Airtel said its 5G services are now available in over 3,500 cities and towns across India

Indian operator Bharti Airtel said the company has completed the minimum rollout obligation of launching 5G services on the 26 GHz spectrum band in all 22 telecom circles, in accordance with the rules set by India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

“With broader 5G opportunities enabled by 26 GHz, the company is poised to continuously drive innovation to create the ultimate Airtel 5G Plus experience for its customers,” the company said in a statement.

Airtel said its 5G services are now available in over 3,500 cities and towns across India, surpassing the 10 million unique customer mark at a national level. The company also said it aims to cover every town and key rural areas in India by September 2023.

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

Airtel 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 previous auction carried out by the Indian government.

Earlier this week, rival operator Reliance Jio Infocomm announced that it has completed the nationwide deployment of its 5G service ahead of schedule.

In a release, the telco said that it has completed its minimum rollout obligations in each of the 22 Licensed Service Areas (LSA), across each of the spectrum bands, ahead of the December 2023 date stipulated in the spectrum auction that concluded in August 2022.

Reliance Jio Infocomm has been rapidly expanding its 5G network using Standalone (SA) architecture since October 2022. The telco has already deployed its 5G service in 6,258 cities across 36 states in India, according to the carrier’s website.

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

Vodafone Idea and Adani Data Networks, are yet to meet the rollout obligations. The DoT is considering the possibility to fine these companies if they failed to fulfill with the roll-out obligations, according to local press reports.

Telecom operators in India have already installed over 300,000 5G mobile sites nationwide within 10 months of launch of the service, the country’stelecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said.

The 5G sites have been installed across 714 districts in India. Official data showed that 100,000 5G sites were installed within five months and 200,000 sites within eight months of the launch of service.