Bharti Airtel on Wednesday signed agreements with global telecom equipment majors Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung to commence the deployment of 5G services across the country this month. The company is likely to start with Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Pune. The launch could coincide with the Independence Day, sources indicated. The announcement came just a couple of days after the much-awaited 5G auction ended with the government fetching more than Rs 1.5 trillion. Airtel had forked out Rs 43,084 crore for 19,868 MHz spectrum, including in the crucial 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands, while Reliance Jio was the top bidder with 24,740 MHz of airwaves at Rs 88,078 crore. “We are delighted to announce that Airtel will commence the roll-out of 5G services in August. The choice of multiple partners will enable Airtel to roll out 5G services spanning high speeds, low latency, and large data handling capabilities, which will enable a superior user experience and allow pursuit of new innovative use cases,” Gopal Vittal, managing director and CEO of Airtel, said about the multi-vendor contracts.
