11th April, 2012, Kolkata: India’s largest mobile service operator launches their TD-LTE technology based 4G service in Kolkata on Tuesday. Apart from providing rich content, the company is also planning to offer HD video streaming, instant picture uploading and multiple chatting.
In 2010, in a government auction, Airtel bid US$ 634 million to get the right to provide BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) in 4 circles in India. First, Airtel has to create an ecosystem of content, apps as well as devices which may help users to take advantage from their 4G services.
Airtel’s 3G services may get affected by this new 4G service as it paid lower fees to get the BWA spectrum and licenses compared to 3G. Analysts assume that when other telecom operators launch their 4G service, all the service providers will be tempted to cut prices.
Bangalore is all set to be the next destination for Airtel 4G, followed by Pune, but it will take some time to launch the service in Chandigarh as the company has not announced its network roll-out partner for this circle.
During a media briefing, Sanjay Kapoor the chief executive officer of Airtel told that they will launch their 4G services in Bangalore in the next 30 days. He also added that Airtel has followed the bunch approach for offering 4G services in Kolkata and that will be carried forward in other cities also. In Kolkata, they have identified twenty-five areas where they have experienced heavy data consumption and there they have deployed more equipment to offer much better connectivity.
