Friday, December 6, 2013

Bharti Airtel to launch 4G voice service in Bangalore

NEW DELHI: India's leading GSM service provider Bharti Airtel is set to launch voice call facility on its 4G LTE network in Bengaluru. The company has been offering 4G data services in Pune, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and Bengaluru.

Bharti Airtel through its Twitter account announced that Bengaluru customer will be able to use Airtel 4G services on LTE enabled smartphones in 3 weeks.

"ET Telecom did not get any response over the development from the company".

The telco has adopted Circuit Switched Fall Back (CSFB) technology for providing voice calling facility over its 4G LTE networks in the country. With CSFB technology deployed within the newtork, the telco would be able to offer voice to its LTE subscribers through its 3G and even 2G network.

Bharti Airtel, in February this year, announced the successful completed the trials of CSFB technology in the cities of Pune, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

The telco has a tie-up with Huawei for 4G devices in the country. Last year, it announced Huawei's 4G enabled Ascend P1 LTE exclusively for its 4G LTE network.

Airtel has been testing 4G LTE smartphones from Samsung, ZTE and other Indian smartphone vendors such as Micromax on its 4G LTE network.

A few months back, Bharti Airtel acquired 100 percent stake in Wireless Business Services (WBSPL), a company founded by US chipmaker Qualcomm. The acquisition allows the company to offer high-speed 4G services in New Delhi, Mumbai, Haryana and Kerala.