iWorld
Airtel 4G network now covers 15863 towns and villages across Assam
MUMBAI: Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s leading telecommunications services provider, today said that its 4G network now covers over 15863 towns and villages in Assam, empowering customers with best-in-class high speed mobile broadband services.
Airtel, which is the #1 operator in Assam with over 8.4 million customers, recently announced a massive network expansion drive to further scale up its high speed data services across the region.
In addition, as part of its acquisition of Telenor’s India operations, Airtel has added 6 MHz of spectrum in 1800 MHz band to its portfolio in Assam. This will further boost 4G network capacity in the state, complement the rollout of new sites and fiber and enhance customer experience in the form of even better indoor and outdoor coverage.
Raveendra Desai, CEO, Assam and North East, Bharti Airtel said, “To bring more and more customers onto the digital highway, we are committed to further expanding our 4G services across Assam. The availability of budget friendly smartphones is driving a massive uptake of 4G data and Airtel aims to be the 4G network of choice of customers in Assam with its superior data experience. Airtel’s affordable plans and packs offer access to exciting digital services like music, movies, LIVE TV on mobile and we invite customers to experience our 4G network.”
All Airtel 4G customers enjoy free access to Airtel TV that offers over 10,000 movies and TV shows plus 375 LIVE TV channels on the go. Airtel has also been consistently rated as the fastest network in India by global speed measurement leader – Ookla.
Airtel offers the widest bouquet of mobile services (4G/3G/2G) in Assam backed by a wide distribution channel of over 39 thousand retail outlets that serves customers even in deep rural pockets. Airtel’s network now covers 30,000 towns and villages representing approximately 94% of the state’s population.
Gaming
India’s broadcasters say no to Fifa World Cup 2026
Fifa has slashed its asking price by 65 per cent but India’s broadcasters are still not buying
MUMBAI: The world’s biggest sporting event cannot find a single taker in the world’s most sports-mad nation. Fifa’s television rights for the 2026 World Cup remain unsold in India, and the clock is ticking loudly.
To shift the property, world football’s governing body has already swallowed hard and cut its asking price from $100m to $35m, bundling in the 2030 edition as a sweetener. It has not worked. Indian broadcasters have looked at the offer, done the sums and quietly walked away.
The reasons are brutally simple. The 2026 tournament, co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, kicks off in a time zone that turns India’s primetime into a graveyard shift. Most matches will air between midnight and 7am IST, a scheduling catastrophe for advertisers chasing mass reach. The 2022 Qatar edition was a gift by comparison, with matches dropping neatly into Indian evenings. North America offers no such luxury.
The market itself has also changed beyond recognition. The merger of Star India and Viacom18 into JioStar has gutted the competitive tension that once sent sports rights prices soaring. Where rival bidders once slugged it out, there is now a single dominant buyer, and it is in no hurry. JioStar has valued the rights at roughly $25m, a full $10m below Fifa’s already-discounted floor price. That gap has so far proved unbridgeable.
Broadcasters are also nursing a ferocious cricket hangover. Between 2022 and 2023, Indian media houses committed well over $10bn to cricket rights alone, covering IPL, ICC events and BCCI domestic fixtures combined. After a binge of that scale, appetite for a football package that delivers a fraction of the ratings, in the dead of night, is close to zero.
The economics of football broadcasting make the maths even harder. Cricket, with its natural breaks every few overs, is an advertiser’s paradise. Football offers a 15-minute halftime and precious little else. Recovering a nine-figure rights fee from a single half-hour ad window is a stretch at the best of times. These are not the best of times: the Indian government’s tightening grip on real-money gaming and gambling advertising has vaporised a category that once underwrote the economics of big sporting events.
Nor is the World Cup an anomaly. Indian Super League valuations have cratered. English Premier League rights have softened across successive cycles. The cooling of football as a broadcast commodity in India is structural, not cyclical.
With the tournament opening on 11th June, Fifa is running out of road. It may yet blink and meet JioStar at $25m. Or it may go direct, streaming the entire tournament on its own platform, Fifa+, or cutting a digital deal with YouTube, and hoping that a generation of Indian football fans finds its way there without a broadcaster to guide them.
Either way, the beautiful game’s Indian chapter is looking decidedly ugly.
