Airtel Promises 135 Mbps 4G Speed In Mumbai; Deploys 4G Advanced Tech To Counter Jio’s Threat
The best thing about competition is that, it scopes out the best among the participants and forces them to do thing which was never imagined before.
Probably for the first time in telecom history, Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom firm has promised assured speed of 135 Mbps 4G speed in Mumbai. The rising popularity of Reliance Jio is being seen as the direct trigger which compelled Airtel for this promise.
And with the plans that Jio has announced, it becomes important for incumbents like Airtel to improve their services even further.
None the less, it’s an excellent news for Mumbai users, as their city would be now only few among globally to enjoy high speed 4G Advanced technology powered mobile broadband access.
In a statement, Airtel said, “The deployment will result in a superior 4G experience for Airtel customers through considerably faster data speeds and better coverage – indoors and outdoors. Customers with mobile devices that support 4G Advanced will be able to enjoy 4G data speeds of up to 135 Mbps,’’
When Airtel first introduced 4G services in Mumbai in May last year, it was carried on 2,300 Mhz band using the TD LTE standard. Recently, they have added 1,800 Mhz band using FD LTE technology for the offering mobile based 4G connectivity.
Thus, Mumbai has become the second Indian location after Kerala and very few among globally which has a telecom operator offering 4G services using both TD LTE and FD LTE platforms, thereby ‘assuring’ 100 Mbps+ speed for mobile users.
A combination of TD LTE (2,300 MHz spectrum band) and FD LTE (1,800 MHz spectrum band) leads to better spectrum utilization and efficiency, leading to better speed and performance.
In February this year, Airtel had launched such carrier aggregation (TD LTE + FD LTE) in Kerala, which ensured 135 Mbps 4G speed.
Interestingly, Reliance Jio is currently offering maximum speed of 80-90 Mbps, which is being offered on 2300 Mhz spectrum. As per reports, Reliance Jio is also testing 4G on 850 Mhz and 2300 Mhz; but Airtel has clearly an upper hand of atleast 2-3 months, which would be highlighted in their future advertisement campaigns.
Earlier, Airtel had attempted a disruption on the pricing side, which looked like earth shattering low prices of data usage.
However, as we later found out, this was a marketing gimmick, carried out to retain their existing customers with long term indirectly enforced commitment.
But as we are now witnessing, more than the price, it’s the quality of speed which matters now for the urban users of 4G internet. And going by this standard of battle, the fight between Airtel and Jio will certainly delight mobile users all over the country because it means better speed, and more promises.
