Airtel Launching VoLTE Services Next Week; Watch Out Jio!
Airtel VoLTE will heat things up further in the telecom war.
The battle between India’s largest telecom provider: Airtel, and India’s fastest growing telecom provider: Jio is all set to warm up, even further.
Right on the onset of festive season, Airtel has given hints that they may launch their much awaited VoLTE services as early as next week!
Such a quick launch clearly proves that Airtel doesn’t want Jio to get prepared for the assault, and want a quick fire launch to boost their market penetration.
Now, the question is, is it a bad news for Jio, as Airtel providing VoLTE services will snatch their USP, and open up the market, with equal playing field?
And, will Airtel, which has been matching every offer by Jio with their own offers, offer something more with their VoLTE services?
Hints Of Airtel VoLTE Services
As per a report published by ET, it has been revealed that they will start offering their VoLTE services from next week, and will gradually roll out the services pan-India, before the end of this financial year.
Some unnamed sources have informed that the VoLTE services from Airtel will kickstart from Mumbai, and then Kolkata and other metros including Delhi would be covered.
Post-Diwali, VoLTE services from Airtel will cover Tier-2/Tier3 cities, thereby covering whole of India by April 1st, 2018.
As per the unnamed source, users from Mumbai and Kolkata, along with ‘other metro cities’ will soon get a message to activate VoLTE services on their phones.
Another unnamed source said, “They (Airtel) will expand to more cities and cover the entire country well before this financial year end (on March 31),”
Airtel’s VoLTE Services Will Change Everything
First and foremost, once Airtel’s VoLTE hits the market, Jio will immediately lose that unique advantage they had till now: they were the only telco to provide VoLTE, and marketed the free calls heavily.
Technically speaking, both data and voice is offered using the same network on VoLTE, thereby making the calls using Internet, rather than a dedicated circuit-switch technology which is currently the norm.
Once Airtel and other telcos start offering VoLTE services, they can free up the 2G/3G network, and start offering 4G using the free network.
The quality of voice calls will also improve under VoLTE, and this can be the unique selling point for Airtel.
That unnamed source said, “This means if both voice and data can be offered on VoLTE, the 3G or the 2G network as the case may be is freed up and can be re-farmed for offering 4G data services,”
During April-June quarter, one out of three smartphones sold in India was a VoLTE enabled handset, and this means that the foundation is right there for the next VoLTE revolution in India.
Can Jio Phone make the difference here?
Do let us know by commenting right here!
Airtel cannot match anyway to Jio they are here only to make money
Jio will come out with fiber and it will give VoIP for free. This is where ARPU is higher and that will hurt in broadband space. Jio will roll out to more than 100 cities.
Jio is always best.
Airtel 399 is offering same plan.Check it out.JIo will kill the every other operator in Data.For voice still airtel rules.
I don’t think this comment “And, will Airtel, which has been matching every offer by Jio with their own offers” is correct.
Currently with 399 Jio plan for 84 days we are getting unlimited any network calls and 1 gb data per day for only 399/84 = Rs 4.75 per day.
Is there any plan in Airtel we can avail same benefits?
People are not fool enough to believe Airtel again :p