The country’s largest telecom services provider Bharti Airtel on Monday announced that it will invest Rs 60,000 crore over the next three-years to upgrade its networks with an aim to provide better quality services to its subscribers amid increasing competition.
“The programme, called Project Leap, will see a network transformation. Large parts of this investment will improve voice and data services,” Bharti Airtel Managing Director and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said, adding that the money for investment will be raised largely through cash accruals and includes the capital expenditure target of about USD 2.2 billion for the current fiscal year.
This investment will be in addition to the Rs 1,60,000 crore the company has already invested in its active and passive network, spectrum, fiber, submarine cables and systems till date.
The announcement comes amid rising complaints of frequent call drops faced by the customers. The government had in fact pointed out that lack of investments in networks by operators is primary reason for poor quality of services. Besides, Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio is also expected to launch 4G operations this fiscal, which will intensify the competition in the already crowded Indian telecom sector.
“We have seen improvement in quality of network in the last six months. I would like to reiterate that we are not where we need to be. There are locations and localities where we still struggle...we are working with all the concerned authorities,” Mr Vittal said.
Under Project Leap, Airtel will deploy over 70,000 base stations in the current fiscal -- its largest deployment in a single year since inception, while over three years, more than 1,60,000 base stations will be put up across the country.
Asked if the company is going to invest a part of this fund for spectrum acquisition, Mr Vittal said there was no immediate need as the company had bought sufficient spectrum in the last couple of years. There are only some telecom circles with gap in airwaves and hence the company may buy airwaves in those circles in future.
Airtel said it will expand its mobile broadband coverage to all towns and over 250,000 villages by March, and in three years, it plans to offer mobile broadband to over 500,000 villages in the country.
To improve indoor experience, the operator will deploy a range of solutions including small cells, carrier aggregation solutions, wi-fi and the use of multiple technologies across different spectrum bands.
“Over a period of three years, we plan to deploy over 1,00,000 solutions through a combination of wi-fi hotspots, small cells and indoor solutions,” Mr Vittal said.
Airtel will cumulatively deploy more than 5,50,000 kms of domestic and international fiber and will swap its legacy networks and base stations over a three year period and replace them with efficient technologies.
The company will also modernise its home broadband network by upgrading its copper assets through new age Vectoring Technology. This technology will enable Airtel to offer 50 Mbps speeds from its current 16 Mbps by 2016.
