The current state of 5G deployments in India

Airtel said its 5G offering was available across all districts in India while rival telco Jio’s 5G networl already reaches over 7,700 towns and cities

The two largest operators in India, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Bharti Airtel, are rapidly expanding 5G networks after they initially launched this technology in October 2022, while financially-troubled Vodafone Idea is still working to be in a position to launch 5G in the coming months.

Bharti Airtel

Indian operator Bharti Airtel recently said its 5G service, dubbed “Airtel 5G Plus,” is already accessible across all districts and union territories in India.

Bharti Airtel previously said it had reached 50 million unique 5G customers on its network in September. The company’s head Sunil Bharti Mittal, announced that Airtel has rolled out 5G services in 5,000 towns and 20,000 villages across India and is on track to cover the entire country with this technology by March 2024.

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. The telco is offering 5G via 5G NSA architecture.

In August, Bharti Airtel announced that its 5G FWA offering, dubbed Airtel Xstream AirFiber, was available for its customers in Delhi and Mumbai. The operator 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.

Airtel noted that Xstream AirFiber is a plug-and-play device, with built-in Wi-Fi 6 technology that will offer wide indoor coverage and can simultaneously connect up to 64 devices. Airtel said it plans to launch the service in multiple cities and scale up nationally in phases.

Reliance Jio Infocomm

Reliance Jio Infocomm has been rapidly expanding its 5G network using Standalone (SA) architecture since October 2022. The telco has already deployed its 5G service in 7,764 cities across 36 states in India, according to the carrier’s website.

Reliance Jio had previously secured a mix of wireless spectrum for 5G across the 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands. Jio is the only Indian operator with spectrum in the 700 MHz band.

In September, local press reports confirmed that Reliance Jio Infocomm was seeking to raise up to $2 billion in loans with French bank BNP Paribas as lead arranger of the initiative that will help fund the purchase of 5G network gear from Swedish vendor Ericsson.

Reliance Jio Infocomm’s 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) offering, dubbed JioAirFiber, is already commercially available in 514 cities in 25 states across India.

JioAirFiber is available in these states of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Kerala, Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Maharashtra, Odisha, Nagaland, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Tripura, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The telco had announced the launch of its 5G FWA service in eight cities across the country in September.

Vodafone Idea

Indian operator Vodafone Idea is already offering 5G services in select locations in Pune and Delhi, according to recent reports.

The reports noted that the information was provided by the company in its website. However, the telco did not yet make any official announcement regarding the launch of 5G services. As of now, Vodafone Idea has not officially disclosed its 5G rollout plan.

On its website, Vodafone Idea stated that Vodafone users “can experience seamless connectivity with VI 5G Ready SIM” in selected areas of Pune and Delhi.

In August, Vodafone Idea successfully tested 5G services using both the 26 GHz and 3.3 GHz bands in Pune, in a bid to meet the minimum rollout obligations stipulated by India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

In June, Vodafone Idea had confirmed “advanced talks” with a number of vendors in order to define its final strategy for the deployment of 5G in India. In the carrier’s annual report, the telco also said it has concluded device testing of all major OEMs on its upcoming 5G mobile broadband network.

Vodafone Idea has partnered with various OEMs to test the compatibility of available 5G handsets in 5G clusters in the cities of Delhi and Pune. “The company is working towards rolling out 5G for consumers. The deployment will be accelerated subsequent to the consummation of fund raising,” Vodafone Idea previously said.

Vodafone had also said it was negotiating loans with local banks in order to secure the necessary funds to launch 5G.