Vodafone India will roll out next generation 4G services across Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai over the next one month, Chief Operating Officer Naveen Chopra has said.

He, however, did not reveal the investments required for rolling out the services.

4G services make high speed downloads possible. While 3G service speeds range to the tune of 3-6 Mbps; in case of 4G it will be to the tune of 10-30 Mbps. In layman’s terms, a 4G download will be five times faster than 3G.

The telco has so far rolled out 4G services, in phases, across three circles that include Kerala, Karnataka and Kolkata. It rolled out the service in Kolkata, its third circle, on Monday.

Bengaluru is a part of the Karnataka circle. Vodafone’s 4G launch in that circle has so far been restricted to Mysuru. “These five circles (Karnataka, Kerala, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai) account for around 50 per cent of our data revenues and hence were prioritised for our 4G launch. In Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, we will look to offer 4G over the next one month,” Chopra said on the sidelines of the launch in Kolkata.

Asked about the possibility of launching of 4G services by other telecom companies, Chopra maintained that the company would look to take part in auctions where necessary; and said the company was awaiting clarity on spectrum harmonisation.

Hamonisation Harmonisation makes airwaves contiguous or ‘continuous’, which is critical for 4G services. The 1,800 MHz band is most popular globally for 4G-LTE deployments, but if such airwaves are non-contiguous, the quality of 4G services are said to suffer. Long term evolution or ‘LTE’ is the technology standard for delivering high-speed broadband services, which is known as 4G. “Spectrum is the basic raw material to us. We are awaiting notification on (spectrum) harmonisation. So it is too premature to talk about that,” he told reporters. Sources indicate that Vodafone has contiguous airwaves in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh (East) and these may possibly be looked at for deploying 4G services.

Kolkata roll-out Meanwhile, the telco is expected to roll-out 4G in Kolkata in a phase-wise manner. Roll-out has begun from the central business district (Dalhousie-BBD Bag area) and other areas that include locations near the airport, the EM Bypass and areas like Park Street (hub of the city) and Ballygunge (a posh locality in South Kolkata). Till December 2015, Vodafone had invested around ₹986 crore towards network expansion in Kolkata.

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