Vodafone Idea Limited, a partnership between two strong promoters Aditya Birla Group and Vodafone Group UK, is the third largest telecommunications provider in India, offering Voice, Data, Enterprise Services and other Value Added Services (VAS), including Short Messaging Services, Digital Services, IoT Services, Cloud, Managed Services, etc.
The Company is an Aditya Birla Group Company, which offers basic voice and short message service (SMS) services to high-end value added and general packet radio service (GPRS) services, such as Blackberry, Datacard, Mobile TV and Games. The Company is a pan-India integrated wireless broadband operator offering 2G, 3G and 4G services, and has its own National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) operations, and Internet Service Provider (ISP) license. The Company offers affordable and world-class mobile services to varied segments of mobile users. It has a large spectrum holding comprising 8,005.2 MHz spectrum across 22 Service Areas, of which 7,975.2 MHz is liberalised spectrum which can be used towards deployment of any technology.
Vodafone Idea Limited was incorporated on March 14, 1995 with the name 'Birla Communications Limited'. The Company obtained licenses for providing GSM-based services in the Gujarat and Maharashtra Circles following the original GSM license bidding process. In 1996, the name of the Company was changed from Birla Communication Limited to Birla AT&T Communications Limited, following joint venture between Grasim Industries and AT&T Corporation. In the year 1997, they commenced operations in the Gujarat and Maharashtra Circles. Further, the name was changed to Birla Tata AT&T Limited from Birla Communication Limited in 2000 and again to Idea Cellular Limited in 2002. The name was later on changed to Vodafone Idea Limited from Idea Cellular Limited in August, 2018.
In the year 2000, the company merged with Tata Cellular Ltd, thereby acquired original license for the Andhra