Airtel today announced that it is planning a massive network deployment plans for Mumbai as part of its network transformation initiative – Project Leap. During the FY 18-19, Airtel plans to roll out 7000 new mobile sites including the large-scale deployment of pre-5G Massive MIMO technology across Mumbai to significantly boost network capacity for high-speed data and voice services.
This roll-out would translate to the addition to the one new mobile site to Airtel’s future-ready network in Mumbai every hour throughout the year. It is also planning on integrating an additional a spectrum carrier of 10 MHz in the 2300 MHz band to further strengthen its 4G footprint. Airtel also mentioned that the pre-5G Massive MIMO technology will be deployed across all major business hubs and residential locations in the city.
The MIMO expands network capacities by 5-7 times on the same spectrum and delivers super fast data speeds despite a large number of concurrent users at the same location. Back in April, Airtel had deployed Massive MIMO pre-5G solution across IPL match venues offering up to 3x faster 4G speeds.
The planned roll-out will augment the current network in Mumbai by 30%, taking the total number of sites in the city to 27,000. The company is also including the addition of 400 KMs of fresh fiber to add to the optic fiber footprint in the city.
Commenting on the same, Amit Tripathi, Chief Executive Officer – Mumbai, Bharti Airtel Ltd said
As part of our endeavour to build a future-ready network to deliver a best-in-class experience to our customers, we are stepping up investments considerably by adding 7000 new sites and 10 MHz of TDD LTE spectrum. Airtel has pioneered the rollout of Massive MIMO in India and we are now undertaking large-scale deployments of the cutting-edge technology in key business and residential hubs across Mumbai. This will truly add to the smartphone experience for Airtel customers in the city.