Vodafone India has officially announced its plans to expand its network reach by acquiring more spectrum across the country. The telecom operator is currently trying to decide whether to go about this agenda via the trading, sharing or action route.
Vodafone CEO Sunil Sood says that the brand currently feels the need to increase its portfolio. It’s 4G reach is only restricted to 5 circles namely Kerala, Delhi & NCR, Karnataka, Mumbai and Kolkata. Competitors like Airtel and Idea have a far bigger LTE network covering several circles.
For now, Vodafone is planning to extend its 4G coverage to Gujarat, UP East, West Bengal and Haryana soon. Once this phase hits completion, the network player will be accessible across 1000 towns by the end of the year. The addition of the 4 circles brings the company’s reach to 9, effectively covering 70% of its data revenues.
Sood also went on to answer queries about the issue of call drops. The problem hit headlines recently when the Supreme Court decided to favor telecom companies and quash TRAI’s compensation regulation. He claims that Vodafone has seen a 40% improvement in the menace and a 35% reduction in complaints regarding it.
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Furthermore, Vodafone is apparently hard at work trying to resolve call drops in its platform. It’s supposedly invested nearly Rs 2000 crore into the Delhi-NCR and Mumbai circles to develop its fiber network and cellular tower sites.
In terms of numbers, Rs 1000 crore has been sunk into Delhi and Rs 1261 in Mumbai over the course of the past year. Vodafone has added 3185 sites and 600km of fiber network in the former, while the latter has seen the addition of 4963 sites and 250km of fiber.