India's Bharti Airtel has announced a major expansion of its network footprint in West Bengal as part of its Project Leap network transformation initiative.
The operator plans to roll out 10,000 new mobile sites in the region in the current financial year ending in March, the equivalent of one new mobile site per hour.
Airtel deployed over 7,200 sites in the region last financial year, and laid 1,100km of optical fiber. The network now reached 51,000 towns and villages across Bengal, and launched VoLTE services in Kolkata in December.
Airtel meanwhile plans to start deploying pre-5G Massive MIMO technology in Kolkata at major business hubs and residential locations in the city, expanding its network capacity of 5-7 times over the same spectrum.
As part of our endeavor to build a future ready network to deliver best-in-class experience to our customers, we are stepping up our network investments across West Bengal,” Airtel CEO for West Bengal and Odisha Sameer Anjaria said.
“Airtel has pioneered the rollout of Massive MIMO in India and we will now undertake wide scale deployments of the cutting-edge technology in key business and residential hubs across Kolkata. This will truly add to the smartphone experience for Airtel customers.”