Bharti Airtel plans to expand its optical fibre footprint in Tamil Nadu as the telecommunications provider aims to improve network connectivity in the State.
“Currently, we have a fibre footprint of 14,000 km in Tamil Nadu and with the roll-out of 3,000 km of fresh optic fibre, it would touch 17,000 km in the next three years,” said Ajai Puri, COO, India and South Asia.
Pan-India investment
He said the company planned to invest ₹24,000 crore to ₹26,000 crore pan-India in mobile network sites, capacities, fibre roll- out and digitalisation among others. The current year will also see Bharti unveil 12,000 new mobile sites across the State to add to network capacity and take high-speed data services deeper into rural areas.
“This will effectively translate into 32 new Airtel mobile sites going ‘live’ every day across the state which would add to a superior network experience for customers,” he said.
On Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH), he said Bharti Airtel plans to add another 10 million homes in the next two years and give its customer an experience of speed of 300 mbps to 1 gigabyte per second. Currently, it has existing base of 8-9 million.
Over the last few quarter, Bharti Airtel had gained 3.5% market share in Tamil Nadu and continues to be in the lead. “We have a consolidated market share of 31.8% with over 20 million customers and revenue market share of 36%. We have the largest network in the state with mobile broadband covering of 95% of the population. Our high speed mobile services are present in 41,000 villages and over 1,100 towns and cities across the State,” he said.
Talking about Airtel 3.0, he said it is investing in digital content, digital experience, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence to give the customers a different kind of experience.
