Telecom operator Bharti Airtel today said it would roll out 6,000 new mobile sites across the North Eastern region in the fiscal 2018-19, to add network capacity and take services deeper into unconnected areas.
Telecom operator Bharti Airtel today said it would roll out 6,000 new mobile sites across the North Eastern region in the fiscal 2018-19, to add network capacity and take services deeper into unconnected areas.
With the network transformation program under its 'Project Leap' project, the company's mobile sites across Assam and NESA will go up by 31 per cent to 25,000, COO Ajai Puri said here.
Airtel also plans to add 3,000 km of new optic fiber in the region to take its fiber footprint to 16,000 km, which will support the growth of high-speed data services, he said.
Around 60 per cent of users in Assam and the North East have already ported to Airtel's service, Puri claimed.
Earlier this month it was reported incumbent telecom companies like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular need to speed up efforts to close the gap with Reliance Jio on data capacity levels, signalling a higher level of capital spends for coming 2-3 years, says a report.
Kotak Institutional Equities, in a recent report on telecom sector, said analysis using the BTS (base transceiver station) count of Jio and incumbents, and number crunching showed that the newcomer has “62 per cent share of the combined data capacity of these operators”.
“Bharti Airtel, with around 21 per cent share of the composite capacity is ahead of Idea and Vodafone’s combined 17 per cent…Even as we do not think incumbents need to match Jio on data capacity anytime soon, we do believe they need to accelerate their efforts in closing the gap,” the report said.
This could possibly mean “elevated” levels of capex for the next 2-3 years “posing upside risks to capex forecasts”, it added.
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 "Airtel to add 6,000 new mobile sites in North East in FY19")
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