Airtel is sprucing up its services to counter Reliance Jio. Here’s what it is doing

Bharti Airtel is enhancing its network coverage and capacity services to counter Reliance Jio’s growing popularity.

For upgradation of services, Airtel has roped in Ericsson and awarded an over $120-million, or Rs 816 crore, network modernisation and expansion contract to it for Delhi.

As part of the four-year contract for 2G/3G/4G network follows Bharti Airtel's recent acquisition of additional 10 MHz spectrum in the 2300 MHz band and 5 MHz spectrum in 2100 MHz band for Rs 1,430 crore and Rs 2,770 crore, respectively.

This means Airtel will have new airwaves into use.

Abhay Savargaonkar, chief technology officer at Bharti Airtel, told ET that together with Ericsson, the company will build a future-ready network, given the explosive growth of mobile data services.

"We won a very important project for Delhi's flagship network...with this, we are entering a new important programme of modernisation of networks across old technologies and frequencies. In future, we are looking at potentially bringing carrier aggregation across three bands, which will allow Airtel to offer very high speeds in Delhi,” Paolo Colella, head of region India, Ericsson, told ET.

The contract has modernisation of all 2G sites and expansion of the 3G network.

Airtel has more than 6,000 sites in the Delhi circle which it will increase significantly.

The contract covers equipment, software and a range of professional services, including project management, network optimisation and seamless integration for 3G and 4G across Delhi circle.