Bharti Airtel Shut Down 3G Services In Kolkata

Bharti Airtel has begun to shut down its 3G services as well as upgrade 3G network users to its 4G network to compete with Reliance Jio.

In Kolkata, Airtel announced the news on Friday and became the first telecom operator company to shut down its 3G network. The company has also said that the move was to give strength to its 4G network and they are planning to reframe the 900MHz spectrum.

In the country, 3G technology appeared in 2011, and at that time, it was the fastest network in India.

In the past one year, VoLTE traffic of Bharti has increased significantly and now this initiative will even boost the traffic further. While Bharti's voice traffic was negligible in December 2017, it now makes up 40 to 50 percent of total VoLTE network. The figure can grow larger when users move from 3G to 4G networks. So far, the company has already occupied half the VoLTE traffic.

Randeep Sekhon, CTO – Bharti Airtel said:

According to sources, Airtel will completely kill the 3G network in the next six months in India and users will have to upgrade their network.

Airtel will maintain support for 2G users since they account for 70 percent of its total user base and it will be more difficult to move them to 4G compared with 3G users because they don't have smartphones. Nevertheless, the company made it mandatory for 2G customers to recharge every month with at least Rs 35 to weed out low-paying users.

The company said in a statement:

Reliance Jio is currently the only telecom operator who has a fully 4G user base.