2024-10-17 05:30:11 :
Purchase orders for 5G equipment have been placed, equipment is expected to be supplied in the first week of next month, and deployment will begin in the second half of November. The orders have been placed with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung as part of a $3.6 billion network equipment deal announced by the operator last month.
“By December, we will have 5G. Delhi and Mumbai will be first and major towns in all 17 circles will be covered.” Jagbir Singh, chief technology officer of the company, in an exclusive interaction with the media express. Mint. He added that around 15,000 5G sites will be set up by March or April, eventually making it the third operator to offer 5G after Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel.
Avneesh Khosla, chief marketing officer of Vi, said that Vi is evaluating the pricing strategy for its 5G service, including the option of offering the service for free to existing 4G customers for a period of time.
“All options are on the table. Ultimately, what it comes down to is we’ve invested a lot in technology and we want to monetize it.” Mint. Larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel started charging for unlimited 5G in June this year, when all operators increased package tariffs by 10-21%, but since the launch of 5G services in October 2022, they have offered The tariff is the same as 4G.
Attract customers to come back
Khosla said the purpose of 5G is to win back customers who have left their networks to competitors while acquiring new subscribers, since only about 200 million of the more than 950 million total 4G subscribers use 5G. He also pointed out that customers who initially shifted to BSNL from Vodafone Idea after the tariff hike have started returning to the network.
“It’s important to provide the right narrative for our 5G services and we believe we have left that legacy. We are a brand built on two very different entities.” When asked if Vi would return to Vodafone and he said as Idea merged its previous signature marketing strategy.
Khosla said Vi is evaluating offering fixed wireless access (FWA) as a means of monetizing 5G because it offers a good return on investment, although the high cost of equipment remains a challenge. Rival telcos Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have launched FWA services to provide an alternative to fixed broadband.
“As one of the options, we can leverage You Broadband for installation and service delivery. But we need to evaluate and evaluate FWA,” he said. You Broadband is a subsidiary of Vodafone Idea and provides fixed line broadband services in various circles in India.
Vi, proposed $Rs 18,000 crore earmarked in India’s largest follow-on public issue $50,000- $Back in April, capital expenditure on 4G and 5G reached Rs 55,000 crore over three years. Since then, approximately 105,000 sites have started offering 4G services, and 30,000 more sites will come up by March.
“We are also building an additional 50,000 kilometers of fiber network and IPing the network, which will provide us with higher available bandwidth from towers and access points, which will help with our data growth now and in the future,” Orders for fiber deployment have also been placed as part of the capital expenditure plan, Singh added.
At the same time, telecom operators will completely stop providing 3G services during the same period, and about 9,000 cross-circle sites will be closed and switched to 4G.
“We are fully prepared for network deployment. Service requests have been issued to tower companies (Indus, ATC, etc.) and they will start delivering (leases) from the end of October.”
exclude China
The new tower will be completed after January, when we will begin the second phase of the expansion, expected to take place in the next financial year.
While it has not yet signed new contracts with Chinese suppliers, Vi will not completely dismantle its existing Chinese equipment, which is far from the end of its useful life and will continue to be serviced by Huawei and ZTE. In circles such as Delhi and Mumbai, the Chinese company’s equipment will be replaced by equipment from European suppliers and then redeployed in circles where additional 4G capacity is needed.
Delhi and Kerala, which previously had Huawei networks, have been awarded to Ericsson, while Bihar, Karnataka and Punjab have been awarded to Samsung. Chennai was given to Nokia. Some circles like Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which were partly serviced by Chinese players, have now been handed over to European vendors.
Singh said Chinese equipment in its core network has been completely replaced and Vi is conducting trials using Tata Group-backed Tejas Networks radios to integrate them into its own network in an effort to adopt more Indian-made network products. The trial will last for one year before commercial deployment begins.
Khosla said Vi would not consider selling phones or smartphones on its own and bundling its plans, but it would be open to working with smartphone partners in the entry-level and high-end segments, including Apple and Samsung, to win customer share.
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