Aircel launches GSM service in Punjab

The company had roped in Bollywood actress Lara Dutta to launch its services.

Aircel has decided to invest a whooping amount of 650 crore in Punjab, apart from Rs 350 crore invested earlier, by the end of 2011, in order to expand its GSM mobile services in the state.

Aircel Chief Operating Officer, Gurdeep Singh said, “We have already invested Rs 350 crore in Punjab and by the end of 2011, the total investment in the state would be to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore by the end of 2011.”

Facts about the GSM launch
Aircel launched its services in 20 districts, 159 towns and 12,000 villages in Punjab.

The company will extend its services in Gujarat this month and will head towards Rajasthan next month.

To add a fact, the telecom density in Punjab is nearly 70 percent, highest in India.

By extending its services in Punjab, Aircel now has a total of 21 telecom circles including Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Haryana, Assam, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir.

The company is also planning to launch 3G services by the end of December this year.

“We are expecting whopping response from Punjab. With mobile penetration of 70 per cent and Internet penetration of 11 per cent in Punjab, there are a lot of segment-based needs that an operator can fulfill. We also target to launch 3G mobile services by December 2010,” said Gurdeep.

“We have plans to roll out 3G services in Punjab by the end of this year. Besides, we have plans to increase our retail presence. Also, the total number of cell sites would touch 3,600 from 2,000 at present,” he further added.

Currently, Airtel is the ruler of the telecom market in Punjab, and is facing tough competition from Vodafone and Idea-Spice.