Airtel to roll out 5G this month, to cover India in 2 years

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has said that it will start rolling out 5G services from this month and cover all towns and key rural areas by March 2024. “We intend to launch 5G starting August and extend to a pan-India rollout very soon. By March 2024, we believe we will be able to cover every town and key rural areas with 5G. Detailed network rollout plans for 5,000 towns are completely in place. This will be one of the biggest rollouts in our history,” Airtel MD & CEO Gopal Vittal said in an earnings call.
In the recently-concluded spectrum auctions, Airtel acquired 19,868MHz frequencies by securing a pan-India footprint of 3. 5GHz and 26GHz bands and select purchase of radiowaves in the lowand midband spectrum for a total consideration of Rs 43,040 crore. Vittal said the company’s capital expenditure will remain around the existing levels and played down the need for buying premium spectrum in the 700MHz band, which requires less number of mobile towers for coverage compared to other bands that operators currently have.