Airtel 5G services in India will start rolling out from October, confirms chairman Sunil Mittal

Ahead of Reliance’s AGM, Bharti Airtel’s chairman Sunil Mittal has revealed details related to the launch of Airtel’s 5G services.

Reliance Jio is expected to announce its Jio 5G services in India today at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM). The virtual launch event will kick off at 2pm IST. Ahead of Reliance’s AGM, Bharti Airtel’s chairman Sunil Mittal has revealed details related to the launch of Airtel’s 5G services. Telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said 5G services will roll out in India starting from October 12.

According to Business Today, Mittal believes that “India is fully prepared for the implementation of 5G”. Mittal also highlighted that Airtel will introduce its 5G services in the month of October. No specific date has been revealed yet, but we do expect the telecom operator to announce some more details related to the launch of Airtel 5G very soon.

While speaking at Business Today's India@100 Economy Summit, Airtel's chairman also said that consumers will end up paying a “little bit” more for 5G. "We need to go to $40-50 (tariff) like the western world. Maybe we need to get the $3-4 for 5G services," Mittal said. He also hinted at 5G plans across price points. In one of the recent reports, Airtel said that they might not launch new 5G plans but instead offer 5G services with their premium plans.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio is expected to announce Jio 5G services later today at the company AGM 2022 event. In addition, the company is also expected to unveil JioPhone 5G in collaboration with Google. Today, we could see Jio just announcing details related to its 5G services, including its roll out timeline. The fight is tough between Jio and Airtel and we will need to wait to see which operator launches 5G services first in India. For 4G, Jio was in the lead.

Now, in terms of the roll out plan, 5G is expected to launch in 13 cities in the first phase. These cities include -- Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Gandhinagar, Gurugram, Hyderabad, Jamnagar, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, and Pune.

In addition to Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone, state-owned telecom operator BSNL also plans to launch 5G services. In fact, Adani Group is also planning to launch 5G services in India soon. The company is currently said to be in talks with Nokia to deploy 5G private networks in the country in the months to come.