Airtel launched 4G LTE services in Pune last October, and rolled out the 4G TD-LTE service in Kolkata, Bengaluru and Punjab, but it doesn’t support voice or SMS currently. Earlier this year Airtel had announced that they would offer voice services for 4G customers in Pune. The company recently shared on Twitter that they plan to introduce 4G services for customers with 4G-enabled smartphones.
Only for #airtel #Bangalore mobile customers, enjoy #airtel4G on #LTE enabled smartphones in 3 weeks. More details to follow soon!
— Airtel India (@airtelindia) December 5, 2013
Airtel appointed Nokia Siemens Networks to deploy Circuit Switched FallBack (CSFB) voice solution for the TD-LTE network in Pune. Huawei manages Airtel’s LTE network in Karnataka, so it would be responsible to implement voice services on their LTE network.
Huawei launched the Ascend P1 LTE as India’s LTE smartphone, in partnership with Airtel at the Innovation Qualcomm India 2012 last year, but the smartphone has not been released yet. There are chances for Huawei to launch the device later this month in Bangalore. There are also reports that Reliance Jio and Airtel are testing low cost 4G smartphones manufactured by ZTE.
The tweet says that they would launch the services in Bangalore in three weeks. Airtel has promised to share more details soon.