Bharti Airtel, which has over 340 million subscribers in the country today said that it had become the first mobile operator in Punjab to cross 10 million subscriber mark. Furthermore, underlining Airtel’s position as the most preferred network in Punjab, over 52% of all RCom customers and 42% of all Tata Docomo customers ported to the Airtel network recently. With this, Airtel has further cemented its leadership position in the state; thanks to its sharp focus on innovative products and best-in-class services, said the telco in a media statement.
Alongside this announcement, Airtel also revealed that it's undertaking a massive network augmentation drive in Punjab to further consolidate its market leadership and continue delighting customers. The Sunil Mittal-led company aims to increase the number mobile sites across the state to over 24,500 by September 2018, taking its data services deeper into rural areas and strengthening coverage in cities.
Manu Sood, Hub CEO –Upper North, Bharti Airtel said, “This is yet another major milestone for us at Airtel and we would like to thank all our 10 million plus customers in the State for giving us the opportunity to serve them. We remain committed to providing best-in-class services and lead the market with exciting innovation. As the market gets ready for the next wave of growth, we are expanding our telecom networks wider and deeper across the region and contribute to the Digital Punjab vision.”
Airtel also stated that it has already doubled its 4G network capacity in 1800 Mhz band and will also deploy 1000 kms of additional optic fibre to serve the massive surge in high-speed data consumption over smartphones.
Talking about Airtel in Punjab, it has started operations back in the year 2002 and later on became the first operator to launch 4G services in the circle. In addition, the telco already rolled out VoLTE services in the state. With close to 200 smartphone models now compatible with Airtel VoLTE, customers will soon be able to enjoy HD voice quality with faster call set up. Airtel deployed over 5,800 sites and over 850 kms optical fibre deployed across Punjab in FY 17-18.
