Bharti Airtel to deploy 13,000 new mobile sites, massive MIMO in Karnataka

Bharti Airtel is now planning to roll out 13,000 new mobile sites along with 4500 KMs of optic fiber across Karnataka by March 2019.

Airtel will also deploy pre-5G Massive MIMO technology across major business and residential hubs in the state to step up high-speed data experience.

According to a telco, this new technology will expand network capacities by 5-7 times on the same spectrum and delivers super fast data speed despite a large number of concurrent users at the same location.

"The revolutionary launch of 4G services for the first time in the state of Karnataka changed the mobile internet forever. Today, we are the only service provider to cover the entire state with our 4G network and the only service provider in Karnataka to offer ubiquitous 4G, 3G, and 2G services. Our significant investments in the network will further boost the coverage and data speeds delivering a superior user experience for our customers," C. Surendran, Chief Executive Officer - Karnataka, Bharti Airtel Ltd, said.

Meanwhile, a report in TOI said that the company would invest Rs 1,000 crore towards this.

Airtel also said that the latest network deployment includes state-of-the-art technology and software will enable Airtel to add massive high-speed data capacity in the network to serve the explosive surge in data consumption led by increasing smartphone penetration and adoption of digital services.

Network highlights of Karnataka:

14G services on 2300 MHz launched in 2012

24G services on 1800 MHz added in 2015

3 VoLTE services launched in November 2017

4 Towns and villages covered by Airtel network - 39000 villages