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JT Mobiles to become Airtel Services

Our Bureau

BANGALORE, May 8

JT Mobiles Service, which was taken over by Bharti Cellular in December last, will soon be rechristened as Airtel Services in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

A formal announcement is expected to be made in a few days by the company. Airtel is the brand the company's service is known by in Delhi and Himachal Pradesh.

Disclosing this here, Mr. Rajan Bharti Mittal, Joint Managing Director of Bharti Enterprises, said this is one of the steps to assure its commitment to provide quality service to the subscribers in AP and Karnataka.

The launch of a full-fledged pre-paid card service in the two States was also a part of the new marketing strategy of Bharti Cellular, Mr. Mittal said. A new pre-paid platform with a capacity of 50,000 has been planned for the State. The erstwhile JT Mob iles concentrated mostly on monthly credit subscription.

The company has already set in motion steps to improve the sagging service quality in Karnataka by adding 33 cell sites and fine-tuning both the switching systems and the frequency requirements to remove all discrepancies in the service.

Admitting that there had been drop in the quality of

service, Mr. Mittal said now it has become better and the company has spent about Rs. 400 crores in strengthening the infrastructure. The company will also be laying a 4,000 km optical fibre cable link between Andhra and Karnataka and add 152 more cell-s ites in both the States to provide clear services. About 3,000 km of cable laying should be over by March next, he said.

Airtel will also be introducing value-added services like WAP (Wireless Appliances Protocol), Internet and e-mail to its subscribers. The service, to be introduced in Delhi next month, is hoped to be extended to Karnataka soon.