Bharti Airtel’s 5G trial network goes live in Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub
Bharti Airtel’s 5G trial network has gone live in Gurgaon’s Cyber Hub [1.] in the Millennium city, sources familiar with the matter said. The site is operating in the 3500 MHz band using Ericsson’s 5G network equipment as per DoT guidelines and is delivering a throughput of over 1 Gbps.
Note 1. Gurgaon is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about 30 kilometers (~19 miles) southwest of the national capital New Delhi and 268 km (167 mi) south of Chandigarh, the state capital. It is one of the major satellite cities of Delhi and is part of the National Capital Region of India.
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Airtel is currently working with Oppo, OnePlus, Vivo, Realme and Apple to test its 5G trial network, sources told ETTelecom. A 5G trial network will go live in Mumbai in the coming days.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had recently allocated 5G trial spectrum in the 700 Mhz, 3.5 Ghz and 26 Ghz bands to Airtel, Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea (Vi) to develop India-relevant use cases on the next-gen fast wireless broadband technology.
Airtel has been allotted 5G trial spectrum in 3500 MHz, 28 GHz and 700 MHz in Delhi/NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bengaluru (aka Bangalore). Earlier this year, Airtel became the first telco in India to test 5G over a live network using liberalized spectrum in 1800 MHz band.
Allotment of 5G trial spectrum is particularly crucial for Jio and Airtel, who already have 5G-ready networks and have recently bulked up on crucial airwaves in the recent auction to cater to the surge in data usage amid Covid and also future-proof themselves ahead of 5G rollouts.
Airtel and Vodafone Idea had opted for Finland’s Nokia and Sweden’s Ericsson while BSNL plans to partner state-run Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT). Jio had named Samsung, Nokia and Ericsson besides applying to trial its own technology.
Both Jio and Airtel have already claimed their end-to-end readiness to launch commercial 5G services in the country shortly after the availability of “adequate” spectrum.
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In January, Airtel became the first telco to successfully demonstrate live 5G service over a commercial network in Hyderabad in the 1800 MHz band through the NSA (Non-Stand Alone) network technology.
Airtel in the past has noted that 5G will be capable of delivering 10x speeds, 10x latency and 100x concurrency when compared to existing technologies. It noted that in Hyderabad, users were able to download a full-length movie in a matter of seconds on a 5G phone, a demonstration that has underlined the company’s technology capabilities. The full impact of the 5G experience, however, will be available to Airtel’s customers, when an adequate spectrum is available and government approvals are received. Users will not be required to switch SIM cards when the network is available for them.
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