Bharti Airtel expects that the 5G technology would generate more revenue in the B2B segment compared to the B2C segment in the coming year

Indian carrier Bharti Airtel is engaged in talks with nearly 50 companies to co-develop enterprise use cases in the 5G field, local newspaper The Economic Times reported, citing Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO at Airtel Enterprise Business.

According to the executive, Bharti Airtel expects that the 5G technology will generate more revenue in the business-to-business (B2B) segment compared to the business-to-consumer (B2C) segment in the coming year.

The executive noted that Airtel is having talks with firms operating in different sectors including manufacturing, healthcare and banking.

“I think 5G will bring a huge opportunity. Every industry is thinking through what problems they could solve through 5G,” the executive was quoted as saying.

Bharti Airtel’s Airtel 5G Plus service is available to customers in over 500 cities in the country, according to recent press reports.

Airtel also said it is working towards offering nationwide coverage and expects to cover every town and key rural area with 5G by the end of March 2024.

In October 2022, Bharti Airtel initially launched 5G services in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Siliguri, Nagpur and Varanasi.

The carrier is currently using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services. The Indian operator had secured a total of 19,800 megahertz of spectrum in the 900 MHz, 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz, 3.3 GHz and 26 GHz bands in a recent auction carried out by the Indian government.

Meanwhile, rival operator Reliance Jio Infocomm is also providing 5G service in over 500 cities across India.

Jio is offering the 5G connectivity on an invitational basis, with users living in 5G-enabled cities who have 5G compatible smartphones receiving invitations.

The telco had initially announced the launch of the beta trial of its 5G services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi in October last year. Jio, which is offering 5G services via Standalone (SA) architecture, has announced plans to reach nationwide coverage with 5G by December 2023.

Last year, Reliance Jio Infocomm announced 5G contracts with Nordic vendors Ericsson and Nokia. The deal with Ericsson marked the first partnership between Jio and Ericsson for Radio Access Network deployment in the country.

Reliance Jio had previously secured a mix of wireless spectrum for 5G across 700 MHz, 3.5 GHz, and 26 GHz bands. Jio is the only operator with the 700 MHz low-band spectrum.

India will achieve 100% coverage for 5G services by the end of December 2024, the country’s communications minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, recently said.

The official said that telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm aim to complete their 5G network deployments within the next 15 months.