# Bharti Airtel — API surface

> Bharti Airtel Limited is an Indian multinational telecommunications operator and one of the two
> dominant mobile network operators in India. This file describes the machine-readable API surface
> Airtel publishes for developers. It is a generated companion to Airtel's own llms.txt
> (https://www.airtel.in/llms.txt), which covers airtel.in consumer marketing pages and does not
> describe any API.
>
> generated: 2026-07-25 | method: generated | source: api-evangelist/bharti-airtel apis.yml + openapi/

Airtel's API posture splits in two. The connectivity-product side (Airtel IQ CPaaS, Airtel IoT,
Airtel Locate) is genuinely API-native and publicly specified with no login. The network-API side
(CAMARA / GSMA Open Gateway) is not reachable from Airtel at all: Airtel is an Open Gateway
signatory and a founding Aduna shareholder with a commercially launched SIM Swap API, but it
publishes no CAMARA endpoint, no CAMARA specification and no network-API portal. Developers reach
Airtel's network capabilities only through aggregators — Aduna and Nokia Network as Code.

## APIs

- [Airtel IQ SMS API](https://www.airtel.in/business/b2b/airtel-iq/api-docs/sms/sms-utility):
  Single, bulk, CSV-batch and content-moderated A2P SMS over Airtel's pan-India network, with TRAI
  DLT scrubbing applied in-path. Base URL https://iqsms.airtel.in/api/v1. HTTP Basic auth.
  5 operations.
- [Airtel IQ Reporting API](https://www.airtel.in/business/b2b/airtel-iq/api-docs/voice/sample-cdr):
  Call Detail Record reporting for voice traffic placed through Airtel IQ Intelliphones. Base URL
  https://openapi.airtel.in/gateway/airtel-xchange-reporting/v2. HTTP Basic auth. 1 operation.
- [Airtel IoT API](https://www.airtel.in/m2m/business/b2b/m2m-solutions/documentation/m2m-solutions/):
  IoT/M2M connectivity management — SIM lifecycle (activate, swap, change plan, safe custody,
  temporary disconnection), bulk lifecycle, inventory, device and session information, SMS/voice
  whitelisting, KYC and a messaging centre. Base URL https://m2m.airteliot.co.in/iot/api/.
  OAuth 2.0 client credentials. 43 operations.
- [Airtel Locate API](https://www.airtel.in/m2m/business/b2b/locate-solution/documentation/locate-solution/):
  Network-based device location by MSISDN without device GPS, gated by explicit per-subscriber
  consent captured over SMS or IVR in nine Indian languages, with synchronous and callback-based
  asynchronous modes. Base URL https://openapi.airtel.in/locate/apis. OAuth 2.0 client credentials
  with scopes location and resource. 19 operations.
- [Airtel Smart API (legacy)](https://openapi.airtel.in/smartapi/#/docs): The 2017 partner
  programme — carrier billing, subscription activation, LRN lookup and UIDAI/Aadhaar DigiAuth.
  Abandoned in place; production hosts redacted; no specification is harvestable.

## Specifications

- [Airtel IQ SMS, Swagger 2.0](https://openapi.airtel.in/gateway/airtel-iq-sms-utility/v2/api-docs)
- [Airtel IQ CDR reporting, Swagger 2.0](https://openapi.airtel.in/gateway/airtel-xchange-reporting/v2/api-docs)
- Airtel IoT, OpenAPI 3.0.1 — embedded in the Redoc state of the IoT documentation page
- Airtel Locate, OpenAPI 3.0.0 v1.4.8 — embedded in the Redoc state of the Locate documentation page

Verbatim copies of all four, plus content-identical YAML renderings, are held in
https://github.com/api-evangelist/bharti-airtel/tree/main/openapi

## Authentication

- Airtel IQ (SMS, Voice, CDR): HTTP Basic, `Authorization: Basic base64(username:password)`,
  credentials issued in the Airtel IQ dashboard. HTTPS required.
- Airtel IoT: OAuth 2.0 client credentials, POST /auth/v2/generate/authtoken
  (application/x-www-form-urlencoded), refresh via POST /auth/v2/refresh/authtoken.
- Airtel Locate: OAuth 2.0 client credentials, POST
  /locate/apis/customers/{customerBaId}/oauth2_token with scope `location` or `resource`;
  the token travels in a bespoke `access_token` request header, not `Authorization: Bearer`.
  A valid token is not sufficient — the subscriber must have consented.
- No securityScheme is declared in any Airtel specification. No OIDC discovery, no CIBA, no mTLS.

## Getting started

- [Airtel IQ documentation and getting started](https://www.airtel.in/business/b2b/airtel-iq/api-docs/voice/overview)
- [Airtel IQ trial signup](https://www.airtel.in/business/b2b/airtel-ccp/dashboard/#/signup) —
  1 Intelliphone and 500 pulses free for testing
- [Airtel IQ dashboard](https://www.airtel.in/business/b2b/airtel-ccp/dashboard/)
- Airtel Locate access: email locate.support@airtel.com

## Things an agent should know

- There is no idempotency contract anywhere in the estate. Retrying a send or a SIM lifecycle
  write repeats the action.
- There is no RFC 9457 problem+json. Airtel IQ SMS reports failures in-band on an HTTP 200 via
  SendSmsResponseVO.errorMessage and SendSmsResponseVO.incorrectNum.
- There are no rate-limit response headers. Airtel Locate signals exhaustion as 429 (licence rate,
  or a location request already in flight for that MSISDN) and commercial ceilings as 403.
- Airtel Locate documents a ~5-10% expected 502 rate from HLR/MME/MSC network errors. Handle it.
- Every A2P SMS send needs a TRAI DLT entityId, dltTemplateId and a registered sourceAddress
  unless you use the content-moderation route /api/v1/send-sms-cm.
- No status page, no changelog, no deprecation policy, no SLA and no first-party SDK exist.

## Artifacts

All derived and searched artifacts for this provider live at
https://github.com/api-evangelist/bharti-airtel — authentication/, scopes/, conventions/, errors/,
lifecycle/, conformance/, sandbox/, data-model/, agentic-access/, asyncapi/, mcp/, overlays/,
security/, skills/, well-known/.