Slow but steady, Airtel is finally catching on the heels of Tata Docomo to launch their 3g services in Bangalore next week coinciding with the festive season. This blog already had a post on the tariff structure for Docomo post paid 3G services. Compared to those costs, expect Airtel to be a tad bit higher with their offering.
Ushering in both MNP and 3G at the same time, Airtel is bound to attract a lot of new customers even though their customer service quality has deteriorated over the past few months to a year. This is primarily in the backdrop of the 2G scam and the telcos that are now on the firing line by the government. Though many telcos more than rival the features offered by Airtel, the scam will deal a severe blow to these people if they are found to be involved.
MNP itself will be an interesting trend which will redefine and pick out the cream out of the telcos by the next quarter. This will be the only differentiating factor as compared to services, which will define who truly is capable of being a respected telco for time to come.
Airtel has already listed the steps to enable other subscribers to move to Airtel on their website. Airtel promises real time HD gaming, live video streaming (which might in due course involve live TV), real time video calls, among other offerings. No doubts this will come at a cost, but India deserves atleast 3G in 2011 and 4G in 2012.TRAI surely is working hard to bring more and more streamlined operations in the telco space. With the introduction of 3G the possibilities suddenly seem endless, and the next boom of rural and urban reach would be defined by data usage rather than just voice calls. After having met and spoken to many people who have witnessed the demos at Airtel outlet as well as Airtel insiders who have used the service, their claim is that its blazingly fast, and steady and exciting to use.
So this festive season, look forward to Airtel 3G! Spread the cheer.
Tags: 3g, airtel, bandwidth, bangalore, bengaluru, cellular, change, data, features, gprs, gsm, HD gaming, karnataka, migration, mnp, mobile, number, offerings, portability, products, provider, real time, services, sim, streaming, telco, video, video calling, voice
