Airtel 4G Expands, Vodafone & RJio Prepare for 4G Launch

Airtel hopes for 4G dominance in Kerela, and Vodafone and Jio will have to play catchup post their March launch.

The Bharti Airtel office building in Gurgaon (Photo: Reuters)

Bharti Airtel announced the commercial launch of its high speed 4G services (also called LTE) in Manjeri, Tirurangadi and Thalaserry, taking the number of its 4G towns in Kerala to 50.

Airtel has been gaining ground when it comes to 4G services in India and Vodafone and Reliance Jio which plans to launch its 4G services in early 2016 will have a lot of catching up to do.

Airtel clearly enjoys its position of dominance when it comes to 4G services in India, but has also faced a lot of criticism by their customers of poor network coverage in certain areas.

<p>As customers in India show an increasing propensity for consuming data services, we at Airtel are excited to take the lead in introducing the market to the power of blazing 4G speeds. We recently launched “Project Leap”, our national network transformation drive, and look forward to augmenting our 4G presence in Kerala and deliver a compelling network experience for our customers now and in years to come.</p>

<b>George Mathen, Hub CEO – Kerala &amp; Tamil Nadu, Bharti Airtel</b>

Airtel has led the 4G story in India, having launched India’s first 4G network in Kolkata in April 2012. Airtel was also the first operator to launch 4G services in Kerala back in August 2015.

Also, the expected number of 4G LTE enabled phones to be sold in 2016 is way higher than the 3G enabled smartphones in India.

To break Airtel’s dominance in the 4G LTE Space, Reliance Jio and Vodafone really have to up their ante for consumers who are fast getting addicted to 4G LTE speeds.