Spectrum Refarming for LTE Extended to 900 MHz, to be to 2100MHz

Airtel, presently India's 2nd largest mobile operator has refarmed spectrum on 900MHz (band 8) band in Mumbai to roll out LTE900 as announced on February 15th. The LTE network of Airtel in Mumbai will get further boost as the company will install 7000 new BTS as well as 400km of fiber optic line across the metro circle. With carrier aggregation of 3CA and pre-5G massive MIMO Airtel's LTE network is capable of delivering world class services. Under Project Leap, Airtel is transforming the LTE network with massive MIMO and CA since 2018. 

Currently Airtel is working with its network partners Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and ZTE to bring LTE900 to another 9 circles - Delhi, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, North-East, Assam and Rajasthan in phased manner. It should be noted that Airtel already refarmed spectrum on 1800MHz usually used for 2G, for LTE deployment. 

That will bring Airtel's LTE network over 2300MHz, 1800MHz and 900MHz at par with Jio's LTE network. Later's LTE signal flies over 2300MHz, 1800MHz and 850MHz. Vodafone Idea will also follow the suit, as post merger they have ample of 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz spectrum. However Vodafone Idea's main LTE signals are on 1800MHz and 2300/2500MHz. 


Airtel recently had made a deal with Ciena to build one of world’s largest optical spine and leaf networks, ''which is also a big step towards 5G readiness by leveraging our huge fiber assets,” Randeep Sekhon, CTO – Bharti Airtel said. 

Indus Fiber in Making ?

Last month during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Bharti Airtel Chairman and founder Sunil Mittal officially invited Vodafone for a partnership in India for sharing optical fiber resources and telecom infrastructure.

5G Trial : Airtel & Nokia 

Airtel also picked up Finland's gear maker Nokia for to trial a homogenous fronthaul solution for 4G and 5G and enterprise services through a common platform to make its network future ready.

Interestingly Jio also made a similar deal with Ciena to upgrade and manage its OFC network better to gear up FTTx connectivity before commercial launch of Jio's fiber services, GigaFiber. 

Airtel also informed to DNA India that they will refarm 2100MHz spectrum for LTE in 20 circles. 

Newly formed entity, Vodafone Idea, which is now country's largest operator is not sitting idle. They are also deploying Massive MIMO and CA across the country. In Delhi NCR region Vodafone Idea installed 4000 new BTS including small cells with MIMO support as informed on February 25th. On March 11th, they announced similar development in Mumbai circle also - deployment of more than 5000 massive MIMO, small cells and TDD sites across Church gate, Prabhadevi, Pali hill, Lokhandwala, Versova, Andheri, Jogeshwari, Bandra and Dadar among other regions.That includes more than 1900 indoor coverage solutions for high rises and commercial places. Vishant Vora, CTO, Vodafone India explained,''Mumbai just got 2 times faster''.

Recent Ookla report for Q3-Q4 2018, revealed:

4G Speed: Rank #1 Airtel (average speed 11.23Mbps), #2 Vodafone (9.13Mbps), #3 Jio (7.11Mbps)
4G Availability: Rank #1 Jio (98.8%), #2 Airtel (90%), #3 Vodafone (84.6%), #4 Idea (82.8%)


What is Massive MIMO?

Regular MIMO (multiple input multiple output) is generally 2x2 (2 anttenas for input/output each) or 4x4. But Massive MIMO is usually 16x16 or 64x64. A 64x64 configuration can offer 8x boost in uplink and 5x boost in download speed, as per Nokia . 


Band 3 - 1800MHz
Band 5 - 850MHz
Band 40 - 2300MHz
Band 41 - 2500MHz
Band 8 - 900MHz