Jio Remains the Only Factor in Indian Telecom for My Interest!

I am writing on telecom stuffs since 2008, and that time I found the interest in it because I was a student with limited pocket money. I was an active member of Forumz.in (founded by Gabu, and now the forum is out of internet) and there I met Tarun PK with similar interest. Tarun was that time already running a small portal called Telecomtalk.info with negligible reader base.

I joined on the Team Telecomtalk in 2009 - perfect timing for Indian telecom as many new companies were started to invest money in this sector, thanks to A. Raja, the then telecom minister who sold airwaves to new companies at a cheap price. The new entrants were Swan Telecom, backed by Etisalat (Cheers); Shiva Group, backed by Batelco (S Tel); Videocon Telecom; Sistema Shyam Teleservices; Unitech, partnered with Telenor, Loop Telecom, Tata Tele's GSM venture with NTT Docomo.

Anyway we know what happened later - in February 2012 Supreme Court cancelled the most of the licenses and few stayed in the battlefield.

Idea Plans for 4G-LTE in 8 Circles Initially, Pre-Booking offer of FREE 1GB

Idea Cellular, country's leading 2G & 3G GSM mobile service provider is serious to bring 4G to its customers. Initially Idea will launch 4G in 8 circles - Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Orissa, Kerala, Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh.

You can pre-register on Idea's website: http://www.ideacellular.com/new-offers/idea-4g-coming-soon and can grab 1GB 4G data.

CDMA Sunset - Across the Globe CDMA Networks Shutting Down

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As technology grows, old ones become obsolete and new ones are welcomed. Same is happening with CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access). The death of CDMA was filed a long ago in 2008 when Qualcomm, the company behind CDMA stopped R&D on UMB - the next of CDMA family favoring LTE as future.

LTE2100 - The New Trend in Global LTE Rollouts

Globally LTE deployments going on in the fastest way and the new trend is LTE2100 (FDD). The trend is something major that GSA, the Global mobile Suppliers Association, published its first status report about the development of LTE in 2.1 GHz, known as 3GPP band 1.

Common deployment trend at present: 
LTE FDD : 1800, 800, 2600 and 2100 MHz
LTE TDD : 2300, 3500 MHz

The reason behind the interest in LTE2100:

Airtel Has Launched Both LTE-TD and LTE-FDD Networks in the Country

As Reliance Jio's 4G launch is due on December this year, Airtel is all its boots working to expand its 4G coverage. Unless you missed the point Airtel has rolled out services in certain circles where Airtel does not have 2.3GiHz spectrum like Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Chennai, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and North East. However in 2014 and 2015 Airtel has acquired tech neutral 1.8GiHz spectrum in these circles. 

So let me point down the possibilities of Airtel's 4G network in these circles. 

1. Airtel deployed LTE-FDD on 1.8GiHz band. (From the beginning of 2015 Airtel's LTE-FDD launch was on radar, first they partnered with Nokia Networks and then there was news that Airtel is running trials in Chennai with NN)

2. Airtel can use Aircel or Reliance Jio's LTE-TDD network in these circles under ICRA. The scope of this point is very little as Aircel's 4G is still on beta testing mode and only available in Chennai; and Jio's 4G network yet to be launched for mass use. 

So definitely Airtel has launched its own FDD-LTE network in these 5 circles (Andra Pradesh, Tamilnadu and Chennai, Himachal Pradesh, Orissa and North East) and may be in other circles where Airtel already has presence with LTE-TD network as a supplementation. 

Please check this table, hopefully you can understand the Airtel's 4G circles in a better way. 

** Airtel now has 2.3GiHz spectrum in 9 circles. In 2010 they won in 4 circles, got another 4 by acquiring Qualcomm's venture in India and recently bought Augere India's single circle of Madhya Pradesh & Chattisgarh. 

** FDD-NB stands for Narrow Band FDD roll out in circles where Airtel has less than 5MHz of spectrum on 1.8GiHz band.

** Airtel becomes the first operator in the country to roll out LTE-TD network (in Kolkata, in April 2012), first operator to roll out LTE-FDD commercially and the first operator to own both types of LTE networks in the country. 

Reliance Jio's Jionet Free WiFi Review [Shyambazar]

Jio is now present all over the Kolkata - you can see their OFC covers in the roads, can find Jio's 4G signal live and can enjoy Jionet Wifi in many locations across Kolkata. 

Recently I found that Jionet is live near Shyambazar also. So I jumped into the free WiFi to test as well as for my usual browsing and downloading. 

Now connecting to Jionet is easy, start your WiFi/WLAN on your device, you will see Jionet live and just connect and log in. Logging in Jionet is easy - open your browser, try to open any webpage and it will be redirected to Jionet log in page. There you type your mobile no, Jio will send a OTP as text message and verify it on the log in page and you're in. 

Speedtest.net app: 

Speedtest.net requires no introduction and no speed test is not complete without this famous site's testing. So let me start with Speedtest.net app.

Reliance Jio 4G LTE Network Trials Going On: Signal Live Across Kolkata