed it to offer voice services all across India. In 2009, Airtel launched its first international mobile network in Sri Lanka. In 2010, Airtel acquired the African operations of the Kuwait based ZainTelecom.In March 2012,Airtel launched a mobile operation in Rwanda.

Today, Airtel is the largest cellular service provider in India and the third largest in the world.

[edit]Organisational Structure

The organisational structure that existed until recently concentrated on the hierarchy of the operations inside the company as a whole. The structure depicts the corresponding operation/region of different in-charges and it didn't hold anyone responsible for each of its services. So, the company found it better to restructure its organizational chart. The transformed organisational structure will have two distinct Customer Business Units (CBU) with clear focus on B2C (Business to Customer) and B2B (Business to Business) segments. Bharti Airtel's B2C business unit will comprehensively service the retail consumers, homes and small offices, by combining the erstwhile business units—Mobile, Telemedia, Digital TV, and other emerging businesses (like M-commerce, M-health, M-advertising etc.). The B2C organization will consist of Consumer Business and Market Operations. It is the largest telecommunication company in India.

[edit]Worldwide presence

Coverage map of Bharti Airtel across 20 countries

Airtel is the third largest mobile operator in the world in terms of subscriber base and has a commercial presence in 20 countries and the Channel Islands.

Its area of operations include:

The Indian Subcontinent:
- Airtel Bangla, in Bangladesh
- Airtel, in India
- Airtel Sri Lanka, in Sri Lanka
Airtel Africa, which operates in 17 African countries:
- Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The British Crown Dependency islands of Jersey and Guernsey, under the brand name Airtel-Vodafone, through an agreement with Vodafone.

Airtel operates in the following countries:

Country	Site	Remarks
Bangladesh	Airtel Bangladesh	Airtel Bangladesh had about 5.1 million customers at the end of June 2011.^[12]
Burkina Faso	Airtel Burkina Faso	Airtel Burkina Faso is the dominant player with 1,433,000 customers representing 50% market share.^[13]
Chad	Airtel Chad	Airtel Chad is the #1 operator with 69% market share.^[13]
Democratic Republic of the Congo	Airtel DRC	Airtel is the market leader with almost 5 million customers at the end of 2010.
Gabon	Airtel Gabon	Airtel Gabon has 829,000 customers and its market share stood at 61%.^[14]
Ghana	Airtel Ghana	Airtel Ghana had about 1.76 million customers at the end of 2010.^[15]
India	Airtel	Airtel is the market leader with almost 152.5 million customers at the end of 2010.^[15]
Kenya	Airtel Kenya	Airtel Kenya is the second largest operator and has 4 million customers.^[16]
Madagascar	Airtel Madagascar	Airtel holds second place in the mobile telecom market in Madagascar, has a 39% market share and over 1.4 million customers.^[13]
Malawi	Airtel Malawi	Airtel Malawi is the market leader with a market share of 72%.^[13]
Niger	Airtel Niger	Airtel Niger is the market leader with a 68% market share.^[13]
Nigeria	Airtel Nigeria
Republic of the Congo	Airtel Congo B	Airtel Congo is the market leader with a 55% market share.^[13]
Rwanda	Airtel Rwanda	Airtel launched services in Rwanda on 30 March 2012.^[17]
Seychelles	Airtel Seychelles	Airtel is the leading comprehensive telecommunications services providers with over 55% market share of mobile market in Seychelles.^[18]
Sierra Leone	Airtel Sierra Leone
Sri Lanka	Airtel Sri Lanka	Airtel Sri Lanka commenced operations on 12 January 2009. It had about 1.8 million mobile customers at the end of 2010.^[15]
Tanzania	Airtel Tanzania	Airtel Tanzania is the market leader with a 38% market share.^[13]
Uganda	Airtel Uganda	Airtel Uganda stands as the #2 operator with a market share of 38%.^[13]
Zambia	Airtel Zambia
Channel Islands : Jersey and Guernsey^†	Airtel Vodafone	Airtel operates in the Channel Islands under the brand name Airtel–Vodafone through an agreement with Vodafone.

†Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies. They are not independent countries. Therefore, Airtel's countries of operation is considered to be 20.

[edit]India

[edit]Mobile

Airtel has nationwide presence, and is the 6th most valued brand according to an annual survey conducted by Brand Finance and The Economic Times in 2010.^[19]^[20]

On 19 October 2004, Airtel announced the launch of a BlackBerry Wireless Solution in India. The launch is a result of a tie-up between Bharti Tele-Ventures Limited and Research In Motion (RIM).

The Apple iPhone 3G was rolled out in India in 2008 by Airtel and Vodafone. However, high prices and contract bonds discouraged consumers and it was not as successful as the iPhone is in other markets of the world. The Apple iPhone 4 was introduced on May 27, 2011 by Airtel and Aircel.

[edit]3G

On May 18, 2010, 3G spectrum auction was completed and Airtel will have to pay the Indian government 122.95 billion (US$2.23 billion) for spectrum in 13 circles, the most amount spent by an operator in this auction. Airtel won 3G licences in 13 telecom circles of India: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (east), Rajasthan, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, and Jammu & Kashmir.^[21] Airtel also operates 3G services in Maharastra, Goa, Kanpur and Kolkata through an agreement with Vodafone and in Gujaratthrough an agreement with Idea. This gives Airtel a 3G presence in 15 out of 22 circles in India.

On September 20, 2010, Bharti Airtel said that it has given contracts to Ericsson India, Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) and Huawei Technologies to set up infrastructure for providing 3G services in the country. These vendors will plan, design, deploy and maintain 3G–HSPA (third generation, high speed packet access) networks in 13 telecom circles where the company has won 3G licences. While Bharti Airtel has awarded network contracts for seven 3G circles to Ericsson India, NSN would manage networks in three circles. Chinese telecom equipment vendor HuaweiTechnologies has been introduced as the third partner for three circles.^[22]

On January 24, 2011, Airtel launched 3G services in Bangalore, Karnataka—its largest circle by revenue. With this launch, Airtel became the third private operator (fifth overall) to launch its 3G services in the country following Reliance Communications and Tata Docomo.^[23] On January 27, 2011, Airtel launched 3G in Chennai and Coimbatore.

On July 27, 2011 Airtel launched 3G in three major cities in Kerala (Trivandrum, Cochin and Calicut).^[24]

Airtel plans to cover 1,500 cities across 13 circles by the end of March 2012. The company, which has 3G licences for 13 circles, is also in talks with other service providers to roll out the services in the remaining 10 circles as part of its roaming offerings.^[25]

Airtel had about 3 million 3G subscribers as of May 2011.^[26]

[edit]4G

On 19 May 2010, the broadband wireless access (BWA) or 4G spectrum auction in India ended. Airtel paid 33.1436 billion for spectrum in 4 circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab andKolkata.^[27] 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 in Kolkata, Huawei in Karnataka, Ericsson in Punjab and Nokia Siemens Networks in Maharashtra.^[28]

On 10 April 2012, Airtel launched 4G services using TD-LTE technology in Kolkata, becoming the first company in India to offer 4G services. Airtel launched 4G in Bangalore on 7 May 2012.^[29] It will launch services next in Pune and Chandigarh.^[30]

On 24 May 2012, Airtel announced an agreement to acquire a 49% stake in Qualcomm Asia Pacific (India). Qualcomm holds 4G spectrum and licenses in Delhi, Haryana, Kerala and Mumbai. As per the agreement, by the end of 2014, Airtel will assume full ownership and financial responsibility for 4G operations in these 4 circles.^[31]

[edit]Airtel Money

Airtel has started a new mCommerce platform called Airtel Money with collaboration with Infosys. It is launched on April 5, 2012, in Infosys Campus of bangalore. with the help of Airtelmoney,users can transfer money,pay bills and other financial transactions using mobile phone. ^[32]

[edit]VAS Fraud

There has been lot of criticism about Airtel for its unauthorised VAS activation. Many of its services were activated automatically according to a complaint forum. Several thousands of users were falsely billed, for example downloading wallpaper or ringtones. In return Airtel launched STOP/START 121 services for such issues.^[33]^[34] Alternatively, you can sign up on the "Do Not Disturb" list to avoid all telemarketing calls and SMSes.^[35]

[edit]Controversy

Bharti Airtel (India), along with Loop Mobile, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications and Vodafone, was issued notices by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) for violation of Mobile number portability (MNP) regulations. According to TRAI, they had received complaints from customers regarding unwarranted rejection of porting requests by telecom operators and 10 had been charged for a message requesting porting code through number 1900.^[36]

[edit]Telemedia

The Telemedia business provides services in 89 Indian cities and consists of two brands.

Airtel Broadband provides broadband and IPTV services. Airtel provides both capped as well as unlimited download plans (extremely reduced speeds at unlimited data are implied (256kbit/s beyond FUP which is lesser than the TRAI specified limit of half of your original speed)).^[37]^[38] The maximum speed available for home users is 16Mbit/s.

Airtel Broadband had about 1.36 million subscribers at the end of April 2012.^[39] Airtel has about 3.16 million wireline customers, of which 42.6% are broadband internet subscribers as of August 2010. Until 18 September 2004, Bharti provided Fixedline telephony and broadband services under the Touchtel brand. Bharti now provides all telecom services including fixedline services under a common brand "Airtel".

In May 2012, Airtel Broadband and some other ISPs temporarily blocked file sharing websites such as vimeo.com megavideo.com, thepiratebay.se etc. with out giving any legal information to the customers. The block was due to a Madras High Court issued ‘John Doe’ order taken by Chennai-based Copyright Lab.^[40] In response to a petition filed by Vinay B, a resident of Shimoga,Karnataka, the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum ordered Airtel to pay 20,000 to the petitioner for "deficiency in internet service" thereby causing mental agony to the complainant. “By misinterpreting the Madras High Court order, Airtel blocked entire websites. It is needless to say that the company’s actions amount to deficiency in service as well as unfair trade practice,” said the forum.^[41]^[42]

Airtel Broadband Blocking TPB

[edit]Digital Television

Main article: Airtel digital TV

The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services across India under the brand name Airtel digital TV. It started services on 9 October 2008 and has about 32.44 million customers as of August 2010.^[43]

[edit]Enterprise

The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to telcos through its nationwide fiber optic backbone, last mile connectivity in fixed-line and mobile circles, VSATs, ISP and international bandwidth access through the gateways and landing stations. It has two sections under it.

[edit]Mobile data service

The different services under mobile data are BlackBerry services,a web-enabled mobile email solution working on 'Push Technology', USB modem that helps in getting instant access to Internet and corporate applications,Airtel Data Card that gives the liberty to access the internet anytime, Easy Mail is a platform that provides access to personal/corporate e-mails independent of handset operating system and application services that shorten the queues at the billing section, off-load the pressure on the billing staff and bring convenience to the user.

[edit]Enterprise business solutions

There are two kind of solutions offered by Airtel. One is GPRS Based Solutions like mobile applications tools for enterprise, TrackMate, automatic meter reading solutions etc. and the other is SMS Based Solutions like interactive sms, bulk sms, inbound call center solutions.

[edit]Android-based tablet

Beetel Teletech Ltd., a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd., on 18 August launched a 9,999 ($220) 7-inch tablet in India based on Google Inc.'s Android operating system. The offering is intended to capitalize on the expected demand for cheap computing devices in the world's fastest-growing and second-largest mobile phone market.^[44]

[edit]Rest of the World

[edit]Africa

Main article: Airtel Africa

[edit]Bangladesh

Main article: Airtel Bangla

[edit]Sri Lanka

Main article: Bharti Airtel Lanka

[edit]Channel Islands: Jersey and Guernsey

Main article: Airtel-Vodafone

On 1 May 2007, Jersey Airtel and Guernsey Airtel, both wholly owned subsidiaries of the Bharti Group, announced they would launch mobile services in the British Crown Dependency islands ofJersey and Guernsey^[45]^[46] under the brand name Airtel-Vodafone after signing an agreement with Vodafone. Airtel-Vodafone operates a 3G network in Jersey and Guernsey.

Jersey and Guernsey are British Crown Dependencies. They are not independent countries. Therefore, Airtel's countries of operation is considered to be 19.

[edit]Subscriber Base

Bharti Airtel has about 243.336 million subscribers worldwide—232.95 million in India and South Asia and 50.949 million in Africa as of the end of December 2011. The numbers include mobile services subscribers in 19 countries and Indian Telemedia services and Digital services subscribers.^[4]

[edit]India

The Airtel subscriber base according to Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) as of April 2012 was:

Metros

Delhi – 8,818,153
Mumbai – 3,738,188
Kolkata – 3,882,463
Chennai – 3,388,379

"A" Circle

Andhra Pradesh – 18,539,788
Gujarat – 7,062,371
Karnataka – 15,468,507
Maharashtra – 9,968,936
Tamil Nadu – 10,094,293

"B" Circle

Haryana – 2,472,639
Kerala – 3,574,844
Madhya Pradesh – 9,728,966
Punjab – 6,973,022
Rajasthan – 14,546,216
Uttar Pradesh (East) – 14,886,051
Uttar Pradesh (West) – 6,666,880
West Bengal – 9,202,693

"C" Circle

Assam – 3,759,878
Bihar – 17,732,686
Himachal Pradesh – 1,861,569
Jammu and Kashmir – 2,112,537
North Eastern States – 2,351,038
Orissa – 6,460,022

Airtel is the market leader in India with about 181 million subscribers in India or about 27.22% market share at the end of March 2012.
The Brand Trust Report ^[47] published by Trust Research Advisory, places Airtel as the only mobile operator in the top 10 most trusted brands in India.

[edit]Acquisitions and Mergers

[edit]MTN

In May 2008, it emerged that Bharti Airtel was exploring the possibility of buying the MTN Group, a South Africa-based telecommunications company with coverage in 21 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The Financial Times reported that Bharti was considering offering US$45 billion for a 100% stake in MTN, which would be the largest overseas acquisition ever by an Indian firm. However, both sides emphasize the tentative nature of the talks, while The Economist magazine noted, "If anything, Bharti would be marrying up," as MTN has more subscribers, higher revenues and broader geographic coverage.^[48] However, the talks fell apart as MTN group tried to reverse the negotiations by making Bharti almost a subsidiary of the new company.^[49]

In May 2009, Bharti Airtel again confirmed that it is in Talks with MTN and companies have now agreed discuss the potential transaction exclusively by 31 July 2009.^[50] Bharti Airtel said in a statement "Bharti Airtel Ltd is pleased to announce that it has renewed its effort for a significant partnership with MTN Group".^[51]

Talks eventually ended without agreement, due to the South African government opposition.^[52]

[edit]Zain

In March 2010, Bharti struck a deal to buy the Kuwaiti firm's mobile operations in 15 African countries, in India's second biggest overseas acquisition after Tata Steel's $13 billion buy of Corus in 2007. Bharti Airtel completed its $9 billion acquisition of African operations from Kuwait's Zain, making the firm the world's No. 5 wireless carrier by subscribers.Airtel has reported that its revenues for the fourth quarter of 2010 grew by 53% to US$3.2 billion compared to the previous year, newly acquired Zain Africa division contributed US$911 million to the total.However, net profits dropped by 41% from US$470 million last year to US$291 million this year due to a US$188 million increase in radio spectrum charges in India and an increase of US$106 million in debt interest.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Telecom Seychelles

On August 11, 2010, Bharti Airtel announced that it would acquire 100% stake in Telecom Seychelles for US$62 million taking its global presence to 19 countries. Telecom Seychelles began operations in 1998 and operates 3G, Fixed Line, ship to shore services satellite telephony, among value added services like VSAT and Gateways for International Traffic across the Seychelles under the Airtel brand. The company has over 57% share of the mobile market of Seychelles.^[53] Airtel announced plans to invest US$10 million in its fixed and mobile telecoms network in the Seychelles over three years, whilst also participating in the Seychelles East Africa submarine cable (SEAS) project. The US$34 million SEAS project is aimed at improving the Seychelles’ global connectivity by building a 2,000 km undersea high speed link to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania.^[54]

[edit]Joint Ventures

[edit]Airtel-Ericsson

As per a five-year managed services agreement signed recently^[when?], Ericsson will manage and optimize Airtel’s mobile networks in Africa. Ericsson will modernize and upgrade Airtel’s mobile networks in Africa with the latest technology including its multi standard RBS 6000 base station. As part of the modernization, Ericsson will also provide technology consulting, network planning & design and network deployment.Ericsson has been the managed services and network technology partner in the Asian operations.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Rebranding

On 18 November 2010, Airtel rebranded itself in India in the first phase of a global rebranding strategy. The company unveiled a new logo with 'airtel' written in lower case. Designed by London-based brand agency, The Brand Union, the new logo is the letter 'a' in lowercase, with 'airtel' written in lowercase under the logo.^[55]

On 23 November 2010, Airtel's Africa operations were rebranded to 'airtel'. Sri Lanka followed on 28 November 2010 and on 20 December 2010, Warid Telecom rebranded to 'airtel' in Bangladesh.

[edit]One Network

One Network is a borderless mobile phone network across all Airtel operating countries which enables customers to move freely between the countries in which Airtel operates, and be treated as “virtual” local customers of the visited network in terms of pricing, while retaining their home network service functionality.

One Network allows customers travelling to One Network countries to make outgoing calls/SMS at the same rates as local customers and recharge with local top-up cards or with home network top up cards while using the same number and SIM. Incoming calls however are charged at between $0.03 - 0.15 depending on the country the call is received from.

Airtel offers the service currently to its Africa customers travelling to any of the following 27 countries.In eight of these countries, the One Network is operated in partnership with other mobile operators. They are also listed below.

S. No.	Country	Network
1	Burkina Faso	Airtel
2	Bangladesh	Airtel
3	Chad	Airtel
4	Channels Islands: Jersey and Guernsey	Airtel
5	Democratic Republic of the Congo	Airtel
6	Gabon	Airtel
7	Ghana	Airtel
8	India	Airtel
9	Kenya	Airtel
10	Madagascar	Airtel
11	Malawi	Airtel
12	Niger	Airtel
13	Nigeria	Airtel
14	Republic of the Congo	Airtel
15	Sierra Leone	Airtel
16	Seychelles	Airtel
17	Sri Lanka	Airtel
18	Tanzania	Airtel
19	Uganda	Airtel
20	Bahrain	Zain
21	Iraq	Zain
22	Jordan	Zain
23	Kuwait	Zain
24	Saudi Arabia	Zain
25	Sudan	Zain
26	South Africa	Cell C
27	Egypt	Mobinil

It will be extended to Airtel's operations in Asia as well as in Seychelles soon.

[edit]Sponsorship

On 9 May 2009 Airtel signed a major deal with Manchester United. As a result of the deal, Airtel gets the rights to broadcast the matches played by the team to its customers.

Bharti Airtel signed a five-year deal with ESPN Star Sports to become the title sponsor of the Champions League Twenty20 cricket tournament. But now the deal is terminated and Nokia is sponsoring Champions League Twenty20 cricket."^[56]

Airtel, also signed a deal to be title sponsor the inaugural Formula One Indian Grand Prix during the 2011 season.^[57]

[edit]Signature tune

The signature tune of Airtel is composed by Indian musician A. R. Rahman. The tune became hugely popular and is the world's most downloaded mobile music with over 150 million downloads.^[58]A new version of the song was released on 18 November 2010, as part of the rebranding of the company.^[58]^[59] This version too was composed by Rahman himself.^[59]

[edit]Green initiative

This section does not cite anyreferences or sources.(October 2011)

[edit]GreenTowers P7 program

As of today,Bharti Infratel is the only telecom tower company, which has installed almost 3 MWT of solar capacity on their network, generating more than 5 mn units of electricity every year.The Green Towers P7 program is scoped for 22,000 tower sites (primarily rural areas having low or no Grid Power availability) out of which 5,500 sites have already been implemented in the first year as a part of this 3-year program. Once completed, the initiative will reduce diesel consumption by 66 mn litres per year with a significant carbon dioxide reduction of around 1.5 lac MT per year. Bharti Infratel bagged the 2011 'Green Mobile Award ' at the GSMA Mobile World Congress at Barcelona and was also awarded the 2010 innovative infrastructure company of the year award at the CNBC Infrastructure Awards for this groundbreaking initiative.Bharti remains the first company in the world to introduce the practice of sharing of passive infrastructure by collaborating with their competition to share mobile towers and to reduce the collective carbon footprint of the industry. This has become a subject of case studies in institutions including the Harvard Business School.^{[citation needed]}

[edit]Energy conservation

The company has installed solar hot water generator at its main campus in Gurgaon for fulfilling the hot water requirement in the cafeteria. Majority of its facilities across NCR region are now equipped with LES (Lighting Energy Savers) which have reduced energy consumption in the lighting system to the tune of 10–25%. Variable Frequency Drives installed in AHU (Air Handling Unit) at its campus have helped in enhancing the efficiency of cooling system by 10%. These measures have resulted in a total saving of 8.5 lakh units of electricity per year. Airtel has embarked upon technology related initiatives like virtualization of servers that has helped it release over 500 CPUs. Also the drive of sending e-bills to the post-paid customers is helping save 12,840 trees annually. Within its campus the ‘Secure Print Solution' – an automated queue management based secured printing solution has led to an annualized saving of about 8 metric tonnes of paper.

Alternate energy sources such as solar energy

They have already deployed these at as many as 1050 sites thus saving 6.9 mn litres of diesel and approximately 280 million.

Energy efficiency measures such as Integrated Power Management Systems and variable speed DC generators

It has resulted in the reduction in the rate of diesel consumption by 1.2 mn litres. They have already saved 47 million across nearly 900 sites.

Demand side management like Free Cooling Units (FCU) instead of air conditioners

It has already been implemented across 3400+ sites, saving consumption of 4.1 mn litres of diesel.

[edit]Timeline

Logo used by Airtel till 2010 November

The chronology of events since Bharti Tele-Ventures was incorporated in 1995:^[60]

1995

Bharti Cellular launched cellular services as "AirTel" in Delhi.

2010

On 18 May 2010, Airtel won 3G spectrum in 13 circles: Delhi, Mumbai, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh (West), Rajasthan,West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, North East, Jammu & Kashmir for Rs. 12,295 crores.^[21]
Bharti Airtel wins broadband spectrum in four circles: Maharashtra, Karnataka, Punjab and Kolkata for Rs. 3314.36 crores.^[27]
On 18 November 2010, Bharti Airtel announced a re-branding campaign wherein, they would be referred as airtel, with a new logo.
On 20 December 2010, Airtel launched its new identity for Bangladesh subscribers.^[61]
On 23 December 2010, Airtel opened its first underground terrestrial fibre optic cable built in alliance with China Telecom.^[62]

2011

On 24 January 2011, Airtel announced the launch of its 3G services in India.^[63]
On 31 January 2011, Airtel launched wallet service - Airtel Money in the millennium city of Gurgaon.^[64]
On 18 February 2011, Airtel Digital TV brings cricket world cup in High Definition.^[65]
On 14 March 2011, Bharti Airtel announced the launch of ‘Airtel Broadband TV’.^[66]
On 11 April 2011, Bharti Airtel and Apple bring the iPhone 4 to India.^[67]
On 18 April 2011, Bharti Airtel enters into a partnership with photo service Zoomin.com.^[68]
On 17 May 2011, Airtel launches the world’s first USSD-based Facebook access service in India – Facebook by Fonetwish.^[69]
On 2 June 2011, Bharti Airtel offers on-demand online movie viewing services - launches ‘Airtel Movies’^[70]
On 16 June 2011, Airtel digital TV launches iKisaan – the world’s first interactive service in Hindi.^[71]
On 27 June 2011, Airtel 3G launches international video calling services.^[72]
On 7 July 2011, Bharti Airtel announces new organisation structure for its India and South Asia operations.^[73]
On 18 July 2011, Airtel digital TV adds 41 new channels.^[74]
On 25 July 2011, Bharti Airtel Launches Facebook For Every Phone.^[75]
On 16 August 2011, Wide availability of Airtel Service Centers in Rajasthan creates easy touch points for customer service.^[76]
On 19 September 2011, Bharti Airtel announces GO! GO! GOAL Contest 2011.^[77]
On 22 September 2011, Airtel digital TV brings the TV series “Johnny Test” to India.^[78]
On 26 September 2011, Airtel Youth Star kicks off ‘Friends Dance Carnival’ in Andhra Pradesh.^[79]
On 28 October 2011, 2011 Formula 1 Airtel Grand Prix of India Winner's Trophy Revealed.^[80]
On 1 November 2011, Airtel digital TV now has 11 True HD channels,Expands total channel count to 262.^[81]
On 11 November 2011, Bharti Airtel named amongst the top 25 companies for leaders globally.^[82]
On 25 November 2011, Mr. Sharlin Thayil, CEO – Bharti Airtel, AP launches iPhone 4S in Hyderabad.
On 1 December 2011, Airtel introduces India’s first free mobile access to Twitter.^[83]
On 12 December 2011, Bharti Airtel recognized for the delivery of best network services with customer focus at Telecom Centre of Excellence Awards.^[84]
On 21 December 2011, Airtel launches exciting recharge offers for mobile customers in Rajasthan.^[85]

2012

On 11 January 2012, Airtel launched Comedy FM on Airtel Mobile.^[86]
On 12 January 2012, Airtel launches all new “BBM Plan” for its postpaid mobile customers on BlackBerry.^[87]
On 23 January 2012, Airtel prepaid mobile recharge made easier with netbanking at www.airtel.in^[88]
On 30 January 2012, Airtel digital TV launches iKidsworld.^[89]
On 2 February 2012, Airtel launched Vh1 Radio GAGA powered by Hungama on Airtel Mobile.^[90]
On 3 February 2012, India’s largest collection of Hello Tunes is now available online for Airtel mobile customers.^[91]
On 4 February 2012, Bharti Airtel announces consolidated IFRS results for the third quarter and nine months ended December 31, 2011.^[92]
On 10 February 2012, Bharti Airtel launched 3 Pack Education Portal for its mobile customers across India.^[93]
On 27 February 2012, Bharti Airtel selects Infosys as its technology partner for airtel money.^[94]
On 29 February 2012, Bharti Airtel appoints Nokia Siemens Networks to supply, manage 4G network in Maharashtra.^[95]
On 27 May 2012, Bharti Airtel announced its strategic foray into the mobile advertising (m-Advertising) segment, in India.^[96]
In 2012, Bharti Airtel signed a pact with Opera Software, to provide its customers with Opera Mini browsers.^[97]

ATTAKATHI MP3 S

2012-08-19T10:24:00.001+05:30

http://www.starmusiq.com/tamil_movie_songs_free_download.asp?MovieId=657

NAAN MP3 S

2012-08-19T10:04:00.000+05:30

http://www.starmusiq.com/tamil_movie_songs_free_download.asp?MovieId=447

BITS AND BYTES

2012-08-18T16:40:00.001+05:30

Memory Sizes Explained – Gigabytes, Terabytes & Petabytes in Layman’s Terms

It’s easy to see that 500 gigabytes is more than 100 gigabytes. It’s also easy to see that 1 terabyte is larger than 1 gigabyte and that is larger than 1 megabyte. But these are all abstract terms and names. We can visualize 1 inch or 1 meter or 1 mile, but how can we visualize 1 gigabyte? 1 terabyte? 1 petabyte?
Our technology has progressed very far in the last decade or so, and with so much memory space available, it’s hard to really appreciate how much data capacity we have. Keep reading to find out just how big a gigabyte, a terabyte, and a petabyte are.

The Gigabyte = 1,024 Megabytes

We start with the lowly “byte”. In simplest terms, 1 byte is the amount of data needed to store 1 character (letter). If the average word is 6 characters long, then the average word is 6 bytes. For a 500-word essay, that’s 3,000 bytes.
You need 1,024 bytes to have 1 kilobyte (KB). You may recognize the “kilo” prefix from similar terms like “kilometer” and “kilogram”, both of which mean “a thousand meters” and “a thousand grams” respectively. But because of the way computers are designed, the number 1,024 is used in place of 1,000.
So a 500-word essay is 3,000 bytes, or 2.92 KB. A 200,000-word novel, then, would require 1,172 KB, or 1.14 megabytes (MB). The complete works of Shakespeare would take up approximately 5 MB of space in plain text format. 5 MB is also the average amount of space required for a 5-minute MP3 file.

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A gigabyte (GB) is 1,024 MB. That’s equivalent to 10 yards of books standing side by side. That’s 200 MP3 songs running at 5 minutes each. That’s a little bigger than the size of a feature film at standard definition. But most of us are already familiar with the term “gigabyte”. So what comes next?

The Terabyte = 1,024 Gigabytes

For a long time, hard drives were measured in GB. My 6-year-old laptop has an 80GB hard drive. My current desktop computer has a 300GB hard drive. But in the past few years, hardware developers have come out with 1- and 2-terabyte (TB) hard drives. How big of an improvement is this?
Well, 1 TB = 1,024 GB = 1,048,576 MB = 1,073,741,824 KB = 1,099,511,627,776 bytes. In other words, a 1 TB hard drive has the capacity to hold a trillion bytes. That’s a far step up from floppy disks that only held thousands of bytes.
Do you remember CD-ROMs? Way back before mp3 players and iPods and smartphones, music used to be sold and purchased on plastic laser-etched circles that would spin. These discs were large enough to hold 700 MB. How does that compare to the 1 TB hard drives of today?
You would need approximately 1,500 CD-ROMs to match the capacity of a 1 TB hard drive. Now, let’s say that the dimensions of a CD case are 142 mm x 125 mm x 8 mm (yes, I measured). If you stacked 1,500 CD cases on top of one another – and kept it from toppling over – it would reach a height of 12 meters, or 39 feet. You can enjoy all of that memory space within a compact metallic storage device now. Impressive.

The Petabyte = 1,024 Terabytes

And finally, we arrive at the newest data size that is slowly but surely becoming a norm in regular conversation – the petabyte (PB). The human brain reportedly has the ability to store about 2.5 petabytes of memories. The Large Hadron Collider generates around 15 petabytes of data every year. AT&T transfers approximately 20 petabytes of data through its network every day.
When we talk about data capacities in this range, it becomes hard to visualize just how grand of a scale we’re talking about. If 1 TB is a trillion bytes, then 1 PB is a quadrillion bytes. In scientific notation, that’s 10¹⁵! Even as I write this, I’m having a hard time comprehending just how big that is.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is home to approximately 2 hundred billion stars. If each individual star was a single byte, then we would need 5,000 Milky Way Galaxies to reach 1 PB of data.
Or how about television? If we were to count using standard definition TV episodes, then 1 PB would amount to around 10,000 hours of TV programming. If you watched all of those episodes without ever stopping – not even to eat, drink, or sleep – it would take you 2 non-stop years to watch it all.
This is the kind of capacity we have for data storage today. Quadrillions of bytes passing through our network cables right under our noses every second. Only 10 years ago, a single CD would hold maybe 20 MP3 songs; today, we can load up our HDDs and SSDs with thousands and thousands of songs easily.
Technology has advanced in great ways and data storage is no exception. I hope this article has given you a glimpse of just how far we’ve come.

SAVE UR SYSTEM

2012-08-18T16:12:00.001+05:30

8 Ways To Make Sure A Link Is Safe Before You Click It

In the anonymity of the web, lie all the dangers. Hyperlinks as we all know are the strands that make up the web. But just like the spiders, the digital web can trap the unsuspecting. Even the more knowledgeable among us click on links which are potentially harmful. You really cannot control you clicking, because that’s how the whole business of browsing happens.

What you can control is making sure that the link or webpage you are clicking through to is as safe as a mother’s lap, and not a malware infested demon lying in wait.
My friend Aaron recently told you how to browse safely with your own Internet bodyguard called WOT. I would say it is a must install browser extension. But what are the other secure browsing tools out there? Do click these links that take you to eight ways to ensure that a link is safe.

Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic

The Google Safe Browsing Diagnostic tool was released quite a few years back. The advisory tool from Google gives you a detailed report on domains and web links. You can trust Google for its comprehensiveness because its Safe Browsing API is a part of the search engine infrastructure. To use the tool, you have to append the site’s URL at the end of the http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=. The report gives you four points of information. Do note that all information available with Google only goes back historically over the last ninety days.

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URL Void

URLVoid is a web reputation scanner that analyzes a website address with multiple reputation engines (around 30) and domains blacklists, such as Google SafeBrowsing, Norton SafeWeb and MyWOT to detect any potentially dangerous website. You have to manually insert a link and scan the domain in question. URLVoid lists the positive or negative detection status against the engines used. You can check the threat log for more details as supplied by each engine.

UnMask Parasites

Unmask Parasites as the name suggests is a simple security tool that scans a site and lets you know if it is carrying spam links, malicious scripts, or redirects. Very often, websites are hijacked and malicious code inserted even without the knowledge of the webmaster. Unmask Parasites downloads the link (webpage) you give it, analyzes its HTML code, especially external links, iframes, and JavaScript’s. Webmasters can do this manually too by looking into their own code, but that’s laborious. UnMask Parasites one-click audit is a speedier check.

PhishTank

For an experienced web surfer, phishing is relatively easy to detect with a glance at the URL. Banks and other sensitive sites also usually implement anti-phishing measures. But even then it pays to be careful. One of the ways is to use the index of blacklisted phishing sites maintained at PhishTank. You can also submit your own suspects to the list. Do remember that PhishTank is not a security tool as such, but more of an informational aid. Founded by OpenDNS, PhishTank is a free service.
Also read:

Dr.Web Anti-Virus Link Checker

Dr. Web Anti-Virus Link Checker is a browser add-on for both Chrome and Firefox, and also Opera and IE. It uses the Dr.Web online anti-virus engine to scan a download link for malicious content. It also automatically scans downloaded content and performs an automatic scan on all Facebook, Vk.com, Google+ Social Network links. It works from the right-click context menu of the browser on any link. The scan report tells you if the link if clean or compromised. The service has been there since 2003, and as it is still going strong with constant updates, it says something about its trustworthiness.
I did a review of the Firefox add-on back in 2009 – Dr.Web LinkChecker – Scan Files Before Download (Firefox)

UnShorten.it

Short URLs are all over the web these days. There is just one problem – you don’t really know what’s hiding behind that almost undecipherable short URL. You can use a short URL expander, but how do you know that the long-form of the URL itself is safe. UnShorten.it combines both functions as it expands the short URL and also sends it through the scanners of WOT (Web of Trust) to give you the trustworthiness scorecard. Paste your short URL and the service returns the direct URL of the destination website, its description, and its WOT ratings along with a thumbnail preview of the target website. Unshorten.it also gives you browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

VirusTotal

VirusTotal give you two tools – an upload tool with which you can scan suspicious files, and a link scanner for verifying a site before you click through to it. VirusTotal also uses a series of anti-virus engines, website scanners, file and URL analysis tools that analyze the link and give you a detailed report – for instance, some engines will display additional information explicitly stating whether a given URL belongs to a particular botnet. These tools are updated every 15 minutes.

Comodo Site Inspector

Some people have objections against the Comodo firewall for its seeming complexity. No such complaints exist for the Comodo Site Inspector…it is as simple as they come. The online scanner is a free malware and vulnerability detector which you can use to check out a single URL or webmasters can use to set up recurring, daily checks on any 3 pages of a domain. The check takes a little amount of time because apparently Comodo downloads all specified pages and runs them in a sandboxed browser environment.
These eight URL scanners represent a small but important number of link checkers which can form another barrier of safety. I have avoided browser toolbars because quite a few of our readers have been allergic to them, and personally I am too. We have a whole archive of posts on security tips when it comes to safer browsing. Here are samples of a few:

Which is your preferred URL scanner? Do you really on common sense, a browser based tool, or your own anti-virus for protection from unsafe links?

WORLD'S BIGGEST DATA CENTRES

2012-08-18T15:40:00.001+05:30

Inside 5 Of The World’s Biggest Data Centers [Stats & Pics]

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Have you ever wondered just how big the Internet is? After all, more and more of our world’s information flow is traveling through computers and various networks. As such, the “data center” has become one of the most important aspects of our computer culture’s existence. Without it, we’d be plunged once again into a world of faces and physical contact.
Think of a data center as a gigantic PC café. Except all of the PCs are state-of-the-art server boxes. And there are no keyboards, mice, or monitors (save for the control room). Instead of relaxation and recreation, there are network administrators working their butts off to keep everything running. Also, did I mention that a data center could be the size of many football fields combined? Yeah, massive.
There are hundreds, even thousands, of data centers all over the world. But which ones are the biggest? After all, the bigger the data center, the more data can be processed and stored. Size does matter, so get out your rulers and follow me as we take a look at the world’s 5 largest data centers.

#5. NAP of the Americas in Miami, USA

The NAP of the Americas is Terremark’s flagship facility and it was specifically designed to link Latin America to the rest of the world in terms of networking. It doesn’t hurt that it’s located in Miami either since Miami has been consistently ranked as one of the top five cities in the world with regard to interconnectedness. The significance of the NAP of the Americas as a telecommunications project isn’t to be underrated.

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Completed in 2001, this data center measures in at 750,000 square feet. Due to its location, it is fortified and built–with 7-inch steel-concrete panels no less–to withstand the forces of a Category 5 hurricane.

#4: Tulip Data City in Bangalore, India

In February 2012, Tulip Telecom officially opened a new data center in India. The focus for this project was efficiency. Today, it is the greenest and most power efficient data center in all of India. Technologically, the Tulip Data City primarily functions as a center for cloud services, but is also used for colocation, managed hosting, and data storage.
Tulip Data City measures in at an impressive 900,000 square feet, qualifying it as the largest data center in all of Asia. Security around the data center is tight as well, defended by a 10-feet stone wall with an additional 4-feet electric fence. Visitors are required to pass through metal detectors and explosives sniffers and they must be accompanied by security at all times.

#3. QTS Metro Data Center in Atlanta, USA

Built in 2006, the QTS Metro Data Center measures in at 970,000 square feet, barely keeping it ahead over the newly built Tulip Data City. The building is powered by an on-site Georgia substation that has 80 megawatts of power capacity. With a data center this large, there’s little choice for any other option.

#2. Lakeside Technology Center in Chicago, USA

Owned by Digital Realty Trust and built in 1999, the Lakeside Technology Center was and remains one of the largest telecommunications hubs in the world, measuring in at a hefty 1,100,000 square feet. An interesting distinguishing point for this data center is that it uses an 8.5 million gallon tank of liquid to facilitate cooling.

#1. SwitchNAP in Las Vegas, USA

The SwitchNAP, owned by Switch Communications, is actually a group of seven NAPs in the Las Vegas Valley. The largest of these is NAP7, also known as the SuperNAP. More NAPs are being designed. Located in the Nevada desert, SwitchNAP is extremely secure in that the area has no risk of natural disaster–including tornados, earthquakes, or tsunamis.
This network of NAPs measures in at 2,200,000 square feet, approximately twice the size of the second largest data center. Switch’s data centers are all built to a high standard and utilize the Switch Wattage Density Modular Design (WDMD), which allows complete control over the heat produced by the data center’s equipment.
What do you think? Are these data centers impressive or what? Personally, it’s hard for me to even fathom the size and magnitude of these buildings. How many servers are in there, lined up from wall to wall? I’ll never know! Share your thoughts in the comments.

2012-08-18T13:09:00.000+05:30

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2011-12-03T21:51:00.001+05:30

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Transformers - 3 (2011) Dubbed Movie - Torrent

2011-11-15T13:34:00.001+05:30

Transformers - 3 (2011)

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Dhanush's 3 - 2011 Mp3

2011-11-15T13:30:00.001+05:30

Dhanush's - "3" (2011)

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Directed by Aishwarya Dhanush
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Music by Anirudh
Cinematography Velraj
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Release date(s) 14 January 2012
Country India
Language Tamil

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