Idea Cellular extends 4G services to 10 licence areas

New Delhi: Idea Cellular Ltd, India’s third largest telco, on Wednesday said it had completed deployment of its 4G services in 10 of the 22 licence areas in India.

“With this launch, the company has delivered on its promise to launch its 4G LTE services in 10 circles within Financial year 2015-16, which covers 50% of Indian mobility market but over 60% of Idea’s revenue,” the company said in a statement post the launch. LTE is short for long-term evolution, a technology standard.

Idea was the second major telco to start deploying 4G services after Bharti Airtel Ltd. The Aditya Birla Group company started deployment on 23 December in the four circles of Andhra Pradesh (and Telangana), Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu (and Chennai). This was followed by the northern circles Madhya Pradesh (and Chhattisgarh), Punjab and Haryana in February, and later Orissa and the North-East. The last circle where Idea started 4G services was the Maharashtra and Goa circle.

“Presently available in over 300 towns, Idea aims to exit the financial year covering over 550 towns in these 10 circles, and plans to extend the 4G footprint to over 750 towns by June 2016,” the company statement added.

To fund the 4G rollout, Idea has increased its capex forecast by ₹ 1,000 crore to ₹ 7,500 crore for the current financial year.

The telco was expected to roll out services in Gujarat and Western Uttar Pradesh circles using spectrum it was to acquire from Videocon but has now terminated that agreement.