Indian telco's inrease oversea activities - Airtel enters European market; Reliance communication signs roaming pact with PBTL

Indian leading private telco, Airtel launched its first foray in telecom in the European market on Thursday, with the launch of its services in Jersey, Channel Islands. Jersey Airtel, a subsidiary of the Bharti Group, on Thursday announced the launch of its mobile services on the Island. The company will offer products and services under the Airtel-Vodafone brand to customers on the Island, over its full 2G, 3G and HSDPA enhanced network. Jersey, along with Guernsey, is a crown property off the coast of France, is one of the world’s leading offshore financial centres with an exclusive focus on financial services, and a playground for the rich and financially famous. Jersey’s GDP and per capital are among the highest in the world, topping most developed nations. The services are being launched under the Airtel-Vodafone brand name.
Customers are being offered significant discounts if they choose to keep their existing handset. Pre-paid customers will get flat rates across all networks in Jersey and another flat rate to all networks across the EU including UK. All of these are still unheard of in Europe, where customers mostly have to pay higher rates for calls from mobiles, to other networks, and so on.

In another move, Indian private telco, Reliance Communications, on Thursday announced a tie up with Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Limited (PBTL) to provide its customers seamless roaming in Bangladesh on CDMA handsets. Following the alliance with PBTL, which runs CDMA service under the name CityCell, Reliance CDMA users would now be able to roam in 200 countries, an RCom spokesperson said. For local and national calls, charges would be Rs 18 per minute while calls into India would cost Rs 29 per minute and incoming calls Rs 18 per minute. PBTL is a joint venture between Singapore Telecom and was the largest operator in Bangladesh. The tie-up will generate revenues from lot of user in West Bengal, Assam and the northeastern part of India who regularly visit Bangladesh.