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Business News/ Industry / Telecom/  Bharti Airtel’s 4G leaves much to be desired
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Bharti Airtel’s 4G leaves much to be desired

The service is in the trial or beta stage for now and costs the same as a 3G service. But as far as consistency and quality goes, there is much to be desired.

Airtel rolled out the service on the 2300MHz spectrum band that it acquired from Qualcomm last year. The TDD-LTE variant of 4G technology promises speed of as much as 80Mbps. Photo: Mint Premium
Airtel rolled out the service on the 2300MHz spectrum band that it acquired from Qualcomm last year. The TDD-LTE variant of 4G technology promises speed of as much as 80Mbps.
Photo: Mint

New Delhi: It’s been almost a month since India’s largest telco Bharti Airtel Ltd rolled out its 4G services in the national capital region on 18 June. While the number of users may be negligible so far, the 4G services offer significant improvements in data speed over wireless devices.

Airtel rolled out the service on the 2300MHz spectrum band that it acquired from Qualcomm last year. The TDD-LTE variant of 4G technology promises speed of as much as 80Mbps.

The service is in the trial or beta stage for now and costs the same as a 3G service. But as far as consistency and quality goes, there is much to be desired.

While most popular, crowded or commercial areas seem to be well connected, with download speeds going up to 23Mbps in Khan Market, the Connaught Place inner circle and major traffic crossings such as Dhaula Kuan, the speed seems to go no higher than 5Mbps in residential areas of Vasant Kunj, Dwarka or Gurgaon. Some areas in east Delhi, including Noida and Mayur Vihar, seem to be getting the best speed consistently—above 30Mbps.

If you got a micro SIM card installed in your phone in the last six months or so, chances are that your phone is 4G compatible. Since the roll-out of the 4G service in the city, I have been alternating between 4G LTE, 3G and WiFi networks at home. At no point in the last one month did I get full signal when my phone was set to LTE. I had to shift back to 3G just to be able to make calls or receive emails. But that’s part of what beta testing is. Bharti seems to have put up some nodes (antennas) for the service and as usage picks up, they will put up more and more.

But the biggest problem with using 4G is the drain on one’s phone battery. Because of the relatively low network capacity installed by the operator, the phone’s battery seems to drain much faster than when you are on another network. And then there is the data usage aspect. With data speeds being higher, consumption is also seemingly much higher. While usually I hit my data limit towards the end of the billing month, with LTE, I crossed the limit within 12-15 days.

The good thing though is that 3G services and speeds seem to be slightly better, maybe because of less congestion (with some users moving to 4G) or because Bharti is doing something about it for a change.

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Published: 17 Jul 2015, 10:03 AM IST
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