Last week, Bharti Airtel announced the launch of unlimited 5G data for its customers with the aim of encouraging them migrate to 5G services
India’s largest telecommunications operator Bharti Airtel said its 5G service is available to customers in 500 cities in the country after the telco recently 235 cities to its 5G network.
Randeep Sekhon, CTO of Bharti Airtel, said: “We are delighted to see the rapid pace of 5G adoption in the country. Airtel was the first to offer 5G services in October 2022, and today’s mega launch is our promise to connect every Airtel customer in the country with ultra-fast Airtel 5G Plus. We have already covered 500 cities and are adding 30 to 40 cities every single day. By September of 2023, we expect to expand our 5G footprint to all of urban India.”
Bharti Airtel also said it recently launched 5G services in Kolkata, one of the country’s major cities.
Last week, Airtel announced the launch of unlimited 5G data for its customers with the aim of encouraging them migrate to 5G services. The telco decided to remove the capping on data usage across all existing 5G plans.
All Airtel customers who are under the Airtel 5G Plus network coverage area can use the 5G connectivity for free, according to the operator. However, users have to make sure they are using a 5G-supported smartphone and have enabled Airtel 5G on their smartphone.
In October 2022, Bharti Airtel initially launched 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.
The carrier is currently using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services. The Indian operator had secured a total of 19,800 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands in a recent auction carried out by the Indian government.
Rival operator Reliance Jio has already deployed 50,000 base stations and 300,000 cells to support its 5G service, local paper The Economic Times reported, citing the carrier’s CTO Shyam Mardikar.
Jio started to deploy its 5G standalone (SA) network in October 2022 and has recently stated that it is on track to cover all towns and cities by December 2023.
Reliance Jio Infocomm recently announced that its 5G network already reaches 406 cities across India.
About a third of wireless data users in India, or 300 million subscribers, are expected to use 5G services by March 2025, according to a recent report by local Crisil Ratings.
Crisil Ratings, which is owned by S&P Global, also estimated that a total of 20-25 million subscribers are already using 5G services in the Asian nation.
