Airtel quickens LTE-A rollout to offer up to 135Mbps 4G speeds

MUMBAI, INDIA: You can call it RJio effect as Airtel is speeding up its network transformation program throughout the country.

Airtel announced today that it has deployed 4G Advanced technology (carrier aggregation across TD LTE and LTE FDD) in Mumbai to bring users superior 4G experience.

The deployment will result in considerably faster data speeds and better coverage – indoors and outdoors, said Airtel. Customers with mobile devices that support 4G Advanced will be able to enjoy 4G data speeds of up to 135 Mbps.

The deployment is a part of Airtel’s ongoing network transformation program – Project Leap, under which Airtel plans to invest Rs 60,000 crores over the next three years.

Ajai Puri, Director – Operations (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “We will extend the deployment of 4G Advanced in other geographies in the coming months.”

Airtel launched its 4G services in Mumbai in May 2015 on the 2300 Mhz band using the TD LTE standard and recently added capacity on the 1800 Mhz band using FD LTE. With today’s rollout, Mumbai is among the few cities globally to have high speed data services over 4G Advanced.

Under the carrier aggregation deployment, the capacities of TD LTE (2300 MHz spectrum band) and FD LTE (1800 MHz spectrum band) have been combined to enable better spectrum utilization and efficiency. In February 2016, Airtel deployed India’s first carrier aggregation in Kerala and the network achieved 4G data speeds of up to 135 Mbps on commercially available mobile devices.