Bharti Airtel CEO (Chief Executive Officer) has said that they are adding 30 to 40 cities or towns every day to their list of 5G covered destinations. Airtel's goal to cover entire India with 5G is by March 2024. Speaking at the ET Telecom 5G Mobile Congress, Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel, said that they are going to be in 4000 cities by June this year with 5G. Vittal said that Airtel's goal to cover urban India with 5G by March 2024 might be finished by September 2023.
He also said that Airtel is looking at 60,000 to 70,000 villages to cover them with mobile networks in the near future. Vittal termed 5G as a Supercomputer for the people. According to an ET report, Vittal said that all of the equipment providers are staggered at the pace the entire industry is moving forward on the rollout of the supercomputer (which is 5G).
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Vittal also talked about the challenges that the industry is currently facing. Amongst those challenges is that the industry is heavily taxed, and the tariffs are just not at sustainable levels. Interestingly, Vittal also talked about same-service-same-rules while giving an example of over-the-top (OTT) players. He said that while there are taxes on DTH and telecom operators, OTT players don't really need to pay anything.
Airtel recently rolled out 5G in Kolkata. The telco has so far officially announced the coverage of 267 cities with 5G. Airtel is offering 5G at no additional cost to all of its 4G customers. The telco also recently announced Airtel 5G Plus: Unlimited Data Offer under which any customer who recharges with the Rs 239 prepaid plan or any of the postpaid plans will be eligible to get unlimited data with the 5G network of Airtel.
