Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest telecommunications service provider, today announced it massive network roll-out plans for FY 2018-19 to further expand its high speed mobile data footprint in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

As a part of its network expansion program – Project LEAP, Airtel announced its plans to add more than 15000 new sites in FY 2018-19, along with an addition of more than 3000 KMs of optic fiber, in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. While stepping up the data capacities and taking services deeper into rural and unconnected areas, the massive roll-out would mean addition of 1 new site per hour to Airtel’s future-ready network in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Airtel also plans to deploy pre-5G Massive MIMO technology across major business and residential hubs in the two states to step up high speed data experience for customers. Massive MIMO expands network capacities by 5-7 times on the same spectrum and delivers superfast data speeds despite large number of concurrent users at the same location. Airtel had recently deployed the solution at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad during the IPL 2018 matches and received very good feedback from customers.

The expansion plan for FY 2018-19 follows a fruitful FY 2017-18 which saw more than 10000 new sites being deployed in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, extending Airtel’s mobile broadband footprint to over 85% of the population in the two states.

Avneet Singh Puri, Chief Executive Officer – Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Bharti Airtel Ltd, said “As India’s leading mobile network, we are committed to providing a world-class experience to our customers and are committed significant investments this year to expand our high speed data footprint across the two geographies. This will further boost the coverage and data speeds and deliver a superior user experience. Leveraging the latest capabilities of our spectrum portfolio, Airtel will benefit from an end-to-end solution that can deliver a truly on-demand experience for its customers”.

Network highlights of Airtel Andhra Pradesh and Telangana 
• 4G services on 2300 MHz launched in Jan 2017
• 4G services on 1800 MHz added in May 2015
• VoLTE services launched in Oct 2017
• Towns and villages covered by Airtel network - 331 census towns out of 354 covered.