Bharti Airtel to Become an LTE-Only Operator Very Soon

One of the major reasons why Jio has been so successful in the Indian telecom industry is because of its LTE-only network. Incumbent telcos Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea lost their huge chunk of 2G subscriber base to Jio because the new entrant offered affordable tariff plans. In order to boost its ARPU and push its 2G and 3G subscribers to shift to 4G, Airtel has revealed its intentions of expanding the fourth-generation network to masses. Right now, Airtel is making use of the premium airwaves in the 900MHz spectrum for deploying 2G services, but going forward, the telco will use this spectrum for deploying the 4G network.

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Airtel to Use 900MHz Band for 4G Instead of 2G

Gopal Vittal, CEO of Bharti Airtel, said about this development to ET, “We are seeing dramatic growth in 4G demand, and over a period of time, the 900 Mhz band will purely serve our 4G customers, while 2G services will be continue to be available on the 1800 Mhz band.”

Emphasising the transition from 2G/3G to 4G, Vittal also highlighted that there is no substantial revenue being generated from 3G networks thus signalling that Airtel might soon shut down its 3G operations. The fact was pretty evident as Vittal said, “the demise of 3G technology is rapidly drawing near”. The executive also further said that they would have a “transition strategy” in place to accomplish the consumer migration from 3G network to 4G network while the telco finds its way to deploy the 900MHz band for 4G network.

Vittal took the chance on the earnings call, a day after Airtel declared profits of Rs 119 crore on a consolidated basis, to share the plans of deploying the airwaves for 4G network all the while expressing distaste towards the 2G/3G network. The executive also announced that it has already reframed the 900MHz airwaves in Karnataka for 4G services and said that the company would replicate the move in other states as well. He said that this move would further bring a boost to the company’s 4G customer base amid price wars with the new telecom behemoth Vodafone Idea and the Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio.