Flush with an investment outlay of USD 3 billion a year on networks, telecom major Bharti Airtel plans to double its 4G network by next fiscal as it gears up to take on competition, including the much-awaited foray of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries group.
“We have decided to roll out (4G). We have 20,000 base station now, in March, and we will be doing another 20,000 next year,” Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said here.
Mittal said funds would not be a constraint for the company’s expansion plans as it is spending USD 3 billion every year on networks alone, excluding spectrum, and its 2G and 3G roll-outs are among the most expensive in the country.
The company will be rolling out mobile tower sites to use its 20 MHz broadband wireless access spectrum, which Mittal said is “life saving” as 3G networks are now choking up in metros and tier 1 cities.
Companies, including Airtel, at present have only 5 MHz of 3G spectrum in select parts of country and the government has put another 5 MHz block of 3G spectrum in the ongoing auction.
“In my view, in 12 months time you will have USD 100 smartphones. You already have USD 100 smartphones. What I am saying is it should be multi-mode, multi-band. Customer says give me good speed, good quality network so if he drops from 4G, he must connect to 3G and if he drops from 3G he must connect to 2G,” Mittal said.
Mittal said driving down cost of equipments, devices, setting up standards for next generation technology like 5G and exchange of best practices are main objectives of this partnership without any equity transaction.
