Bharti Airtel has launched a 16 Mbps wireline broadband connection in the country.
The company plans to launch the Airtel 16Mbps wireline broadband in Delhi, Chennai, and Bangaluru in the first phase of the roll out. Later, it will extend the 16 Mbps wireline broadband to other cities like Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Kolkata.
Airtel claims that it is the fastest wireline broadband on digital subscriber loop (DSL) in India. The Digital Subscriber Loop (DSL) technology provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network.
The Airtel 16 Mbps broadband service is powered by Airtel’s carrier ethernet network. The last mile delivery is on copper using ADSL2+ technology.
Airtel has said that the technology enables ultra high-speed broadband that is scalable and affordable.
Airtel Telemedia Services joint president K. Srinivas said, “We are the leading private broadband service provider in the country and pioneered 8 Mbps broadband. It gives us great pleasure now to be able to introduce the fastest, wired broadband service on DSL.”
“We will be able to offer 16 Mbps broadband to 70 percent of the households in Delhi and NCR (national capital region), Chennai and Bangalore,” he added.
Currently, two tariff plans are being offered by the company for its 16 Mbps broadband at Rs 2,999 and Rs 4,999. The data transfer limit under the Speed Combo 2999 is 20 GB, while that in the Speed Combo 4999 is 50 GB.
The Speed Combo 2999 and Speed Combo 4999 plans offer a fixed line connection too.
Airtel provides broadband connections in over 95 cities across the country, and has nearly 9.92 lakh broadband customers as on December 31, 2008.
In March 2009, Tata Teleservices has announced a 100Mbps broadband access, priced at Rs 10000 per month.
