Nearly nine lakh Aircel customers across India tried to port their numbers after facing frequent call drops, amidst reports of the company facing financial distress . Amidst this, customers have been facing a harrowing time in trying to port their numbers, after facing call drops and network issues.
Here are top 5 facts to know
1. Aircel was established by Chinnakannan Sivasankaran and initiated operations in Tamil Nadu in 1999. It is the 6th biggest mobile service provider in India with a subscriber base of 84.39 million subscribers as of December 2017. It is a market pioneer in Tamil Nadu and has extensive nearness in Odisha, Assam and North-East telecom circles.
It is an Indian mobile network operator headquartered in Gurgaon that offers voice and 2G and 3G data services. Maxis Communications holds a 74% stake and Sindya Securities and Investments holds the staying 26%.
2. Aircel has planned to close down its operations in unbeneficial circles including, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (West) from 30 January 2018.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) asked Aircel to report the number of subscribers who have ported out from Aircel in these six circles.
In cases, where the porting procedure couldn’t be finished TRAI has approached the purposes behind it. After the failed merger manage Reliance, Aircel is thinking about converging with Bharti Airtel, whose chairman Sunil Mittal had expressed in November 2017, that Airtel “was available to obtaining talks”.
3. As of December 2017, Aircel was under of obligation of around ₹16,000 crore (US$2.5 billion). On 21 February 2018 and 22 February 2018 It’s services influenced in entire of India not just Jammu and Kashmir because of money related issues. Around 34 lakh subscribers were influenced in the state. It resolved to determine these service issues inside 3 days (ie before 25th Feb) But benefits are begun to reestablish from 23rd itself and by 24th night all towers being started to work.
This is a huge task performed by Aircel to activate their 9000+ towers across state. Numerous subscribers asked for portout on 22nd and 23rd February because of system issues. But ,on 24th the count got decreased and furthermore the vast majority of them they needed to proceed with Aircel itself. Thus Aircel servicing to subscribers for 19th year in Tamil nadu. And it’s a traditional network of Tamil nadu.
3. Aircel offers poor network coverage in Delhi and NCR circle. It uses radio link time out technology without which the call drop rates will be significantly higher and many customers reported this. In a 2015 review led by Mint and InstaVaani in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, it was discovered that Aircel offers best service among all the telecom suppliers in the separate urban areas
4. Aircel is the main shirt supporter of Indian Premier League cricket team Chennai Super Kings and I-League football team Shillong Lajong FC. It is also the principal sponsor for Atlético de Kolkata FC who play in the Indian Super League football competition.
It is also a major sponsor of the Chennai Open ATP tennis tournament and the Professional Golf Tour of India. It likewise supports the Save the Tiger campaign for ensuring India’s tigers. The brand ministers of Aircel include the Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Tamil actor Suriya. Aircel also engaged with boxer Mary Kom, Tamil actors Dhanush and Sameera Reddy.
5. It was one among seven operators receive notices from the Department of Telecommunications for not meeting radiation norms in their base tower stations in September 2012. Nearly nine lakh customers across India on 21st February 2018,tried to port their numbers after facing frequent call drops, amidst reports of the company facing financial distress. After several users took to Facebook and Twitter to express their fear of the company shutting down, Aircel cleared up via social media that it is not closing its services and that users will be notified in advance of any such eventuality.
A senior official told “The systems are unable to handle the surge. However, we are not going anywhere. It is our responsibility to serve customers till the end. We are devising a way to create manual codes to facilitate the porting process. On 28 February 2018, Aircel filed for bankruptcy at NCLT.
Steps to port your Aircel number to any other network provider
- Send a text message saying PORT followed by the 10-digit aircel mobile number to 1900. For Jammu and Kashmir aircel users, UPC shall be provided by calling 1900. UPC shall be processed in few hours and will be an 8-character long unique code with the first two characters as alphabets and the rest as numbers.
- Now the provided UPC number along the completed CAF and porting form must be submitted with the new service provider. Along with it the new provider may request your ID documents and in case you had been a post-paid Aircel user then past bill receipt needs to be furnished.