New Delhi: Bharti Airtel, a telecom carrier, announced on Thursday that Airtel 5G + is now operational in a number of major cities, including Varanasi, Siliguri, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Siliguri, Delhi, Mumbai, and Mumbai. Customers in these cities will begin using 5G services gradually, according to the business, as it builds out its network and completes the roll-out. Users won't need to get a new SIM card because their current Airtel 4G SIM supports 5G.
"Today marks one more step in our journey as we build out the finest network to deliver the best experience for our customers. For us, our customers are at the core of everything we do. Our solution will, therefore, work on any 5G handset and the existing SIM that customers have. Our obsession with customer experience is now embellished with a 5G solution that is kinder to the environment," Gopal Vittal, managing director and CEO of Bharti Airtel, NIE reported.
Regarding cost, the second-largest telco in India claimed that users may use 5G services with their current data plans until the roll-out was finished. This means that Airtel won't settle on the 5G service's pricing until the entire nation has switched over to it. The business claims that Airtel 5G Plus has three strong benefits for users, including a guarantee to deliver the greatest experience with speeds that are 20 to 30 times faster than those available today, along with excellent voice quality and lightning-fast call connections.
In the 5G spectrum auction, Airtel Airtel paid '43,040 crores to purchase 19867.8 MHz of spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 3300 MHz, and 26 GHz frequency bands.
At the 5G announcement event, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal stated that Airtel would roll out its 5G service in the nation by March 2024. The beta testing of Reliance Jio's True-5g services for Jio consumers began in four cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Varanasi.
By December 2024, the corporation will launch 5G services across the country. The third-largest Indian carrier, Vodafone Idea, hasn't specified a launch date for its 5G service, though. The CEO of Vodafone Idea, Kumar Mangalam Birla, announced that the business will soon start rolling out 5G across the nation.