Aircel Mumbai has commenced operations today. Aircel rolled out its prepaid mobile services on Thursday, and will launch post paid mobile services later. Aircel is majority owned by the Malaysia-based Maxis Communications. Airtel postpaid cards will come for Rs 99. Aircel data cards for internet browsing are also on cards in Mumbai.
Aircel currently has about 22000 cell towers across India, and it is planning to scale up the cell sites to 44,000. Aircel Mumbai infrastructure has been provided by Nokia Siemens Networks. Aircel has tied up with Wipro to set up a data centre in Bangalore.
Aircel Mumbai will also launch value added services as part of its entry into the Mumbai circle. Aircel is also planning to launch a WAP portal in Hindi, the company said.
Mumbai already has six GSM cellphone service providers. These are Airtel, MTNL, Loop Mobile, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular. For Aircel, it will be a tough battle to make its mark on this crowded cellular market. Mumbai will be the 17th circle for Aircel to start its operations. Aircel, which has 18 million subscribers in India is the fifth-largest mobile service provider in the country.
The company has also denied recent media reports that it was in talks to buy Loop Mobile.
Aircel Mumbai will also several schemes to increase mobile usage, like progressively decreasing usage rates with increasing call duration.
Aircel has about 1500 retail outlets, 25 company-owned stores and 25 kiosks in its circles. Aircel started with its South India operations in 1999, and later expanded to become a pan-India telecom player. After Mumbai, Aircel is planning to launch operations in five more circles: Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana. Aircel has made an investment of Rs 550 crore for its Mumbai launch. As of now, apart from Mumbai, Aircel has operations in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Assam, North East, Orissa, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Kolkata, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi.
