Bharti Airtel has embarked on a journey to deploy new technologies like Self Optimization Network (SON), GEO analytical tools and Carrier Aggregation (CA) and HR on Cloud to provide improved network experience to its users.
SON has been launched in top 16 cities whereas GEO analytical tools has been launched in top 22 cities. Airtel has pioneered customer demand centric network planning and densification by getting visibility of the network consumption on granular 50m x 50m grid. This has helped in ensuring deployment of new sites, small cells in corridors of high consumption, thus improving efficiency of the new deployments.
Airtel’s network is truly heterogeneous as it has a complex mesh of technology. The deployment of Self Optimization Network (SON) enabled automation of network optimisation has helped in ensuring availability of resources as per user demand. It has also enabled dynamic configuration of the network for seamless handovers in 3G and 2G network, thus reducing the drop calls and improving efficiency of the available spectrum and network capacity.
Airtel has deployed 4G Advanced Carrier Aggregation technology in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Sikkim and Tamil Nadu for superior 4G experience. This has combined the bandwidth capacities of 2300 MHz (TD LTE) and 1800 MHz (FD LTE) band.
Airtel claims to be the first to do Carrier aggregation (FD+TD) with commercial device (Samsung Note-5) achieving a speed of 135 Mbps and now its present 450 towns. The company has successfully tested LAA Carrier aggregation (40 MHz (LTE-U 5 GHz) + 5 MHz (LTE 1800)), achieving a speed of more than 250 Mbps. This technology adoption and innovation helped Bharti Airtel to manage the spectrum efficiently and provide best in the class network experience to its customers.
Airtel is also the first company in India to launch 3G (2100 MHz + 2100 MHz) dual carrier implementation achieving a speed of 42 Mbps in Delhi, Rajasthan, Bihar, Tamil Nadu & Chennai and Jammu & Kashmir.
On the IT side, Airtel has also implemented ‘HR on Cloud’, a state-of-the-art HR system from Oracle, which enables the company to manage all people processes seamlessly. The best people practices are hard-coded and all employees have been empowered with easy-to-use tools that are personalised, digital and social, delivering insights across the entire employee lifecycle.
Bharti Airtel’s capital expenditure for the full year FY2016-17 was Rs. 19,875 crore ($3 Bn), compared to Rs. 20,592 crore in the previous year. In FY2016-17, Bharti Airtel has deployed 90,000 sites (including 8,000 swap sites), more than 35,000 km of incremental fiber rolled out last year, Airtel now has more than 550,000 km of domestic and international fiber creating a powerful backbone for data and internet services in additional to voice.
All this has helped Airtel to launch 3G and 4G across all 22 circles in India with 4G TD & FD in 18 circles. The company also provide world class indoor experience by launching platinum 3G on 900 MHz in Mumbai, Kolkata, Karnataka and Punjab.
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