Bharti Airtel, Vodafone launch BlackBerry

Bharti Airtel has introduced a BlackBerry smartphone that lets allows users to know their exact location, along with its connection.

The model, BlackBerry 8820, is priced at Rs 31,990 and is also available with Vodafone connections. BlackBerry 8820 has the voice and data mobile
connectivity like EDGE and GPRS, Wi-fi connectivity (broadband wireless), global positioning system (GPS) and an array of location-based applications, according to Bharti Airtel.

The device has in-built GPS and the WayFinder navigation application from Bharti Airtel. It can pinpoint its location, support turn-by-turn navigation, and
plan and share routes, the company said.

Since the GPS-capable Blackberry phones provide location, they are beneficial to the users while accessing services like Google Maps on the internet.

The BlackBerry 8820 smartphone supports the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi standards to enable data access over enterprise Wi-Fi connections. In addition, it has Roxio Media Manager, which allows users to easily search for media files on their computer, view and organise them, create MP3 music files from CDs, add audio tags, create playlists and automatically copy or convert pictures.

Sanjay Gupta, chief marketing officer, mobile services, Bharti Airtel, said in the statement that “we are excited to bring India’s first dual-mode Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry 8820 smartphone to our customers."

Meanwhile, mobile-phone service provider Vodafone, formerly Hutch, has introduced two of its BlackBerry models.

The British telecom giant introduced Blackberry 8310 and 8820 from Research in Motion (RIM), priced at Rs 24,990 and Rs 31,990, respectively.

Vodafone had acquired the stake of Hutch, the Indian telecom arm of the Hong Kong-based Hutchison International, for $11.1 billion in May 2007.

The company had earlier said it would be investing $2 billion in consolidating and expanding its business in the country.

Vodafone Essar, India’s second largest mobile service operator after Airtel, had a subscriber base of 34.11 million and a market share of 20.11% on August 31, 2007, according to data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI).

Corporate customers generally prefer the BlackBerry devices as the sets enable them to connect with their office email servers. But a number of other customers too are now using these devices to stay connected to the internet while on the move.