Airtel said its 5G offering is currently available in more than 3,500 towns and cities across India
Indian operator Bharti Airtel’s 5G subscriber base has reached 10 million, after announcing it had signed up 2 million 5G customers in two additional regions, the company said in a release.
The operator stated 5G subscribers hit the 2 million mark in Uttar Pradesh East and Bihar and Jharkhand.
In May, Bharti Airtel said it had reached 2 million 5G subscribers in Mumbai, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Airtel also highlighted its 5G service is currently available in more than 3,500 towns and villages across India, up from 3,000 in April.
Airtel ended the first quarter of 2023 with a total of 335.4 million mobile subscribers, with LTE users accounting for 67% of the total.
The carrier’s CEO, Goppal Vittal, said that Bharti Airtel expects its 5G service 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.
Recent reports revealed that Bharti Airtel is engaged in talks with nearly 50 companies to co-develop enterprise use cases in the 5G field. Airtel expects that the 5G technology will generate more revenue in the business-to-business (B2B) segment compared to the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment in the coming year.
Rival operator Reliance Jio Infocomm’s 5G footprint reached 5,432 cities and towns across India, according to the telco’s website. Jio has already deployed over 60,000 5G sites across the 700 MHz and 3.5 GHz bands.
Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea is in the final stage of negotiations with banks to secure funding, which will be key for the launch of its 5G network infrastructure in the country, according to recent reports.
A senior official from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) explained that Vodafone Idea is likely to secure funding by June, which will enable the launch of 5G services that same month.
Local press reported that Finnish vendor Nokia was in talks with Vodafone Idea to supply 5G networking equipment.
Also, state-run telco BSNL recently secured key spectrum from the government in order to launch 4G and 5G services nationwide.
