Vodafone has brought its 4G platform to Bengaluru, effectively completing the first phase of its 4G rollout in India. Like before, it’ll begin providing the high-speed network in a phased manner gradually in the city and complete this process by March 2016.
Vodafone 4G is now available in 5 circles namely Kerala, Karnataka, Delhi-NCR, Kolkata and Mumbai through the 1800Mhz band. The regions apparently contribute to 30% of industry revenues and roughly 50% of the company’s data revenue. The brand has apparently invested over Rs 725 crore over the past 18 months in Karnataka.
Vodafone will be up against Idea Cellular and Airtel in Bengaluru. The former began offering its 4G network in the metro only a few weeks ago. It had initially launched its platform back in December in South India before moving on to the northern regions. The latter had commercially kickstarted its LTE services across the country quite a while back.
Reliance Jio is another serious rival for Vodafone in the 4G segment. The new venture has begun propagating its LTE bandwidth among its employees only and is expected to formally announce its pan-India release in March this year. It’s already listed its 4G-ready smartphones on its website and previous reports had alleged that it would provide fast speeds to its users.
Also See: Reliance Jio 4G may threaten Airtel, Vodafone premium market share
Vodafone is at a severe disadvantage when it comes to LTE reach as it has access to only 5 circles in the nation. Earlier speculation had hinted that it was looking to buy Tikona’s 4G spectrum, but this has not been officially confirmed. If the alleged deal goes through, it’ll double its coverage to the Gujarat, UP (East), UP (West), Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh circles.