Airtel's LTE900 Running in Bengaluru: Excellent Indoor Speed

Last month I was in Bangalore, and I found that for indoor coverage Airtel has deployed 900MHz band. LTE900 is running commercial by Airtel in Bangalore. Read more about Airtel's LTE900.

Like in Kolkata, Airtel is using 5MHz of 900MHz band (band 8) for FDD LTE along with LTE-TD 2300MHz and LTE-FDD 1800MHz.

I did not made a speedtest with Airtel LTE900 as I was bit low on data and in hurry. However as per my experience it is quite good. More than 3Mbps was the download speed although my usage.

Vodafone Idea Testing LTE 3 CA in Kolkata

Vodafone Idea, the merged entity is never been a talk of the town for its LTE footprints. Vodafone is considered as best metro coverage on 2G and 3G and Idea is good in rural areas, but when it comes to 4G - these operators never became a frontrunner. They wait, watch and implement.

However as Jio is ruling in the country with extensive 4G coverage of 98.8% and Vodafone and Idea stands at a distant 84.6% and 82.8%, the merged entity is now gearing up to shorten the coverage gap.

It's been heard from Vodafone Idea that they are strengthening their LTE network by adding more sites, small cells, massive MIMO and carrier aggregation.

It's really interesting to see Vodafone Idea is following Airtel's steps to refarm 900MHz or may be 2100MHz to add a new carrier to its existing LTE deployment of 2CA. It's now 3CA. And I don't know what is the third carrier on Vodafone Idea's LTE network.

Airtel Testing LTE 900 (Band 8) in Kolkata

Airtel has launched LTE900 in Mumbai and Punjab circle officially, and another some circles will see Airtel's LTE900 go live in coming days. Airtel is refarming spectrum on 900MHz which is being used for 2G in most circles and 3G in some circles. This is second refarming on 900MHz by Airtel. 

Airtel's LTE900 will be an answer to Jio's LTE850, both can provide better indoor coverage and extended LTE coverage. It should be noted that Jio which is a pure play LTE operator has 98.8% of LTE coverage while Airtel stands second with 90.0%, as informed by Ookla.

Today I have checked Airtel's signals, and even inside the house Airtel's LTE is detected as LTE 3CA. Though I could not find or latch into Airtel's LTE900 my guess is the third carrier of Airtel LTE is on 900MHz, apart from 2300MHz and 1800MHz.