DELHI: Bharti Airtel plans to double its 4G network by next fiscal as it gears up to take on competition, including the awaited foray of Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries group.
“We have decided to roll out (4G). We have 20,000 base stations now, in March, and we will be doing another 20,000 next year,” Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said.
Mittal said funds would not be a constraint for the company’s expansion plans as it is spending $3 billion every year on networks alone, excluding spectrum, and its 2G and 3G roll outs are among the most expensive in the country.
The company will be rolling out mobile tower sites to use its 20 MHz broadband wireless access spectrum, which Mittal said is “life saving” as 3G networks are now choking up in metros and tier 1 cities.
Speaking on the sidelines of recently held Mobile World Congress, Mittal said Airtel, through its newly inked partnership with China Mobile, will try to bring down price of the smart phones that can support all networks, to below Rs 6,000 a piece in a year to push usage of networks.
“In my view, in 12 months time you will have USD 100 smart phones. You already have $100 smart phones. What I am saying is it should be multi-mode, multi-band. Customer says give me good speed, good quality network so if he drops from 4G, he must connect to 3G and if he drops from 3G he must connect to 2G,” Mittal said.
He said the partnership with China Mobile gives Airtel an “economy of scale” and it will be able to lower its capital expenditure significantly.
He said in terms of customer base, Airtel has about 1 million 4G customers while China Mobile has 100 million and has customer target of 250 million by next year.
