Operator Bharti Airtel began re-farming mid-band spectrum previously used for 4G LTE service to expand 5G capacity on the 1800, 2100 and 2300MHz bands across India to keep up with rising traffic.
Airtel CTO Randeep Sekhon noted the move is driven by more customers shifting to 5G services, adding it is ready to launch standalone (SA) technology, making it the first in India to run both SA and non-standalone 5G networks.
The operator said more customers are using 5G service, but offered no fresh count since disclosing in early October 2023 5G subs reached 50 million.
At end-March, total mobile subscribers rose 5 per cent year-on-year to 352.3 million, with post-paid subs growing 17.5 per cent to 23.1 million.
Last week, Airtel worked with Nokia to complete a non-standalone 5G cloud RAN trial using 3.5GHz spectrum.
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