Launched in 1988, the company had the distinction of being the first private basic operator in the country. During the FY 2000-01, the company registered a turnover of Rs 110 crore.

Bharti Telenet has services in twenty-seven cities of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. It has invested around Rs 600 crore and has an OFC backbone of 4,000 km with five main switches having a cumulative capacity of 2,50,000. It is all set to launch limited mobility services in the two states after regulatory hurdles are cleared. It also has become one of the first company to provide free Internet services with telephone connection and has around 12,000 registered subscribers. Bharti provides free Internet, leased line, ISDN lines, centrex facilities, and video conferencing. This year the company plans to achieve a target of 1,85,000 customers. The monthly average revenue per user is Rs 733. 33. It operates under the brand name AirTel. It also provides services to the corporates in form of leased and ISDN lines.

It has a range of supplementary services like call-waiting, selective ringing, call forward on no-reply, outgoing call barring, selective call accept, call back, call back for inquiry, explicit call transfer, selective call forward, calling line identification, itemized billing, 24-hours billing inquiry, etc. It also has plans for Intelligent Network (IN) services like virtual private networks, pre-paid calling card and advanced free phone services. The company has the distinction of installing the highest number of village public telephones in the country with 348 such phones.