Bharti Airtel (Airtel) has beaten Mukesh Ambani’s Jio as the country’s first telco to successfully demonstrate & orchestrate LIVE 5G service over a commercial network in Hyderabad. Airtel used its existing liberalised spectrum in the 1800 MHz band through the NSA (Non Stand Alone) network technology to demonstrate Airtel 5G.
“Using a first of its kind, dynamic spectrum sharing, Airtel seamlessly operated 5G and 4G concurrently within the same spectrum block. This demonstration has emphatically validated the 5G readiness of Airtel’s network across all domains – Radio, Core and Transport,” states Airtel release.
“Airtel 5G is capable of delivering 10x speeds, 10x latency and 100x concurrency when compared to existing technologies. Specifically, in Hyderabad, users were able to download a full length movie in a matter of seconds on a 5G phone. This demonstration has underlined the company’s technology capabilities. The full impact of the 5G experience, however, will be available to our customers, when adequate spectrum is available and government approvals received,” adds the release.
Arch rival Reliance Jio has announced its intentions to introduce in-house and homegrown 5G technologies in 2021 but is yet to demonstrate it.
