Bharti to introduce 5G services this month, cover every town by 2024, says MD Vittal

‘Network deployment in the 700 Mhz band gives no additional coverage compared to the 900 Mhz spectrum band that the company has’

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel will start rolling out 5G services this month and cover all towns and key rural areas of the country by March 2024, a senior company official said on Tuesday.

Bharti Airtel managing director and CEO Gopal Vittal also said that the price of mobile services in India is very low and needs to go up.

"We intend to launch 5G starting August and extend to a pan-India roll-out very soon. By March 2024 we believe we will be able to cover every town and key rural areas as well with 5G.

"In fact, detailed network roll-out plans for 5,000 towns in India are completely in place. This will be one of the biggest roll-outs in our history," Mr. Vittal said during the company's earning call.

Bharti Airtel in the recently-concluded spectrum auction acquired 19,867.8 MHz frequencies by securing a pan-India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands and select purchase of radiowaves in the low and mid-band spectrum for a total consideration of ₹43,040 crore.

Mr. Vittal said the company's capital expenditure will remain around the existing levels and played down the need for buying premium spectrum in the 700 megahertz band, which requires less number of mobile towers for coverage compared to other bands that telecom operators currently have.

"Our competition does not have such a large mid-band spectrum. Do remember that if we did not have this large chunk of precious mid-band spectrum, we would have had no choice but to buy expensive 700 Mhz spectrum.