Indian mobile operator Bharti Airtel announced plans to invest around INR 600 billion in its network expansion over the next three years. Under its ‘Project leap’, Airtel will deploy over 70,000 base stations in the current fiscal year to March 2016 and 160,000 base stations in the next three years. It will also invest in improved backhaul and fixed broadband services in order to meet growing demand for internet access from consumers and businesses.
According to Gopal Vittal, Airte’s CEO of India and South Asia, Project Leap is a 10-point programme that will transform Airtel's network. As part of this programme, Airtel will double its base stations over the next ten years. By March 2016, Airtel aims for 65 percent of its network to be enabled for mobile broadband, meaning mobile broadband coverage for all towns and over 250,000 villages in India. In three years Airtel plans to offer mobile broadband to over 500,000 villages in the country. The project includes a massive modernisation of networks with simplified multi-band base stations, fibre deployment and copper infrastructure upgrade, swapping out legacy networks, and a reduction in the carbon footprint by 70 percent.
Airtel said it will deploy more than 550,000 km of domestic and international fibre in order to drive down latency, improve customer experience and serve the growing demand for data services. In addition to supporting mobile broadband, the company will increase its fixed broadband coverage in India. Airtel will upgrade its over 3 million-strong home broadband network with the roll-out of vectoring technology. This technology will enable Airtel to increase the top speed to 50 Mbps from its current 16 Mbps by 2016. In addition Airtel plans to deploy FTTH in some areas, offering speeds up to 100 Mbps, and increase lpcal wireless internet services, targeting especially SMEs.
Vittal said that Airtel will fund most of its investments through cash flow. Most of the cost of the investment excludes payments for spectrum.
