Telecom major Bharti Airtel on Friday said it expects to shut down its entire 3G network across the country by March 2020, the process for which has already started with Kolkata service area.
The company said it was keeping razor sharp focus on driving greater realisation and Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) but emphasised that tariffs need to move up in long term for industry viability.
The process of switching off the 3G network has already started with Kolkata in the recent-concluded June quarter. By September, the shutdown will be affected in 6-7 more circles and between December and March the entire 3G network would be shut down, Gopal Vittal, CEO (India and South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said during the company’s post earnings call. “Yes, we do see an upgrade when someone moves from 2G to 4G... On spectrum, probably by April 2020, we will really have only 2G and 4G. So all our spectrum will sit on 4G other than the administered spectrum which is on 2G, plus a small slug of spectrum that we require to run our 2G networks...everything else will be sitting on 4G band,” Vittal said.
The company has added 8.4 million 4G customers and has 120 million data customers of which about 95 million are on 4G. Data usage by Bharti’s subscribers has now reached over 11 GB/month.
Airtel had said on Thursday that in line with its focus on network experience, it had re-farmed spectrum from 3G networks to 4G across both the 900 as well as 2100 bands and begun the process of shutting down 3G networks in India. This has enabled the company to deliver improved indoor coverage as well as enhance capacities, it had said. The company has emphasised that tariffs need to move up in the long-term for industry viability.
Badal Bagri, Chief Financial Officer of the company, said that the broader industry which has consolidated to three large players continues to see “some semblance of stability”. “While we have witnessed revenue growth despite any outright tariff increase, we continue to believe that prices needs to move up in the long term to ensure industry viability,” Bagri said.