Mumbai, September 11, 2016: Vodafone, one of India’s leading telecom service providers and state owned telecom service provider, BSNL, today signed a 2G intra-circle roaming agreement to use each other's assets and network strength across the country. This strategic partnering will lead to improved connectivity and enhance the customer experience overall.
The agreement will help Vodafone expand its 2G network further, especially in rural areas and strengthens BSNL’s network reach in urban areas. Vodafone India has over 137,000 towers across the country and BSNL over 114,000.
Speaking about this strategic partnering, Mr. Sunil Sood, MD & CEO, Vodafone India, said, “We want our hundreds of million customers to consistently enjoy a superior network experience and remain confidently connected, at all times, for all their voice and data needs. We made significant investments to expand, enhance and upgrade our network, making Vodafone SuperNet™ our best network ever, world-class and future-fit. This partnering with BSNL will further strengthen the reach of our network especially in the hinterland of the country and surrounding rural areas.”
Mr. Anupam Shrivastava, Chairman & Managing Director, BSNL said, “We continue to expand our network across the country with more sites and sharing infrastructure with other telecom service providers. This partnering with Vodafone will help us make our network coverage better, especially in urban areas, enabling our customers to have a better experience of our services.”
Vodafone India is a 100% fully owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group Plc. with operations across the country serving over 199 million customers (over 107 million in rural areas). Commencing operations in 2007, Vodafone is today a robust, award winning business and committed for the long term. Vodafone Business Services serves the needs of enterprises and government by providing total telecommunications (Voice and Data) solutions across mobility and wireline platforms. Our mobile wallet, M-Pesa is a unique and innovative money transfer service from Vodafone that fosters financial inclusion.
Committed to optimizing the near ubiquitous reach of mobile telephony to address national developmental priorities, the Vodafone Foundation partners is actively engaged in community development initiatives especially in the domains of m-Women, m-Agriculture, m-Education and Disaster Relief. Building on its global experience and expertise, an outreach across India and offering a comprehensive portfolio of technologies- 2G, 3G & 4G, Vodafone is uniquely positioned to actualize the vision of Digital India.
Globally, Vodafone is one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies and provides a range of services including voice, messaging, data and fixed communications. Vodafone has mobile operations in 26 countries, partners with mobile networks in 56 more, and has fixed broadband operations in 17 markets. As of 30 June 2016, Vodafone had 465 million mobile customers and 13.7 million fixed broadband customers.