Airtel, one of India’s largest cellular network companies, has announced an upgrade to its Tamil Nadu network with the addition of 5MHz in the 1800 MHz band. This brings Airtel’s total spectrum bank in Tamil Nadu to 65MHz, which is one of the largest among cellular network carriers in the state.
Airtel recently purchased blocks of spectrum in the 1800 and 900MHz spectrum during an auction held by the Government of India. Along with the deployment of 5MHz in the 1800MHz band, Airtel also rolled out advance network software tools to help improve the high speed network capacity.
These new upgrades will help Airtel improve their network capabilities and coverage inside homes and buildings in cities and urban areas. It will also improve connectivity along highways and rail routes. At the moment in Tamil Nadu, Airtel has spectrum holdings in the 2300 MHz (TD LTE), 2100 MHz (FD LTE) 1800 MHz (FD LTE), and 900 MHz (LTE 900) bands.
Commenting on the addition of 5MHz spectrum, Amit Tripathi, CEO of Tamil Nadu, Bharti Airtel said:
We continue to invest aggressively in deployment of latest network technologies to ensure our customers are enjoying seamless network experience at a time when data is the digital oxygen. The additional blocks of 1800 band spectrum and new technology upgrades will massively enhance our network capacity to serve the growing data requirement of customers.