The Phone Revolution

The Telecom business, I would say, was an accident, because the government banned the import of generators. One fine day, there was no business. All the business that I had developed was gone. My beat was Japan, Korea, Taiwan. I went back into those areas looking for a new product which I found in Taiwan at a trade fair where I saw push button telephones. I brought Indias first telephone set replacing the rotary phone, he explains.In 1984, he started assembling portable push button phones in India replacing the old bulky Rotary Disc phones which were widely used in India. He had a tie up with Siemens AG and thus Bharti Telecom Ltd or (BTL) was born. BTL entered into a technical tie up with Siemens AG of Germany for manufacture of electronic push button phones. By the early 1990s, Mittal was making fax machines, cordless phones and other telecom gear.His Beetel brand of phones revolutionised the telephone market in India replacing once and for all the rotary disc phones.