Airtel has already launched 5G services in approximately 5,000 towns and cities across India
Indian operator Bharti Airtel has launched 5G services across all 22 telecom circles in the country, using frequencies in the 26 GHz band.
The telco stated that this deployment adheres to the norms outlined by the country’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for meeting minimum 5G roll-out obligation criteria.
“With broader 5G opportunities enabled by 26 GHz, the company is poised to continuously drive innovation to create ultimate Airtel 5G Plus experiences for its customers. The performance on the ground has demonstrated remarkable potential and the growing momentum of 5G adoption,” the company said.
According to local press reports, Airtel has already launched 5G services in approximately 5,000 towns and cities across India since October 2022.
The telco’s CEO, Goppal Vittal, previously said that Bharti Airtel expects its 5G offering to reach 7,000 cities and nearly 100,000 villages across India by March 2024.
In October 2022, Bharti Airtel initially launched 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.
Airtel 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 previous auction carried out by the Indian government.
Earlier this week, Bharti Airtel announced the launch of what it claims to be India’s first fixed wireless access (FWA) offering.
The telco said that its 5G-based Airtel Xstream AirFiber offering is already available for its customers in Delhi and Mumbai.
Airtel also said that the new service, which will offer internet to consumers in fiber dark areas, will address the last-mile connectivity issue in both rural and urban India where access to fiber infrastructure is a challenge.
The company noted that Xstream AirFiber is a plug-and-play device, with in-built Wi-Fi 6 technology that will offer wide indoor coverage and can simultaneously connect up to 64 devices.
Bharti Airtel recently announced that its B2B division Airtel Business, has already connected over 20 million devices through its IoT solutions across India.
The company said that its Airtel IoT service provides enterprises across different industries such as automobile, energy, utilities, logistics, financial services and manufacturing with a secure and dedicated private network for the safe transmission of all customer data across connected devices. Some of the key wins for Airtel in the recent times include a partnership with Secure Meters for the deployment of 1.3 million smart meters in Bihar via NB-IoT technology, a partnership with TP Western Odisha Distribution Limited (TPWODL) — a joint venture between Government of Odisha and Tata Power for the deployment of 200,000 smart meters in Odisha and a partnership with Matter Motor Works to power 300,000 bikes through cellular IoT.
The company said its portfolio includes solutions such as asset tracking, vehicle telematics, industrial asset monitoring and smart metering, among others. These IoT-based services are offered via different technologies such as 5G, 4G, NB-IoT, 2G and satellite.
