Aircel Cellular became the only other operator in India other than Bharti Airtel to launch 4G services, overtaking Reliance Industries’ Jio Infocomm, which is yet to launch services.
The Chennai based company launched its 4G services in four circles, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Odisha.
“With this launch, Aircel will now offer services under all the three existing technologies of 2G, 3G and 4G LTE bringing it at par with global telecommunication offerings,” it said.
Airtel too has launched 4G in around four circles, including Karnataka and Kolkata.
Aircel holds 20MHz of spectrum in the 4G LTE 2300 MHz band across eight circles – Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Assam and North East and Jammu and Kashmir.
“With the launch of 4G LTE services, Aircel is well placed to continue meeting the ever increasing data demand of its customers,” it said.
It may be noted that 4G LTE is not the ‘usual’ LTE and won’t work on most handsets, which support only FDD LTE, a different technology. Jio will launch using both technologies.
“The parameters that will differentiate Aircel’s 4G LTE services include customized offerings with a quick turnaround time for deployment of services to Enterprise and Home customer, beating existing industry standards; high speed and low latency, which are critical to any enterprise service experience, will be Aircel’s key focus deliverable building on Reliable MPLS (Multiple Protocol Label Switching) core network.”
Aircel’s enterprise customers will offer dedicated internet and secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) services to enterprises using 4G, whereas it will provide various infotainment services on high-speed broadband to home users. The services will include internet access, Smart TVs, Virtual Home Solutions, Home Security, online gaming and others.