Now 4G services for the first time in India

Business

oi-Sneha

By Sneha B K

Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 10:00 [IST]

Bharti Airtel has unveiled its 4G service in Kolkata, becoming the first service provider to offer 4G services in India. The company has opted for Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE to plan and supply its services network in Kolkata. Telecom Minister Kapil Sibil inagurated the company's 4G services.

It's hoped that the 4G services would deliver given that 3G has not been a roaring success.

“3G has not delivered so far. The operators have paid huge money to get the bandwidth but they are not able to build the required infrastructure due to illiquidity,” Sibal said here at the launch of Airtel’s 4G LTE services.

4G which is a sequel to the 3G and 2G, has the capacity to be much more faster than 3G. It has potential to provide download speeds of around 100 megabits per second for a user on the move and can go up to 1 gigabits per second from a fixed location.

Bharti Airtel had won BWA spectrum in 2010 for Kolkata, Maharashtra, Punjab and Karnataka and had paid Rs 3,314.36 crore.

Qualcomm, Tikona, Aircel and Augere have also won BWA spectrum in some circles.

The shares of Bharti Airtel were trading almost flat at Rs 329 per share on the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Also see: List of 4G smartphones in India

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