Vodafone India will soon launch 4G services in Gujarat, Haryana, UP-East and West Bengal as it gears up to expand its fast mobile broadband coverage to nine markets, covering nearly 70% of the company's data revenues, chief executive Sunil Sood said. “Vodafone India will have 4G services in 1,000 towns by the year-end,“ he said.
At present, the country's second-largest mobile carrier offers 4G services in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Karnataka and Kerala in the 1800 Mhz band. Vodafone's decision to expand its 4G coverage comes ahead of Reliance Jio Infocomm's likely commercial launch later this year, and at a time when global brokerages such as CLSA have warned that the UK-based mobile carrier is “in the most delicate situation“ among the top-three incumbent carriers with merely 5 MHz of 4G spectrum in just four of its top-10 markets, which account for 74% of its revenues. Sood, however, gave assurances that the quality of Vodafone India's 4G coverage in the four new circles would be maintained with existing spectrum. But he declined to comment on whether the company would use “narrow band 4G“, which uses less than the 5 MHz of spectrum required for a traditional 4G LTE network.
According to him, Vodafone's mobile network in India is also 5G ready, and “needs merely a software update to launch fifth generation services when needed“. Industry experts say a 5G network will, typically, be able to handle 10,000 times more call and data traffic than the current 3G or 4G networks.
Data download speeds on 5G net works are likely to be anything from 10 to 100 times faster than 4G, they say. But as a mobile broadband technology, 5G is still some years away, and the first 5G phones are slated to arrive by 2020.
At present, the country's second-largest mobile carrier offers 4G services in Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Karnataka and Kerala in the 1800 Mhz band. Vodafone's decision to expand its 4G coverage comes ahead of Reliance Jio Infocomm's likely commercial launch later this year, and at a time when global brokerages such as CLSA have warned that the UK-based mobile carrier is “in the most delicate situation“ among the top-three incumbent carriers with merely 5 MHz of 4G spectrum in just four of its top-10 markets, which account for 74% of its revenues. Sood, however, gave assurances that the quality of Vodafone India's 4G coverage in the four new circles would be maintained with existing spectrum. But he declined to comment on whether the company would use “narrow band 4G“, which uses less than the 5 MHz of spectrum required for a traditional 4G LTE network.
According to him, Vodafone's mobile network in India is also 5G ready, and “needs merely a software update to launch fifth generation services when needed“. Industry experts say a 5G network will, typically, be able to handle 10,000 times more call and data traffic than the current 3G or 4G networks.
Data download speeds on 5G net works are likely to be anything from 10 to 100 times faster than 4G, they say. But as a mobile broadband technology, 5G is still some years away, and the first 5G phones are slated to arrive by 2020.
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