Bhubaneswar: The last time I wrote to you was when India was in the middle of a difficult COVID wave. Telecom was essential to help you lead your life. Be it working from home, studying from home, being entertained or shopping online, our people were proud to serve you at that time of need.
Today, however, I am excited to be writing to you under happier circumstances. Within a few weeks, we will commence the launch of our next generation technology, Airtel 5G. Some of you have asked me questions about what 5G will do for you and how you can get it. Let me try and answer these questions for you.
Airtel 5G will deliver dramatically higher speeds compared to a 4G network. It could be anywhere between 20 to 30 times the speed you get today. This will allow you to boot up an application or download a heavy file in no time.
Airtel 5G will also enable differential quality for special requirements, something called network slicing. So, if you are a gamer, and want a flawless experience, we will be able to slice the network for you. Or if you are working from home and want a consistent experience, we will deliver it for you.
The Airtel 5G network is being built keeping in mind your smartphone and you. So there are three clear advantages.
First, of the two 5G technologies, we have chosen a specific 5G technology that has the widest eco-system in the world. This means that all 5G smartphones in India will work on the Airtel network without any glitch. This will be true even when you travel abroad with your Airtel 5G enabled phone. In other technologies, it is possible that as many as four out of ten 5G phones don’t support 5G.
Second, we are confident of raising the bar on the experience we deliver to you. Over the last few years, our 4G network has been consistently rated the best in speed, video and gaming experience by independent rating agencies. We have used this strength to bring the expertise of our best engineers, built state-of-the-art tools and conducted numerous first-of-its-kind trials across several cities and use cases to ensure that your Airtel 5G experience is incomparable.
Finally, we will be kinder to the environment. All of us are now struggling with extreme heat and unpredictable rains caused by climate change. This problem is now real. So we have signed on to an ambitious goal of lowering our carbon footprint in the next few decades. As a result, the 5G solution we have chosen will be the most energy and carbon efficient in India.
We expect to launch our 5G services within a month. By December, we should have coverage in the key metros. After that we will expand rapidly to cover the entire country. We expect to cover all of urban India by the end of 2023. If you want to know the availability of 5G in your town, you will be able to check it on the Airtel Thanks App and see whether your phone and city is 5G ready. This feature will be available on our app with the 5G launch.
Most smartphones that are more than a year old do not have a 5G chipset. However, new smartphones that are now in India are mostly 5G enabled. So, if you are buying a new smartphone, do check whether it is 5G enabled.
Then enable 5G settings. In order to enable 5G on your phone, go to the settings tab and get to connections or mobile network. You will be shown a choice to pick 5G in addition to 4G or LTE. Select that mode and you are ready. Your Airtel SIM is already 5G enabled. So it will work seamlessly on your 5G smart phone. I look forward to any suggestions or feedback that you may have and thank you for giving us the privilege to serve you.
